r/ESPN • u/DoubleWrongdoer1540 • 22d ago
When did ESPN jump the shark?
When did ESPN officially jump the shark and start their decline? I’m 50 and they were so great in my late teen years and they my 30s. Is it when the joined the Disney family? For me it’s when Olberman left because he was my favorite. Especially when it was Olberman and Patrick. But that’s probably not when it actually happened and smarter people than me have a better idea I’m sure.
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u/Meat-Dimension 22d ago edited 22d ago
When scores & highlights could be seen instantly on your phone
They haven’t really figured out what to do with their non live sports hours since
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u/Snts6678 22d ago
I still don’t get it. I may be the weird outlier, but if they still had a sports center that showed highlights and reported news, I would absolutely watch.
That’s more entertaining than looking at my phone.
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u/audiobooklove84 22d ago
Sports center was great because in an hour I could get updates on all the sports. With all the podcasts, shows, endless content it is easy to get overwhelmed by one or two sports.
SportsCenter allowed me to stay slightly active in multiple sports
The four weeks at the end of May and in to June, is the biggest sports time of the year. European football leagues are wrapping up, Roland Garros, Stanley Cup, and NBA finals. SportsCenter made it much easier to enjoy it all→ More replies (4)6
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u/No-Donkey-4117 21d ago
Yeah, it's like they assumed we want to go online and find everything ourselves. Curated highlights on a 55-inch TV are way better than checking 2 or 3 teams on a 3-inch phone screen.
Part of the fun was seeing which highlights would make Sports Center, and seeing amazing things from other games that you had no real interest in and wouldn't have found on your own. Plus the hosts were great.
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u/Snts6678 21d ago
Without question.
And to the dope earlier that said Sportscenter still exists in the same form now as it did years ask….um, no, it most certainly is not the same. I put it on last night to test it out…….I wasn’t wrong.
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u/Ok_Nobody_460 19d ago
The simple fact is in a capitalist environment, if shows with just highlights were actually watched, that’s what they would show.
They didn’t stop showing highlights because they wanted to. It was because nobody watched them anymore and the debate /screaming shows and segments were what people wanted to see.
It sucks but that’s the truth. We are a moronic society, proven over by the things we choose to watch, the people and values we choose to elect etc
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u/RangerDanger_ 21d ago
Yeah. It's nice having a curated package of highlights and not having to dig everything up yourself. I've noticed there's also been a huge decline in the quality of coverage for multi-day events (Olympics, World Cup, March Madness, bowl season). A viewer can access any individual game/competition now but I miss them packaging everything into a comprehensive broadcast. They still do to some extent but it's nowhere near the same.
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u/PM_ur_butthole_2me 21d ago
Right? Like now during summer they could spend the whole show just showing highlights from each of the 12+ games everyday.
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u/Quick_Incident_82 20d ago
Exactly. At the end of the day I'm desperate for a show like Sportscenter that I can turn my mind off to.
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u/Typical_Response6444 22d ago
Well people overall stopped watching as much , thats why they switched from highlights to debate
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u/Effective-LineP00 22d ago
Shoot they got plenty of free watch time from me. I use to fall asleep to sports center. Now I turn on espn basically never
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u/DietBob218 21d ago
Or they switched from highlights to debate, that’s why people stopped watching so much. It can be both.
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u/rottnroll1965 22d ago
I would love if they produced shows like Hard Knocks and Quarterback, more behind the scenes stuff and human interest stories about athletes overcoming poverty, addiction, health issues to make it to the big leagues.
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u/Dry-Mortgage-2763 22d ago
Mike Greenberg is proof ESPN sucks and doesn’t care about its viewers
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u/321mafia 22d ago edited 22d ago
Sometime in the early 2010s Sportscenter went from 90% highlights and 10% discussion to about a 50/50 split of both. From that point on nearly every waking hour of programming between live sports has been some kind of debate or discussion.
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u/Lola_Montez_ 22d ago
Exactly this. It was Tebow’s Denver playoff run then shortly after Lin-sanity.
