[ghaff]

In the US at least, you could put together a profile with a lot of fairly mindless sitcoms, cooking shows, reality TV, etc. But I agree it's not as easy to just put something on in the background. And the streaming model and perhaps just the current era of TV shows, where a lot of subscribers deliberately select something to watch, probably encourages a focus on more complex--and often serialized--TV.

I just don't watch a lot but I definitely understand your point of view. Shows like Game of Thrones I'll sometimes doze off or get distracted and ten minutes later I have no idea what's going on. A lot of the series on TV today really require paying strict attention.