After the CDs and CD-Rs came what, magneto-optical drives? Those were pretty unreliable!
I was surprised to see MO not mentioned in the episode. When the reporter said Bernoulli had competition from optical media, my mind leapt directly to MO; but they were talking about CD-ROMs! Not only that, but the drive pictured uses a tray and not a caddy. Talk about future shock.
According to wikipedia, CD-ROM was introduced by Denon and Sony in 1984. Magneto-Optical drives were first sold in 1985, so it's a mystery why they are absent from this Computer Chronicles episode.
The first CD-R recorders I've heard of came out in 1992: the Philips CDD-521 and the Sony CDW-900E. They cost from $5,000 to $10,000 at the time. Industry magazines noted that Magneto-Optical was faster and less expensive!
They existed in the 80s but they were far too expensive for the average consumer.
The first CD-ROM drive was the Philips CM100. Since this was long before ATAPI, and SCSI was still in a primitive state, it used a proprietary LMSI host connection that was still being used through the mid-1990s. The drive with its interface card cost $1,500 in 1986, which was the equivalent of over $2,000 in 1994 dollars.