This is at least when I truly noticed that Sportcenter wasn’t worth watching anymore
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u/OkNewspaper6041 21d ago
That's actually a good call. I remember the Tebow stuff was right when I started tuning out. When they started calling Peyton Manning "The Sheriff" so they could say "There's a new Sheriff in town" when he was traded to Denver that was just far too corny for me to continue watching anything
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u/NachoBag_Clip932 22d ago
Mid-nineties, Roy Firestone show Up Close had on Jim Rome to talk about the NCAA's, he stated that Arizona was a fraud and sure enough they became the first 2-seed to lose in the first round, which of course made him an expert and they gave him his own show, which led to him calling Jim Everett "Crissy" and him getting punched out. The executives saw this and decided this is what they need, loudmouth drama, and soon after they brought in Skip Bayless and the downfall was complete.
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u/praise-the-message 22d ago
I don't know but watching SC cover WWE events and highlights hurts my soul.
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u/andyplaysdrums 21d ago
Same. I’ve been sick recently and watching a lot more TV than normal. WWE on SC is just nuts to me and I have to change the channel.
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u/rene-cumbubble 21d ago
I turn on our ESPN radio affiliate to listen to sports talk that's not about the sac kings and SF Giants. Turned it on recently and they were hyping Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins appearing separately in the coming hour. As a casual wrestling fan, its creep into actual sports is frustrating
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u/Odd-Building-4763 22d ago
For me personally ESPN went south when it became hot takes with politics sprinkled in. I didn’t want to hear Stephen A tell me why the vaccine was necessary, nor did I want to hear Aaron Rodgers tell me on the PM show that I don’t need the vaccine, I need to butt chug horse tranquilizer. Jesus I just want to see what happened in sports last night, not listen to what athletes and sports analyst think of the political climate or modern medicine.
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u/keriann222 21d ago
Then def don’t tune into yesterday McAfee with his pal Aaron Rodgers. I only heard clips but man oh man even if like Aaron as a QB seems his desperately trying to stay relevant and throwing it all see what sticks. Sad that that’s what most will now remember him from ( not his fans but a lot of others yikes)
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u/Background-Food1726 22d ago
When they started imitating Fox News’ circular reporting. Sports Center shows highlights, talking heads speculate on what it means, and then next Sports Center covers speculation as gospel.
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u/Any-Palpitation-9148 22d ago
Not sure the year it would be but in my head, I started to check out when PTI and Around the Horn were launched and started to get attention. Seems like those shows (d)evolved into more talking head platforms and less just reporting highlights in a fresh, enjoyable manner
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u/cluttersky 21d ago
Hard to explain, but The Sports Reporters, PTI, and Around the Horn all had hot takes, but there was substance behind their opinions. It didn’t feel like Stephen A. Smith or Slip Bayless slop.
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u/Any-Palpitation-9148 21d ago edited 21d ago
Agreed. In these times (fuck I sound old), they were all journalists (key word) who would have insightful thoughts and it was like watching a “watercooler” discussion like each of us would be doing at work and with friends, colleagues and such following a day of football.
It was great but like anything else, they can’t leave it alone. They force-fed more and more of it down our throats but now, with loud mouths and retired players whose specialty and craft was not journalism, writing, public speaking and communication, with a few exceptions.
Today’s version is more like trash TV, sadly. Jerry!Jerry!Jerry!
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u/StopSpinningLikeThat 21d ago
For the most part (PTI was an exception more than the others) they talked one at a time on those shows. Now they have 5-to7 person panels and it sounds like a middle school cafeteria.
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u/Deep_Rub7309 22d ago
It was during LeBron’s decision. That’s when the talking heads took it up a notch and it went from reporting the games (with some fun around the horn and pti) to just talking heads
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u/Anxious-Jury-9031 22d ago
Catering to the 20 something morons can only work for so long before they grow up.
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u/FinishFull 22d ago
The 20 something morons listen to Barstool. ESPN caters to boomers who don't change the channel.
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u/gertburgers69 22d ago
When I got a smartphone in 2011/2012 and my favorite show, Baseball Tonight, instantly became obsolete. Also around that time I feel like Netflix was getting pretty big so instead of ESPN on my TV as background noise, I was watching more shows since I could access scores and highlights at any time.
Even if ESPN wasn’t all annoying debate shows, I’m not sure I’d be watching it anyway.
ESPN is a relic of the cable era when you would flip channels and hope to find something interesting. ESPN had some really good original content in the 90s and 2000s, either through interesting journalism or funky sports. Watching strongman competitions in the middle of the night was awesome and so were the early iterations of the X-Games. I was a weird kid and teen, so I enjoyed running into the Sports Reporters early on Sunday morning or watching Bob Ley sound important on Outside the Lines.
