@futurebird @jpaskaruk Film and Television aren't the core of American culture that they were in the 90's. There's just a lot of inertia in treating them that way. It has absolutely been hollowed out and is a shell of what it used to be.
A *really* popular scripted TV show is watched by ~3% of Americans these days, and 1% is quite good ratings. In the 80's, a big show could pull in over 50% because everything was less fragmented.