That's not modern, that's been media since time immemorial. Geraldo spent 2 hours talking about what could be in Al Capone's vault only for them to finally open

That's not modern, that's been media since time immemorial. Geraldo spent 2 hours talking about what could be in Al Capone's vault only for them to finally open it up and it was empty. Magazines would print stories in serial format so you had to buy the next issue. Writing and structuring to fit the length you want/need has been the norm for a century or two at least before social media came about. Hell, there's evidence that Shakespeare padded out a couple of his plays to fit the 4-pages per folio printing techniques of the time so that there weren't blank pages at the end.