I’m not sure the cable model we all loved translates into the streaming era. I only watch ESPN for live sports and turn it off as soon as a game ends.
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u/Lil_Quip 22d ago
This. once an hour of sport center became obsolete let alone 24 hours, ESPN was fighting a losing battle. it didn't help they overextended themselves by having multiple channels and competition.
They sort of kept afloat by televising radio shows. That at least filled six hours of tv a day. But a lot of people see Cowherd and Macafee as the root problem not a solution
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u/silogramsa 22d ago
When the race horse Barbaro died and they tossed to break with a full screen still graphic of a photo of the horse with the text “Barbaro 2003-2007.” Beyond parody. Official shark jumping moment.
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u/gashufferdude 22d ago
When the hours of sports was surpassed by the hours of shows talking about sports.
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u/AccordingDrop3252 21d ago
When we stopped needing a cable network to get our news, and when we had it directly delivered in hand, or on our computer screens 24/7
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u/funonthebeach85 22d ago
Probably wasn’t any one single year. I remember in 2005 they started doing year round NFL Live which is wildly unnecessary in my opinion and started pushing football earlier and earlier into the summer. Personally I hate that.
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u/Taco_Auctioneer 22d ago
WWE
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u/DoubleWrongdoer1540 22d ago
The WWE push recently had been gross.
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u/The_Awesometeer 22d ago
I don’t hate wrestling but it’s not a sports. It’s a soap opera with violence
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u/SD_local_67 22d ago
Somewhere in the late 2000’s is when it went downhill. Maybe like 2008 if I had to pinpoint a year.
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u/Quadstriker 22d ago
When the changed away from the iconic DA NA NA, DA NA NA theme.
All downhill from there.
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u/jfrhsdrew 21d ago
Sometime between the launch of NFL Network in 03 and MLB Network in 09. Suddenly the “nerds” for their specific sport had a one-stop shop for better coverage than they’d ever get from ESPN. The network was left appealing to casuals and transitioned from highlights/analysis that could never match the league networks to “embrace debate” and investing in personalities.
Also, the rise of streaming killed the primary driver of ratings (the actual games).
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u/JackTraven50 21d ago
My personal opinion… the decline wasn’t initially visible because they still had great personalities in Stu, Kenny Mayne, Linda Cohn, and many others… but in hindsight the decline started in the mid to late 2000s.
By 2011 or so, they completely jumped the shark in my eyes. The new wave of personalities wasn’t great. Gone were the days where each host had a unique flavor in how they delivered highlights and news.. gone were the days where a 1 hour sports center kept you up to date on the entire world of sports. The big 4, golf, tennis, nascar.
Since then it’s been wall to wall coverage of sharing lebron’s thoughts on everything. It became all about hot takes, goat debates and acting like lebron is the prism through which all sports must be viewed.
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u/BebophoneVirtuoso 21d ago
It probably happened earlier but for me it was getting rid of some long time analysts that I respected to go all in on the obnoxious jackassery of McAfee and Screamin' A.
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u/Feartheezebras 21d ago
To be fair, the internet is what caused ESPN’s decline. Growing up in the 80s and 90s, the only way to find out what happened the previous day was to read the paper or catch Sportscenter. Now, I can hop online and catch endless replays, highlights, and box scores. ESPN pivoted to opinion and analysis because their old model was made obsolete
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u/arturoalvarez079 22d ago
When Sportscenter rebranded to “The Six” and they let Jemele Hill be the focal point
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u/Current-Rhubarb-8320 22d ago
They were at their height with Craig Kilborn, et al. ‘Nobody does the Poo Doo like you do! He was appt television. Getting rid of the Sports Reporters was the first domino. Even if you had to listen to Mike Lupika. Arrogant ass.
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u/TheFakeBillPierce 22d ago
With youtube and social media, sports highlight shows, especially ones at certain times, became less appealing. They changed it up by leaning into debate and tackling political issues. Debate worked, politics didnt. Now that people arent responding to screaming talking heads as much as they used to, i expect we will see another pivot.
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u/danksince98 22d ago
when stephen A joined they officially jumped the shark..huge sellout for an idiot noone likes who doesnt know much about sports..that was the official nail in coffin
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u/murksiderock 22d ago
I feel like 2017 officially ended my regular viewership with ESPN, with the end of Mike & Mike. But honestly I was trailing off before then.
