> Every channel has basically fallen to replaying the cheapest thing they can make or whatever they can get I syndication.

I don't think that's quite it. I think the actual reason is that reruns aren't appointment TV at all anymore, so when new episodes of stuff aren't airing, they just constantly play the most popular things they have the rights to because they're the most likely to get people to stop on the channel and watch rather than keeping on channel surfing. Play a several-hour-long block of something popular and you'll catch people during that whole period and maybe keep some of them for a while; play a bunch of different less popular things and your odds of catching people go way down, as do your odds of keeping the people you did catch.