I think you're hitting the nail on the head, but the corollary is that there's so much MORE now. More of everything, and since most things are crap the gems are proportionally harder to find. I look at reality tv and wince, but I also feel that way about soap operas, it's the same itch being scratched the same way for a different generation. But the nature of reality tv (dirt cheap) means that it's been made in vast quantities, dwarfing the reach that soap operas ever had.
Soap operas weren't choking out late night comedy, they were totally different products serving different needs, at different times. Reality tv changes that equation though, with the aforementioned cheapness, and perennial popularity. A lot of the old norms are gone too, around residuals, the "one for them, one for me" system, stars vs brand... and the result is often entertainment geared at cheap production and nothing else.
The other issue is that CGI, while it empowers amazing things, also empowers the creation of real trash. It's allowed Marvel movies to film without a complete script, figuring out the ending in AVR and CGI work... and it shows. A lot of old blockbusters were crap, but they were crap that at least had the requisite craftsmanship to be made and distributed to theaters around the world.
That barrier is gone, the gates are open and that means that hidden voices are emerging (hooray!) and also that a lot of people are so inundated by noise that they disengage.
Soap operas weren't choking out late night comedy, they were totally different products serving different needs, at different times. Reality tv changes that equation though, with the aforementioned cheapness, and perennial popularity. A lot of the old norms are gone too, around residuals, the "one for them, one for me" system, stars vs brand... and the result is often entertainment geared at cheap production and nothing else.
The other issue is that CGI, while it empowers amazing things, also empowers the creation of real trash. It's allowed Marvel movies to film without a complete script, figuring out the ending in AVR and CGI work... and it shows. A lot of old blockbusters were crap, but they were crap that at least had the requisite craftsmanship to be made and distributed to theaters around the world.
That barrier is gone, the gates are open and that means that hidden voices are emerging (hooray!) and also that a lot of people are so inundated by noise that they disengage.