(Public) TV used to be much more intellectual in several countries (including my own, Hungary). Partially because there weren't so many alternatives to compete

(Public) TV used to be much more intellectual in several countries (including my own, Hungary). Partially because there weren't so many alternatives to compete with. The managers could afford to not care about dumbing it down and people watched it in lieu of more gratifying things. Clickbait and instant gratification is now the norm and if you don't keep up, you just won't be able to attract enough viewers. Now theoretically publicly funded channels and publications could just ignore viewership/readership numbers, but their management style has also become much more commercial. "Who wants to be a millionaire" used to be incredibly popular in many countries (it was huge in Hungary). In that show sometimes half a minute is just a person thinking in silence, staring at some question about medieval history or about an opera. How many people would watch this nowadays?