Comment by hsbauauvhabzb 3 days ago
TV is vastly different, it’s tailored to demographics of watchers and at the time the understanding of psychology when it comes to marketing and retention was substantially less developed than it is now.
As you said, the psychology of marketing and retention is far more widespread today than it was when TV was invented. Would you agree news stations today report differently than they did 50 years ago? That's a very obvious transition. The transition of how fictional programming has changed is less obvious, but still there-- and the amount people watch (and allow it to shape their personalities) has changed, too.
These days, it also serves to encourage people to build worldviews around fictional scenarios much the same as social media encourages building worldviews around fictional information.