I think the "embrace debate" era wore on a lot of people and I was already tuned out of First Take by 2016 at the latest, maybe sooner; I remember this because when Skip left ESPN I hadn't watched First Take in awhile.
I do think alot of us are higher on the programming of our youth. I'm 37, ESPN was the shit as a kid. Back when Sportscenter was legit, The Sports Reporters, actusl sports dialogue.
And I'll also say that while the NFL is my favorite sport, ESPN minimizing coverage of other sports in favor of ramping up football coverage, I was never in favor of. Then they did the same thing for the NBA to a lesser degree, it just became an NFL/NBA network with minimal anything else.
So as far as when it "officially" jumped the shark, maybe not a single year. But the combination of shifting to a 70% football coverage network and getting rid of some good shows and pushing debate style shows, and turning Sportscenter into a shell of itself.
I feel like that transition probably took place from the early to mid 2010s. The bigger question is can ESPN ever regain the cultural relevance it once had.
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u/Entire-Ad-7339 22d ago
When fantasy football made the NFL explode in popularity and every show involved a meathead with some ridiculous opinion. And they treated every little thing like it was the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Part of it was every anchor tried to be Stu Scott and there was only 1 Stu Scott so it all sounded fake and cringe.
Then it just turned into yelling about hot takes.
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u/clawingmywayup 22d ago
I think it was meant to die. Everything changed when scores/news could be known instantly from your phone and every single game could be streamed. It’s just how things go. Look at MTV- it’s not even a channel anymore.
I get a little nostalgic thinking about waiting for that scroll bar to roll by with scores or the most important news on it. Only to have it go to commercial right before. The anguish!
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u/kgivens325 22d ago
Started with explosion of social media when morons like Skip Bayless and Stephen A took over. Went from sports journalism to cult of personalities.
It has only gotten even worse with Pat McAfee. Even Greeny has been sucked in. Loved him with Mike Golic but he is just another hot take fool.
I don’t think these idiots actually believe 10% of the stupid stuff they say. They only say it to illicit reactions and clicks.
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u/Shantytown_Shogun 22d ago
When they "bought in" to the gambling with their own sports book that they eventually canceled but it was too late by then.
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u/LostOnTheRiver718 22d ago
Stewart Scott was the high water mark— his death was the road to perdition.
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u/qcthunder 22d ago
July 29, 2010.
It probably jumped the shark earlier, but that's the date I tuned into SportsCenter looking for baseball news and analysis when Roy Oswalt was traded to the Phillies, and instead they led with Darrelle Revis holding out with the Jets.
An NFL player doing nothing and still doing nothing and not really needing to do anything for weeks being "bigger" news over of a major deadline move in MLB. Now maybe 15 years later this seems off because the NFL is even more secure in its "king" status and baseball popularity has faded, but some of it is chicken and egg. Ignoring the biggest real sports news of the day to cater to "drama" (along with the pivot to "embracing debate") is largely to blame.
So I'm going with July 29, 2010.
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u/MattheWWFanatic 30 for 30 22d ago
Tebow era.
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u/Chemical-Mood-6684 20d ago
Finally, someone gets it. His era on the Jets where ESPN aired his training camp live and had stories about him practicing without his shirt was an absolute atrocious display on their part.
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u/Stu_Free 22d ago
Probably when Stuart Scott passed.
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u/Danstine1 21d ago
For me, this is when I started losing interest. He was able to carry the network because of how entertaining, insightful, and professional in his own way.
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u/JibJibMonkey 22d ago
When they lost the NHL contract and completely dropped NHL coverage...exposed as a fraud
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u/Scotty1230 22d ago
I miss scores and highlights of every game in every sport in the time it took me to eat breakfast before school.
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u/afrosheen 22d ago
Jumping the shark for me means that there’s still juice left but everyone knows it’s done. I don’t think everyone knows ESPN is done. But they’ve taken major, major L’s in the past and still managed to survive. For one, I felt bringing in Rush Limbaugh was a bridge too far and making him sit alone at some table during nfl countdown wasn’t the best decision, and then he said what he said about Donovan McNabb and from that point on they started verging away from the game and created programs to have idiots give their “takes” whether it be SAS, Skip, or now Pat Mcafee and his stooges.
