Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

inksmudgedhands t1_iui5jh1 wrote

Reply to comment by JVortex888 in ‘Stargirl’ Ending With Season 3 on The CW by MarvelsGrantMan136

It used to have such a cult following thanks to Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries and Arrowverse. You would go to Comic Con, heck, you would go any of the cons, and there would be CW fans everywhere. Supernatural, alone, was up there with MCU in terms of con popularity. But that's all gone now. It's amazing how quickly it became a husk.

185

ghostgnome t1_iui7nby wrote

That's what happens when your channel viewer's age is now 58. TV is dying before our eyes.

83

Prax150 t1_iuiq7h5 wrote

What's annoying is that a big part of it is messaging and the hesitance if not straight up refusal on the part of legacy media companies to adapt. Access to broadcast TV could be simple, free and widespread with minimal effort. Already they make digital antennae you stick to a window that give you access to most broadcast networks in your area. But people just don't know about that, and many don't even know the distinction between broadcast and cable. But why not take it a step further and just make all broadcast TV free and easily accessible, officially, on the internet?

I'm guessing the answer is carriage fees from cable companies but eventually the math on that is going to change as people continue cutting the cord and then these networks are going to lament the missed opportunity for transferring that audience to digital platforms. We should have been able to watch all these channels for free years ago, I think a lot of people would have even gotten used to commercials (Netflix IMO is about to prove that), but people already don't care enough.

34

jemull t1_iuj6z7b wrote

I live 7 miles from Downtown in a major metropolitan area and I use a digital antenna. I get ~30 channels.

9

Lovat69 t1_iujmidi wrote

>We should have been able to watch all these channels for free years ago,

We used to. In the aughts I could watch nbc, abc, cbs, and probably wb/cw shows online a couple of days after it aired on the channel websites. Now you can't do that without a cable key for some reason. You are right it makes no sense.

6

badedum t1_iuigmc1 wrote

My assumption is it's all millenials/younger using their parents' cable subscription

12

envynav t1_iuimb34 wrote

That's not how viewership ratings work. They ask people of different demographics to track what they watch, then they estimate the total viewership based on the smaller sample size. Even if it's the parents' cable subscription, the younger people being tracked would still count towards the younger demographics.

14

access_secure t1_iuiqb43 wrote

So the average age of Riverdale, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries and Arrowverse viewers was 58?

8

DomDiDiDomDiDiDou t1_iuj0l4h wrote

Totally. Go to their sub, they talk more about knitting than the shows!

10

Gilgie t1_iuj3jii wrote

Everyone has back problems and hip replacements.

4

chromeshiel t1_iujbcap wrote

No, people have just moved on from TV. The real audience for these shows is online through Netflix or piracy.

6

Ragnar_Dragonfyre t1_iuj3qi8 wrote

TV is dying and it’s being replaced by TikTok…

I’m not looking forward to a future where scripted shows die out and are replaced by badly scripted “reality reels” that pretend to be real.

3

OK_Soda t1_iuj6r0a wrote

I mostly only watch TV while eating a meal and I am not looking forward to sitting down to eat and queuing up 91 27-second tiktoks to fill my dinner hour.

5

ZsaFreigh t1_iuk54v6 wrote

It happened once before with Reality TV, but Scripted TV became much better for it.

1

dadvader t1_iuje6i4 wrote

Well that's why we need Marvel stuff. Those are actually keeping that particular crowd happy. Easy watch. Full of popcorn action and haha quirky quip.

0

mysidian t1_iujztui wrote

Didn't the CW stop their Netflix deal where everyone outside the US got their shows a day later? I wonder why they did that, all their shows seemed reasonably popular on Netflix.

1