TV was a little different in Denmark. People watched a lot of TV here as well but we didn't have the number of channels that Americans had. Unless you paid good money for a satellite dish (my parents did not) you were stuck with one (later two) domestic channels and three German or Swedish channels, depending on how far away from the border you lived.
This meant that everyone watched the same things all the time. Popular TV series could empty the streets and when making smalltalk you could assume that people had watched the same shows that you had. Around midnight programming would end and they would broadcast a test image until the next afternoon.
Everybody watching the same thing also meant that people would get very opinionated about things they didn't like as they couldn't just watch something else. Television and the alleged socialist leanings of "the red henchmen" at the state broadcaster became a staple of right wing culture war tantrums.
The one or two channels had no target demographic as they had to send something for everyone. News, documentaries, talkshows, films, youth programmes, children's programming and sports all had to fit in the same channel.
As s kid that meant that cartoons were a special thing. You only had 20 minutes of domestic or Scandinavian children's programming each day and an hour of classic American animation on weekend mornings. Later on you also got a weekly broadcast of Disney cartoons on Friday night. That broadcast dovetailed perfectly with Scandinavian mixed candy culture and eating "Friday candy" while you watched Disney cartoons became a fixture of everyday life for families. Despite the outdated format the Disney broadcast was so popular that they kept sending it until the turn of this year.
One argument anti-communists in Poland use is the amount of TV channels we've gained after 1989. No fucking joke, they literally use that shit as it's the sole quantifier of quality of life.
„Oh back then you had to wait for a Wieczorynka (evening cartoon) and now look how many cartoon channels children have!”, forgetting the fact that they shit on them non-stop for being low quality while constantly praising Krecik, Sąsiedzi, Smerfy, Miś Uszatek, Reksio and the like as being actually educational to children.
The wierdest part is how they argue that „everyone knew that TV was soulless propaganda filled with lies in PRL” adding to that somehow, someway private TV stations are not propaganda. The only TV station that is recognized country wide as propaganda, is the state run station TVP. Not just because it is state run, but in my opinion that contributes to the stigma it has with liberals.
I'll also add that I hate it when I praise PRL for what it had only to be blasted with:
„But have you considered 1891 stan wojenny no toilet paper food stamps no jeans no dollars for pewex only 2 tv channels no mercedes no bananas no oranges?”
Sorry for the tangent, just made a connection between how our countries weren't that different from each other yet in the mind of Solidarność chuds we were some kind of backwater.
The radio is similar, in that everyone listened to the stations you had access to. Especially for the older generation. Now there are so many choices on the modern net that it would honestly surprise me if anyone born after the year 2005 has heard the same songs as other kids.
TV was a little different in Denmark. People watched a lot of TV here as well but we didn't have the number of channels that Americans had. Unless you paid good money for a satellite dish (my parents did not) you were stuck with one (later two) domestic channels and three German or Swedish channels, depending on how far away from the border you lived.
This meant that everyone watched the same things all the time. Popular TV series could empty the streets and when making smalltalk you could assume that people had watched the same shows that you had. Around midnight programming would end and they would broadcast a test image until the next afternoon.
Everybody watching the same thing also meant that people would get very opinionated about things they didn't like as they couldn't just watch something else. Television and the alleged socialist leanings of "the red henchmen" at the state broadcaster became a staple of right wing culture war tantrums.
The one or two channels had no target demographic as they had to send something for everyone. News, documentaries, talkshows, films, youth programmes, children's programming and sports all had to fit in the same channel.
As s kid that meant that cartoons were a special thing. You only had 20 minutes of domestic or Scandinavian children's programming each day and an hour of classic American animation on weekend mornings. Later on you also got a weekly broadcast of Disney cartoons on Friday night. That broadcast dovetailed perfectly with Scandinavian mixed candy culture and eating "Friday candy" while you watched Disney cartoons became a fixture of everyday life for families. Despite the outdated format the Disney broadcast was so popular that they kept sending it until the turn of this year.
One argument anti-communists in Poland use is the amount of TV channels we've gained after 1989. No fucking joke, they literally use that shit as it's the sole quantifier of quality of life. „Oh back then you had to wait for a Wieczorynka (evening cartoon) and now look how many cartoon channels children have!”, forgetting the fact that they shit on them non-stop for being low quality while constantly praising Krecik, Sąsiedzi, Smerfy, Miś Uszatek, Reksio and the like as being actually educational to children.
The wierdest part is how they argue that „everyone knew that TV was soulless propaganda filled with lies in PRL” adding to that somehow, someway private TV stations are not propaganda. The only TV station that is recognized country wide as propaganda, is the state run station TVP. Not just because it is state run, but in my opinion that contributes to the stigma it has with liberals.
I'll also add that I hate it when I praise PRL for what it had only to be blasted with:
„But have you considered 1891 stan wojenny no toilet paper food stamps no jeans no dollars for pewex only 2 tv channels no mercedes no bananas no oranges?”
Sorry for the tangent, just made a connection between how our countries weren't that different from each other yet in the mind of Solidarność chuds we were some kind of backwater.
The radio is similar, in that everyone listened to the stations you had access to. Especially for the older generation. Now there are so many choices on the modern net that it would honestly surprise me if anyone born after the year 2005 has heard the same songs as other kids.
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