Not sure where you grew up or if you had cable. My family did not. 5-7pm was news on every channel ( all 4 that we received), and most nights after 8pm were adult dramas that kids under 10 wouldn't generally want to watch.

Weekends only had good stuff on in the morning on Saturday and then on Sunday night, depending on what age you're thinking of.

After school cartoons and Saturday morning cartoons were a life send when I was an 80s kid. PBS had some interesting programming that could appeal to kids on Friday nights (Blakes 7, Doctor Whoever). Even cable was a wash back then, you got bored of Nickelodeon quickly and there was no cartoon channel yet.

Dr Whoever, LOL. Great pun!

Not to mention all the commercials, which if nothing else the commercial break was sometimes enough to dislodge us and get us to think about doing something else. Now with streaming, kids can just go from one show to the next without any interruptions.

On those occasions when we let them watch more than they should I'm sometimes amazed that they even remember to go to the bathroom. Good grief the devices today are addicting.