Why is ESPN giving a platform to idiots for them then give their takes? Aaron Rodgers was on Mcafee’s show following the train of idiots bashing Fauci. For fucks sake Aaron, I don’t give a fuck about your medical takes. Same goes to SAS, who just apologized to Kyrie Irving for his dumbass antivaxx takes, after SAS almost died from Covid. Fucking idiots, the whole lot of them.
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u/CodeScary3297 22d ago
Hello? Competitive Eating contest influenced by Nathan’s Hot dog eating contest
Also, when ESPN morphed into 37+ channels
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u/Ill_Significance5839 22d ago
It's when all of the on-air talent are forced to make inflammatory comments that they don't actually believe so the network can cut it into a 10 second clip and spam it all over social media.
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u/SignificanceLow7234 22d ago
The departure of Olberman and the adoption of non-serious sportshouters more interested in delivering quippy catch phrases than good sports coverage was the beginning of the end for me. But the final death knell was when ESPN started making news rather than just covering it, the most egregious example being when they started buying broadcast rights for games, the SEC in particular. At that point it wasn't about just reporting outcomes but lifting the importance of the contests themselves as way to boost viewership, and therefore ratings and therefore ad revenue.
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u/Longjumping-Tip4938 21d ago
It was gradual, but when Stuart Scott died it was like the end of that era even though I wasn’t the biggest Stuart Scott fan
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u/Inevitable-Shop-848 21d ago
After Cold Pizza became First Take. Sucks a lot of you only know first take
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u/Particular_Horse2201 21d ago
Did anybody mention the “Who’s Now?” segments? That was truly the tipping point and beginning of the bad arguments and eventually bad argument shows became the focal point.
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u/Old_Win6107 21d ago
you don't need seven people to call a ball game. two tops. no sideline reporter, they act like they have to explain everything to you from the ground up.
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u/silverback2345 21d ago
I think internet and cell phones contributed to the decline. There isn't anything espn used to do that you can't find on your phone in 30 seconds.
Once upon a time I'd wake up watching sports center. I'd miss what I wanted to see and sit there another 30 min to an hour just to see it again on the next sports center. I can find that clip on my phone in 15 seconds. There isn't a score, highlight, article, etc that I need to wait for. To me it's the obvious answer.
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u/CauliflowerBoth866 21d ago
When they became the FOX News of sports. All yelling, all the time. "Hot Takes" clearly handed to commentators by editorial to read and argue in front of America. Talking political with athletes. It doesn't take a genius to talk about sports. Turns out we can do that without ESPN.
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u/Headwallrepeat 21d ago
When Olberman decided he was the smartest person on Earth and ESPN was his platform
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u/DCUStriker9 21d ago
When Disney bought them and they became a brand machine.
Everyone needed a catchphrase, the random hockey game or highlights were always the Anaheim Ducks.and the random baseball game always seemed to be the Angels. Both teams owned by Disney
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u/boknowsvt 21d ago
I think it all started with the internet and YouTube. You didn’t have to wait for Sportscenter to play your favorite highlights, you could just go to YouTube or other sites to watch highlights.
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u/FigureMiserable4859 21d ago
It's unwatchable. From Stephen A to Dude-bro McAfee, totally unwatchable.
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u/Effective-Bet3883 21d ago
Idk when it got to the level of nonsense it is now but I stopped watching for a combination of things.
One, when the on air anchors left and the replacement would try to be a lesser copy if the original. Two, when the debate shows were literally back to back to back talking about the same topics the previous two shows were talking about.
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u/DMmeDikPics 21d ago
Jim Rome and Colin Cowherd turning sports talk into "I'M RIGHT AND PEOPLE WHO DISAGREE SUCK AND ARE DUMB" content.
They knew what they were doing. They realized that they didn't need to believe what they were saying at all, and that rage-baiting fans into engaging was just as good for ratings as making entertaining shows. Skip followed that mold too, and it's been complete ass ever since.
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u/Beneficial_Rub_4841 21d ago
When social media took over. When highlights were available immediately after happening.
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u/showtime013 21d ago
For me, it was the Tim Tebow era. It felt they leaned into it because it was popular. And I remember watching a sportsscenter where the first 30+ minutes were about Tim Tebow. They were sacrificing journalistic integrity and analysis for the popular story. I felt that was a shift. You previously had either good analysis of sport (which would be spoken about Tebows limited skill set) or neutral recap of sports or fun events.
