back then
Back in the 70s telvision was in an age of transition, with half of the the television sets in US households being color, and more and more people began watching with more enthusiasm. Another big invention of the time was the VCR created in 1971, which allowed for people to rent and buy movies to bring home, as well as taping and storing video clips from live TV and playing them back later.
today
The modern day equivalent of renting a tape from a store back in the 70s is internet streaming from sources like Netflix and Hulu, which allows for people to not only rent movies, but to also stream television shows, which was introduced in 2007. This means that currently our own generation is in a state of transition from watching things on dvd to streaming them on the internet, much like the generation in the 70s were in a transition from watching traditional television to watching things off of tapes.