When the cable was out for a while we actually watched the primary networks.
It is not possible to have lower quality programming.
Only a drooling imbecile could stand an hour of it.
The best entertainment was Mooing at the Soaps and swearing at the "News".
Many of the protagonists of network TV in the 70s and 80s were people whose lives you could envy: Sonny Crockett of "Miami Vice" was a college football star and decorated war hero who opened up a can of whupass on the bad guys, dated beautiful women and drove around in a totally sweet car. Clive Huxtable was a successful doctor living in a cool neighborhood surrounded by a loving family with a gorgeous wife.
Fast forward to 2007 when the stars of "CSI" are a reclusive entomologist with a congenital hearing defect and a crippled emotional life, teamed up with a former stripper and single mother whose estranged father was murdered by rivals.
Or "Grey's Anatomy" with a protagonist who is always depressed, drinks too much, hated her dead mother, is hated by her father and who is incapable of normal emotional connections with men.
I mean, I would almost rather be dead than live the empty lives these characters lead - and their lives are written this way intentionally.