Higher quality in general? No way. There's way, way too many streaming shows that aim for the middle. Tons of reality/competition shows, tons of superhero shows where dialog and plot take a backseat to looking cool. TONS of garbage animation and children's shows.

From where I sit, it's way easier today than 5 years ago to find something new to watch, but way harder to find something great.

It's anecdotal but as a kid we had japanese anime on tv. There was a surprising amount of quality (considering the tech used for production). And some animes like saint seiya, have .. to my half educated ears.. world class OST [0]. Others like Space Adventure Cobra also featured very fancy jazz funk. It's somehow unbelievable that at the time, companies would allocate money for such features. Maybe it was the spirit of the era.. a kind of spiritual drive in the air (new technology, promises of the post war future, rising tv market) making people doing their best.

And I can't help thinking that this energy is gone. It's done, known, technology made everything available so there's no real drive needed to try setting up a show and broadcasting (an few iphones could do).

Rose tinted glasses. I too have watched anime since I was a kid and the quality of what they’re making in the last few years beats what I grew up with. Animation quality, plot complexity and diversity, soundtracks, voice acting - everything is as good or better. Compare anime that have been remade, like Fruits Basket. The recent version is vastly superior.

Look at the top 50 anime on MyAnimeList, probably the most used anime site. (https://myanimelist.net/topanime.php). This would be the equivalent of IMDb top 250.

- pre 2005 - 8

- 2006-10 - 5

- 2011-15 - 10

- 2016 to date - 27

You’d expect some recency bias but not to this extent unless recent anime was really good. I’ve seen most of these and they certainly deserve to be up there.

Look, I don’t doubt that you enjoyed shows from when you were a kid. I was obsessed with dragon ball z as a kid. But try watching it now, it’s just not that good. Nostalgia makes them better in our memories than they actually were.

I didn't mention dbz btw. If you have soundtracks of those I listed, feel free to spam me.

I admit having next to no knowledge of today, beside a few returns from people watching animes (less positive than you). And in any case I don't think SS OST is bound to relativity, it's really instrumentally and harmonically extraordinary. I'd place it near or even above John Williams...

Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood. The best anime by any measure. The soundtrack is extraordinary.

#1 all time on MyAnimeList and #19 all time on IMDb.

By the way I know you didn’t mention DBZ. It was an example of a show that I thought was incredible as a child and simply doesn’t hold up today. I speculate that some of your favourites could be the same.

In my opinion Hiroyuki Sawano blesses any anime he participates in. Truly a master of his craft.

Yeah the Attack on Titan soundtrack is something else.

How do you feel about Mitsuo Iso ?

I'm sure you get similar spread on ages when you compare top 100 albums, or top 100 films

No.

Here's IMDb top 50 broken down by decade. There's no bias towards recent films. If anything, the 90s are overrepresented.

- 1950s and earlier - 7

- 60s 4

- 70s 4

- 80s 3

- 90s 17

- 00s 10

- 10s 5

We are in a silver age of TV right now.

The golden age was caused by cable networks venturing hard into original programing and it started right around the Sopranos. But the golden age ended 5-7 years ago as talent got spread too thin, the number of shows exploded, and the streaming services started pivoting to mass entertainment rather than critical acclaim.

But prior to the golden age, TV was very lowest common denominator. Almost everything aimed for the middle. Of course, there were great shows in all eras, but TV is much best post-2000 than pre-2000.

Maybe I‘m that ‘middle‘, but the shows of the last couple of years have spoken me about as much as those 5-10 years ago. Queen’s Gambit, Mr. Robot, The Expanse, Sex Education, Chernobyl, Dark, Russian Doll, Maniac to name a few IMO very high quality ones.

I really like a lot of those shows too. Notably though, three of those are limited series and two others are adaptations.

That doesn't mean they aren't good but I think it says something about where the money is more likely to go these days

"Limited series" is a good thing. There should be more limited series. The plot is way better when it does not have to be stretched toward infinity.

Discoverability is real problem. But even then we have more prestige, high-quality TV being created today than a few decades ago.

more options at the high end, I'd agree with the general point. check out the Topic app, which distributes a highly curated set of quality foreign shows. Insane level of quality across the board.

Digital broadcast used to be the best image source available to watch on your TV. As you say, far better than cable or streaming because of the lack of compression. Is that still the case?

Antenna tv isn’t an option for many of us. The context of the piece is clearly broadcast TV. Obviously the general format is going strong.

Where (what country) are you talking about?