The TV in Animal Crossing is pretty regular and normal at first, until you get to around midnight and 3am where the testing and static comes in. That's where things start getting creepy (the aliens and the eerie vibe that static television gives). But what I also think is weird about the fact that TV broadcasting is over at a certain period of time is simply that, that's the shows just stop being off the air. Why? Do the humans or animals running the television broadcasting in the AC Universe want to encourage proper sleeping schedules by ceasing shows after a certain time? That would be weird because what about any nocturnal villagers? Blathers is an owl and staying up all night is natural for him, so do owls get the crappy end of the stick when they wanna watch as much showtime? Why doesn't the "broadcasting team" in the AC Universe just hire nocturnal animals like Blathers to keep the shows running?
The AC Universe is a confusing one, but handling debts in there seems way easier than in our world (at least).
The TVs have always had schedules that show certain shows on certain days at certain times. The alien broadcast you mentioned happens at 3.33AM every Saturday ... The weather forecast is actually helpful though: In the morning it shows you the weather for that day and in the evening, it shows the weather for the following day !!
But yeah, just like some channels in real life, TV stops broadcasting at a certain point ....
Way back when (including when I was a kid), it wasn't uncommon for some TV channels to stop airing after a certain hour. My guess is that it just wasn't worth spending money on employees, stuff to broadcast, etc. when most people weren't watching it. I'm a total night owl and on a couple of occasions I've seen random obscure cable channels do it.
TVs don't seem to be as popular in the AC world since most villagers don't have one. The only animals that stay up all night are either working or don't seem like they'd be watching TV (like Blathers), so having stuff on TV just for them doesn't seem worth it. They'd probably have other things to do for fun, like reading or listening to the radio. Not to mention NH is set on a desert island where there's nobody else except the characters in your town so there probably isn't much choice when picking up a TV signal.
I remember a time, when there was just the original game, the TV only has one channel and showed the same thing all the time. For example the apple TV only showed apples on a conveyor belt.
I love the TV. Animal crossing has always made weird static and channels come on late at night.
Sometimes I wish you could change channels or pick a certain channel to have on a tv. I want a tv in my creepy room to have static all the time, not be showing sports!
