No! That's not true! We've just kept the best shows from that era! For every "The Wire" there were a dozen other terrible shows airing at the same time. It's true that there were fewer shows on TV so there were less to pick from but believe me, in another 10 years people are going to only point to "Breaking Bad" and other shows (Sherlock? Mr. ROBOT? Dexter? Game of thrones minus the last season? we can't say for sure right now) as amazing and they'll say "damn, 20 years ago was peak TV."

I will say though, it's impressive that HBO is really the only production company to consistently produce the best TV.