I think you answered your own question. Prime time TV = prime time entertainment slot.

Consider that by knowing someone's preferred source of news you can typically predict their political views with 90%+ accuracy, particularly if we're talking prime time broadcasting.

The news is meant to entertain: "To hold the attention of (someone) with something amusing or diverting.". To grip you, you're told stories about "your team" and its triumphs and tragedies. Sport is a relatively simple and benign aspect to all this.

In general (and some sports coverage does this), the rest of the recipe calls for outrage against "their team". It calls out their shenanigans and instills a sense of superiority over them. And as there is literally nothing you can do about any of this the only goal is to keep you coming back for more.

Perhaps in the past (... get off my lawn!) there were more attempts to inform people in a neutral sense. Maybe even to help people challenge their thinking and their bias so they're better equipped to negotiate disagreements in matters they can engage in and affect.

There's a movie you should see. It's called Network[1] and it was made in 1976. It deals with prime time TV news and how it is used to exploit people.

[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

> Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad! I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. You've got to say, 'I'm a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!' So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell, 'I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!' I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Things have got to change. But first, you've gotta get mad!... You've got to say, 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!' Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: "I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"