The constant trial coverage is also blamed for hurting soap operas due to preemptions. While the genre's probably going to decline at some point no matter what this could slow it down.
I'd say the 60's ended with the Manson Family murders and the 70's with the death of disco. Clinton's election and the rise of grunge and gangsta rap feel like the real beginning of the 90's.
Really liking the timeline overall.
It's understandable if you don't want to get into this too much, timeline bloat's always a concern, but one side-effect of Night Skies replacing ET is how that might affect John Carpenter's The Thing. While the backlash and overwrought contemporary criticism...
From a quick search -
Fox began broadcasting and The Simpsons debuted on Tracy Ullman.
Moonlighting started it's decline thanks to the "will they won't they" becoming "they did", though TBF Shepard and Willis were already not speaking to each other off-screen so who knows how much longer it'd...
The Iraq debacle and economy could inspire something, but probably some songs, not a full concept album. The masters for the album it replaced might also not be stolen
They were probably conflating it with the sequel, which is subtitled First Blood pt 2. On the other hand, it's easy for people to assume the entire series is that and not know the first was a darker, more grounded story of PTSD-triggered revenge.
IIRC the reason for the Herbie-Torch swap was rights issues tied to the live action shows, so that might not be an issue at this point in the timeline or they could be butterflied away.
IIRC a True Lies sequel was one of the movies killed in development because of 9/11 like Gump & Co. Since his wife becomes an agent at the end of the first maybe they're in separate towers having their own fights or (ala Die Hard 2) one's on a plane headed there.