Line #68 NetworkDecay/InUniverseExamples


1	--> Note: Examples are categorized according to the networks the listed works are making fun of.
2	[[AC:Creator/{{BET}}]]
3	* Two [[MissingEpisode banned]] episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TheBoondocks'' (you can watch 'em on DVD) bash BET's decay for all it's worth. The irony here is that the Executive Producer "Reginald Hudlin" in the credits is the same one who currently runs BET. Contractual obligations keep his name on it, but series creator Aaron [=McGruder=] has made his stance on the network clear. "Martin Luther King Jr." called out the network in one episode, and shortly afterwards, the former president of the network ''[[DrivenToSuicide killed himself]]''.
4
5	[[AC:Creator/CartoonNetwork / Creator/AdultSwim]]
6	* In the episode "Jumpy George" of ''[[WesternAnimation/AquaTeenHungerForce Aqua Unit Patrol Squad 01]]'', a woman hires Meatwad to babysit her children. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIZtaYZR29c Her instructions include]]:
7	-->"They're allowed to watch half an hour of television, and only cartoons. [[BitingTheHandHumor Which means no Cartoon Network]]."
8	* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' lampshaded Creator/AdultSwim’s treatment of Anime, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7k-BbwVqxo noting once during a segment about]] ''Manga/InuYasha'':
9	-->"[[BitingTheHandHumor Stupid Adult Swim only plays it on Saturdays now.]]"
10	* [[http://www.bumpworthy.com/bumps/3862 In an]] Creator/AdultSwim AdBumper, a viewer noted that their message boards were feeling dead as they were not pissing off their fans good enough. Creator/AdultSwim, being the {{Trolling Creator}}s they are, attempted to start some rallying by lampshading their own decay.
11	-->"[[AnimationAgeGhetto ANIME IS A WASTE OF MONEY AND TIME!]] WE'RE GOING ALL [[LiveActionTV LIVE ACTION]] THIS SUMMER!"
12	* The Music/AndrewWK song "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwlb2gGEk54 Hearing What I Said]]", which was used as a promotion for CN Real, pretty much sums up Creator/CartoonNetwork’s attempts at live action. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t received very well.
13	--> ''Your name is Creator/CartoonNetwork,\
14	so you expect to see,\
15	nothing but [[AnimatedShows animation]] when [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin you flip CN on your TV]].\
16	[[MediaNotes/TheMillenniumAgeOfAnimation But the times they are a-changing,]]\
17	[[AnimationAgeGhetto so don’t get left behind,]]\
18	because now [[LiveActionTV we’ve got real people]] and,\
19	[[ThisIsGoingToBeHuge we’ve heard it blows your mind.]]''
20
21	[[AC:Creator/DiscoveryChannel]]
22	* A ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAADcaIHDig sketch]] featuring WesternAnimation/TheWildThornberrys has the Discovery Channel threaten to stop showing Nigel Thornberry's documentaries, unless he conforms to their "philosophical shift" towards shows that rely more on shock value than on educational content. Cue footage of the "Wild as F***" Thornberrys sky-diving and lion-hunting naked, then eating tarantulas, before Eliza enters an [[InterspeciesRomance Interspecies Marriage]] with Darwin. [[spoiler: When the executive comes to a MyGodWhatHaveIDone conclusion, he leaps out the window to his death. Nigel promptly films it.]]
23	-->'''Nigel:''' Now ''that's'' wild as f***!
24
25	[[AC:Creator/{{ESPN}}]]
26	* The song [[http://thefump.com/side.php?id=1458 "E.S.P.N."]] by Max [=DeGroot=] decries the channel showing documentaries and news about athletes more than actual games.
27	* ''Film/{{Dodgeball}}'' depicts the Worldwide Leader as having so many channels, that they had to devote one of them ([=ESPN8=]) to airing competitions that are "almost a sport".
28
29	[[AC:Fictional Networks]]
30	* UBS, the TV station from ''Film/{{Network}}'', which shifts from a regular channel to a sensationalist channel, complete with a RealityShow following the steps of a guerrila group.
31	* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'' has Garfield watching a game show called [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin "Hit The Buzzer, Win A Cookie!"]], to which Garfield quips "And this is on the ''educational'' channel."
