The advantage of television channels and networks is they provide "curation". Someone needs to wade thru the crap and find the "quality programming" you desire.

The advantage of television channels and networks is they provide "curation". Someone needs to wade thru the crap and find the "quality programming" you desire. Take the average Nova or Frontline episode. It's not cheap to produce. Do you think people could afford to put the work into making shows like that if all they could count on was the crumbs that Google threw at them from page views on Youtube? And even if the funding could be solved, how would you discover this programming? There are very few HN submissions that ever get much notice. And the HN crowd is not nearly big enough to provide enough Youtube eyeballs to actually fund "real" programming.