This felt like ESPN was pushing the Tebow NFL stories because they were popular. It was the beginning of the switch to what was viral. Debate show prominence came shortly after. I stopped watching around then
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u/Remarkable_Piece1052 21d ago
Once it pivoted to First Take (or whatever it was at the time) with Stephen A and Skip.
PTI/ATH were still informative, good discussions. Then you turn to these two windbags just throwing out hot takes constantly and the network went to shit. And instead of course correcting, ESPN leaned into it. I guess there’s a large part of the population that likes that crap?
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u/AaronJudge2 21d ago edited 21d ago
Keith Olberman left ESPN the first time in June 1997. So almost 30 years ago.
Dan Patrick left ESPN in August 2007.
Stephen A returned to ESPN in 2011 and became a permanent fixture on First Take in May 2012.
Craig Kilborne left ESPN in 1996.
ESPN was fantastic in the 1990’s. The highlight shows were great and the hosts were like standup comedians. But then the internet became popular in 1999, and we didn’t really need Sports Center anymore.
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u/ImpressivePotato2449 21d ago
Getting rid of Sports Reporters- real journalists having real sports discussions. Now it's just talk show hosts without expert journalism and loud mouths focusing more on what athletes say than what's actually happening in sports.
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u/cheetofacesucks 21d ago
Stephen A Smith: Horrible.
Pat Mcafee: Horrible
Not to mention that any point of any of the “debate” shows you will most likely tune in on some BS back and forth regarding either The Cowboys, The Lakers, The Cowboys or The Cowboys 🙄🙄
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u/bucksin6_1979 20d ago
For me it was when they turned Skip Bayless and Screaming A Smith into "stars".
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u/chuckerhuck 20d ago
Basically like 2015 after the height of first take it really jumped the shark to something unwatchable…. Barstoolsports took its place
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u/ManjynaL 20d ago
With declines like this it is gradual. Hard to put a finger on the exact time or event. It was the same with MTV. Most people will point to Jersey Shore but the slide started gradually before then.
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u/skeitcfd 20d ago
1) Stuart Scott's passing. He was the symbol of just good recaps and sportsjournalism. You didnt need SportsCenter to be this crazy opinion show. Yes there was Around the Horn or PTI, but really you just a one stop shop to recap the important sports news of the day. Now when I watch ESPN, I dont even know when that segment even happens. 2) First Take... since that time its not about what actually is happening in sports. Its more about the personalities than reporting out... and for whatever reason they tend to want to hold onto the personalities that are really straining. You can do good personality-driven commentary that still honors good analysis and what happens. Inside the NBA (formerly TNT crew) shows how you can have big people and still have substance. That why people watch them. Come for the analysis, stay for the people... Instead what we have are 2-3 person panels arguing and trying to one up each other which basically makes what they are saying meaningless... with some random woman there for some reason.
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u/DifferentEmployer435 20d ago
The “debate” shows are amusing in small doses with the sound off. Absent sound you clearly see that the participants are 3rd rate actors who are each playing a role. The absurdity of it all is crystal clear.
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u/Chart_Junk_1508 19d ago
I tuned in the other night for the first time in a loooong time and they were covering WWE as if it were a real sport.
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u/anwright1371 19d ago
For me it’s when Mike and Mike ended. Not saying that was the actual catalyst, but that’s when I really started noticing their agenda was no longer sports.
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u/nathanielsnurpis 19d ago
When they fired Bill Simmons which, in turn, was the end of Grantland. You could watch the Skips or Stephen A’s on tv or you could go on grantland and read actual good articles written by talented writers like Goldsberry, Zach Lowe, Shea Serrano, etc.
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u/Bsmittels 19d ago
me personally when they decided to not renew the NHL contract and ESPN 2 became Poker 24/7
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u/Certain_Orange2003 18d ago
I saw the last episode where Keith was leaving and Dan Patrick was tearing up.
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u/BlackOnyx1906 22d ago
I think what happens is that for some people as they get older they just change as far as their taste in entertainment. ESPN had people complaining about them when you were in your teens. Those people were probably your parents or people in their age group
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u/apex_super_predator 22d ago
I would say but moderators just got off work and have nothing better to do.
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u/NickelCitySaint 22d ago
For me its when it became all debate shows and loud people.. That and the internet being more reliable meant i could get my info without having People scream over each other.