32	* In the ''Anime/{{Robotech}}'' ExpandedUniverse novel ''The Zentraedi Rebellion'', Minmei's managers have started a satellite network for [[HumanAliens Zentraedi]]-related programming (which mostly means [[KlingonsLoveShakespeare Minmei music]]), and Minmei has a combination music program and talk show on it where Zentraedi viewers call in, request music, and occasionally rant about the deteriorating political situation. [[ExecutiveMeddling Her managers]] soon try to turn it into a variety show and have some human special guests show up to boost ratings (from the human viewership), but Minmei stands firm; she's doing the show and the Lorelei Network because it's focused on the Zentraedi audience, and if the executives want to have special guests commenting on current events, they'll have to be Zentraedi guests.
33	* ''VideoGame/NotForBroadcast'': At the start of the game, the National Nightly News is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: ''the news''. After Advance comes into power, however, it begins to report less on meaningful news and more on irrelevant human-interest stories. [[spoiler:It is revealed in "The Heatwave" that this is directly the result of pressure from Advance, causing the lead anchor, Jeremy Donaldson, to have a nervous breakdown. After the events of "[[NukeEm Liberation Night]]", Channel One, the station that airs the news, is forced into public ownership, making the news fully subject to government censorship before it devolves into an inane talk show, devested even of its full name and reduced simply to "NNN".]]
34
35	[[AC:Creator/{{FOX}}]]
36	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In a FlashForward episode set in [[{{Zeerust}} 2010]], Marge comments that the FOX TV network had switched to hardcore porn so gradually she never even noticed.
37
38	[[AC:Creator/G4TV / Creator/TechTV]]
39	* In Episode 12.5 (DTV Pitch) of WebVideo/BerserkAbridged, when Zodd mentioned specialty cable networks being good at the start, then going downhill quickly when they lose their focus, using G4 as an example.
40	-->'''Zodd:''' Don't you think we can do a little better than DTV?\
41	'''Phil:''' Why, what's wrong with DTV? It's television for demons, we're demons -- it's perfect.\
42	'''Zodd:''' Yeah, but you know how these specialty cable networks are: they start out real good, but then they lose their focus and things go downhill real quick. Just look at what happened to G4!
43
44	[[AC:Creator/{{MTV}}]]
45	* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' humor book ''Stewie's Guide to World Domination'', the section "Why MTV Is the Root of All Evil", has Stewie Griffin lashing out on MTV.
46	-->"There's no bloody music on the network anymore! Yes, I'm aware this is an age-old complaint, but the word 'music' is right there in the name of the channel, you loathsome cretins. At the very least, stop being disingenuous and just go ahead change the name of the network from Creator/{{MTV}} to ''Series/RoadRules''-''Series/PimpMyRide''-and-Intoxicated-College-Students-Doing-Disgusting-Stunts-for-No-Pay-but-Rather-Because-Someone-Shoved-a-Camera-in-Their-Faces TV."
47	* Lyrics for the Music/BowlingForSoup song "1985" include: "There was Music/{{U2}}, and Music/{{Blondie\|Band}}, and music still on MTV..."
48	* The subject of the ''Series/{{Portlandia}}'' episode "Take Back MTV". Spyke and Iris are upset that MTV is not like it used to be, so they hire the real Kurt Loder, Tabitha Soren, and Matt Pinfield to storm MTV headquarters. Spyke and Iris break into the office of MTV's president (who turns out to be an adolescent girl), while the other three take over the main airway. As it turns out, there isn't much of a market for a NostalgiaFilter-oriented channel devoted to aging Gen-Xers reliving their GloryDays, and people soon start tuning out.[[note]]HilariousInHindsight considering that an actual attempt at a nostalgic channel for old MTV content, MTV Classic, ''also'' failed to gain an audience.[[/note]]
49	* On Fuse, a channel similar to MTV, they often [[TakeThat made jokes about this]], though without actually saying "MTV". Became HilariousInHindsight when the same thing happened to Fuse (albeit only [[NetworkDecay/TemporaryShifts temporarily]]).
