There are several reasons why television was better in the 1990s than it is today. Much of which I discuss pertains to the situation in The Netherlands. Starting in the 1980s, nearly all homes in The Netherlands (except those in rural areas) got cable television. Many municipalities banned rooftop antennas. In the beginning, each town or city had its own cable network, with its own local receiving antennas. The receiving antennas picked up signals that could be received locally, such as our only two Dutch networks, plus several signals from Belgium and Germany. Cable television made sense, for instead of thousands of rooftop antennas you had one large antenna installation. The cost of cable subscription was comparable to the cost of ownership of a simple rooftop antenna and less than the cost of an antenna installation that would be required to pick up the Belgian and German stations too.
Later, cable networks added satellite channels, like Sky Channel and MTV. In the autumn of 1989, the first commercial Dutch satellite channel was added (directed to The Netherlands, but registered in Luxembourg). This was originally called RTL Veronique and would later be known as RTL4. So if you wanted to get the same channels without having a cable subscription you needed a satellite dish in addition to the rooftop antennas, plus some decoders as most satellite channels were encrypted. Some channels you might not get at all without cable television. On the other hand, a satellite dish would bring you many stations that were not on cable.In the early 1990s, you could get around 20 television channels on cable, including BBC, CNN and the French channel TV5.
Zap Culture
A new aspect of television culture was born: channel surfing, also called zapping. Modern TV tuners could switch lightning fast between channels, often as fast as four channels per second at the press of a button on the remote control..This speed is no longer possible on digital TV. Of course channel surfing was much more enjoyable if you had the remote control instead of somebody else in the room. You could see in a split second that there was a game of an interesting film on some channel and you just switched to it. Fast channel surfing was best enjoyed with cable television. A rooftop antenna capable of picking up stations from Belgium and Germany, needed a rotator and then it took quite some time to point it in the correct direction.
No Latency
Fast zapping was not the only advantage of analogue TV compared to digital. It also had virtually no latency. The moment the ball was kicked during the game, it was on your screen. With satellite TV this was not exactly true of course (adding 0.25 seconds of delay), but in general, everybody got the same delay.
Currently, we have different television providers in The Netherlands, using different different technologies: Each of those technologies adds a different delay to the signal. Your live TV could be delayed 10 seconds compared to your neighbour’s. You hear the neighbours cheer, while the goal has yet to be scored on your own screen.
No Set-Top Box Required
Alt least when you had cable television, you needed no set-top box, which is an extra piece of equipment, that requires power and has its own remote control. You could have several TV sets on a single cable subscription, even though this required careful use of splitters and sometimes signal amplifiers. As a home user, you were allowed to do it. You did not need to pay for multiple subscriptions. Family members could watch different programmes on different TV sets.
Your Recordings were Yours
Instead of a set-top box, most people owned a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder). You could record any programme on the cable and keep the recording for as long as you liked. You could even share it with your friends (which generally was not legal).
Today’s TV providers take care of recording programs for you. They let you keep the recordings for a year. If you record locally, there is no maximum time to keep your recording, but recordings are locked to a single device. If that device breaks, your recordings are gone with it. Currently the providers let you make recordings of (nearly) all channels, but they could restrict that and they could let you pay extra for the privilege.
The 4 by 3 Aspect Ratio
TV was meant to have an aspect ratio of 4 by 3. When TV was introduced in the 1950s, most movies were much closer to the 4 by 3 format than they are today. They could be aired on television without losing much of the experience.
In the 1990s, most movies on TV and prerecorded video tapes, were adapted to the 4:3 format by pan ans scan, not letterboxed and widescreen as they would be in the DVD era. As many movies are much more widescreen than 16:9, they are letterboxed , even on a 16:9 screen.
Widescreen shots may look great on a big screen, but they look awful when letterboxed on a small screen.
TV is not meant to be like cinema. It should be like radio with pictures. Many 1960s and 1970s series could be followed by just listening to an audio recording.
TV should be meant to be watched on smallish screens, with close up shots of the action. Such shots work much better on a 4:3 screen. Panoramic shots don’t work on small screens. The TV screen should not be so large and dominant in a living room..
Projectors are great for home cinema, when watching movies, but they are not suitable for general TV viewing. Nobody wants to darken the room each time the TV is switched on. 3D TV has already failed, because it’s too much hassle with 3D glasses and you can’t watch without wearing one. 8k TV seems to have also failed,as it is just too much resolution for the living room.
CRT Television
CRTs (a.k.a. picture tubes) were a lot bulkier and heavier than today’s flat screens, but that limited the maximum size they could practically have. The largest 4 by 3 CRTs in common use had a diagonal of around 66 cm (26”). This size was considered large, only appropriate for large living rooms. Today, a 16 by 9 screen of 81 cm (32”) has a the same height as the 66 cm screen mentioned before (and a greater width), but it is considered small, only suitable for a bedroom.
There were 16:9 CRT sets too, but 81 cm was about the largest they would get. And these were heavy and bulky!
Today you are almost forced to have a TV set of at least 43” (109 cm), even in a moderate living room, as the program material and subtitles assume you have such a big screen.
Apart from screen size and aspect ratio, CRT screens also have a different image quality to them, not necessarily better or worse than today’s technology, but different. The limitations of the CRT and those of analogue TV transmission were generally a good match. In general, a picture on a CRT looks less pixelated than on a digital screen (plasma, LCD, OLED).
Shorter and Less Irritating Commercial Breaks
.If a tv series gets a rerun after a few years, they have to cut it down to fit it into the smaller timeslots between the commercial breaks. At least that’s the case in the USA. Movies are unwatchable on commercial channels, due to the frequent breaks.
On Dutch public television, programmes are not interrupted by commercial breaks (yet), but the commercial breaks between programmes are super long.
In the past, ads were separated from each other by a short animation (Loekie the Lion in The Netherlands, anybody remember that)? Today, most ads are split into several short sections, which are then interleaved with other ads. This makes them much more irritating.
Most adverts are not informative and not to the point. Ads for cars don’t tell you about fuel efficiency or cost of maintenance, but only about freedom and the extra charisma that you would gain by driving them, which is illustrated by panoramic shots in the super irritating letterbox widescreen format.