Do you mean what current show will still be in production, or what shows will people watch the old episodes, the way we watch old Star Treks?
There are 50 year old shows that people still watch now, sometimes for a kitschy camp factor and sometimes because they legitimately love it.
If it is the second thing, what shows will people watch as reruns:
quite a few actually because we are in kind of a "golden age" of TV right now.
Fargo
Game of Thrones
American Horror Story
Mad Men
Various shows that are popular with kids, because the kids of today might want a nostalgic feeling when they are 50-60 years old.
Sadly, I think people will also watch a lot of old nature documentaries to see animals that are extinct. (will become extinct in the next 50 years) And to see living coral reefs, polar ice sheets, other beautiful natural areas that will be mostly gone within the next century.
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R_Kane (15828)
7 years ago
Fifty, sixty years from now, if we haven't blown ourselves up, it won't be TV. It'll be VR, and I doubt that today's programs will translate well to that medium, just like watching a standard definition show on a 4K TV, or a 2D movie played in "simulated" 3D on a 3D TV is not a satisfying experience.
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actionkamen (23176)
7 years ago
I'm not sure about VR. It's already hyped to be the next big thing since when? 1985? But I don't think it will supplant TV anytime soon, if ever.
The thing with TV is it's... good enough. Maybe the resolution will increase to 8K or 16K and average household TV will be in bigger size like floor-to-ceiling big.
VR will have it's niche though, maybe in videogames also in design, engineering and architectural works. But most people will still watch the same plain old 2D TV.
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R_Kane (15828)
7 years ago
I work in consumer electronics and VR is taking off like a rocket ever since the tech was ported to phones. It is still for early adopters, but will be mass market well within the next half-century. A toy can never be "good enough."
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actionkamen (23176)
7 years ago
The VR devices maybe is taking off, but not the VR movies / series / shows. Producing shows for VR is complicated and to be utilizing VR for maximum effect means they would be limited to CGI animations. Exactly what videogames have to offer, but may not the most effective pasive-audience storytelling media like films.
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Sentient Meat (1509)
7 years ago
Mad Men is one of my favorite shows but it would be watching a 50 year old show about a 50 year old show. So the equivalent might be what 50 year old shows do we like to watch now about something 50 years earlier.
Maybe it would be like watching Meet Me in St. Louis in the nineties... because it's a forties film about average people at the turn of the century. You can't use Gone With the Wind, because it's about an important historical event.
I wonder how zombie shows will translate fifty years from now... maybe they will be regarded as Westerns are now.
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Popcorn Kernel (2368)
7 years ago
"So the equivalent might be what 50 year old shows do we like to watch now about something 50 years earlier."
How about Bonanza? Gunsmoke.
Or any western show from the 1960s.
They are 50 year old shows, set 100 years into the past. ( the late 1800s)
If it has to be 50/50, then I can't think of a 60's TV series set in the 1910s, but there were movies.
Dr. Zhivago
My Fair Lady
People will always like to see movies set in the past because it's something different from everyday life.
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Sentient Meat (1509)
7 years ago
I mentioned zombie films because they might be the modern equivalent of the Western. It's not the same thing to compare westerns to regular films because most people didn't live like that... Zombie films or even fantasy might be the better comparison of a Western to an older person. The West was a mythological place where rules didn't apply and people could get away with things that they couldn't in regular life... Maybe a show like Upstairs Downstairs would be the best comparison to Mad Men... but even though Downton Abbey has proven very successful... no one really watches the original Upstairs Downstairs anymore.
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