50	* The reactions to MTV's decay are mocked in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ysyZF-DZFY this Brian & Maria skit]] featured [[http://www.cracked.com/video_18998_the-real-reason-mtv-no-longer-plays-music-videos.html on]] ''Website/{{Cracked}}'', where a twentysomething woman who grew up watching MTV asks one of their executives why they stopped playing music videos in favor of reality shows about vapid celebrities whose only accomplishments all involve starring on reality shows. He gives her the gods-honest truth with BrutalHonesty: her generation was the one that stopped buying albums in favor of iTunes, streaming, and piracy, thus destroying much of the reason for flashy music videos and, by extension, MTV's old format to exist. Furthermore, even if they ''did'' play music videos today, they'd be playing the same crappy pop music as the radio stations do, not the nostalgic hits of the '80s and '90s. And the kicker? The complaint that MTV doesn't play music anymore is now legally old enough to drive, so the fact that millennials are making this complaint is a sign that they are getting old.
51	* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': One of Bart's [[CouchGag chalkboard gags]] is "I no longer want my MTV."
52	* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxdfWn4Sbnc This episode]] of ''WebVideo/{{Jimquisition}}'', while discussing the prevalence of this trope in online media (specifically games journalism outlets covering ''Series/GameOfThrones'', a TV series with little connection to video games beyond overlap in its geek fandom), brings up Creator/{{MTV}} as a comparison in the second half of the episode. He finds it appropriate that the very first video they played was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by Music/TheBuggles given how the same process later happened to them when the internet wound up killing the video star, and says that the Network Decay of MTV and other cable networks (also bringing up the History Channel and TLC) was a natural consequence of cable television growing bigger and facing new competition online; niche channels like MTV had to diversify their content in order to hold onto their viewers against their competitors, even if it meant forgetting the original mission of the network.
53
54	[[AC:Creator/TheHistoryChannel]]
55	* Parodied by ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' in the episode "[[http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e13-a-history-channel-thanksgiving A History Channel Thanksgiving]]", when the boys (except Kyle, at first) believe that aliens were involved in the original Thanksgiving after watching a "special" on the channel.
56	* Mocked in a ''Series/JimmyKimmelLive'' comedy short:
57	-->"This weekend on The History Channel, [[Series/AmericanPickers someone digs through old plastic junk]] ("It's a Dukes of Hazzard wastebasket!"), [[Series/PawnStars someone else tries to sell a doll head]] ("I used to take the heads off the bodies, and I kept the heads")... and Creator/LarryTheCableGuy taste-tests Tabasco sauce ("I can't feel my dadgum tongue!"). The History Channel. What the hell happened to us?"
58	* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'' takes a shot at them in "[[Recap/GravityFallsS2E10NorthwestMansionMystery Northwest Mansion Mystery]]". In an early scene, Dipper prepares to watch a marathon of a ghost-hunting show called ''Ghost Harassers'' on "The Used To Be About History Channel".
59	* Its sister channels are not immune from this, either; on an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Homer watches ''Topiary Wars'' before Marge turns the TV off, making him feel relieved:
60	--> "Ugh. Thank you! Why was that on the Military History Channel?"
61
62	[[AC:Creator/{{TLC}}]]
63	%%* And [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8jeuYMHX9Y this]] too.
64	* Mocked in a Website/{{Cracked}} article: Subject of [[http://www.cracked.com/article_18449_the-tlc-experiment-just-how-dumb-learning-channel.html The TLC Experiment: Just How Dumb is The Learning Channel?]]
65	* ''Series/TheDailyShow'' mocked this, saying it's where you can go to "learn" what it would be like to have 8 children, or 17 children, or...
66	* ''Website/TheOnion'': "[[https://www.theonion.com/learning-channel-switches-to-all-gilligan-format-1819564348 Learning Channel Switches to All-Gilligan Format]]".
67
68	[[AC:[=VT4=]]]
69	* When [[MediaNotes/FlemishTVStations VT4]] was renamed to VIER [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9L9zWERMQ8 there was a ceremony to make the rename official.]] At a moment a lampshading on the previous channel decay occured.
70	-->Speaker 1: ''If ''De Slimste Mens'' is finished it is already 9:45 PM.''\
71	Speaker 2: ''Back then there was [[MediaNotes/{{Pornography}} something]] on [=VT4=] for when the woman was sleeping.''

Context NetworkDecay / InUniverseExamples