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| Cable New beats a page two story to death! |
"Television and the Public Interest" was a speech
given by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Newton N. Minow to
the convention of the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961. The
speech was Minow's first major speech after he was appointed chairman of the
FCC by President John F Kennedy. In the speech, Minow referred to American
commercial television programming as a "vast wasteland" and advocated
for programming in the public interest.
"When television is good, nothing — not the theater,
not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better. But when television is
bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own
television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without
a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss
sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until
the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally
unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder,
western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and
cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending.
And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But
they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to
try it."
54 years later the only thing to have change in the TV wasteland is the vastness, now there are hundreds of mindless TV channels to choose from! I’m in the mood for a little rant about Television
especially after spending a good amount of time in the hospital with no books,
computer or smart phone, only a TV screen about 3 feet from my head. So yes out of boredom I verified Mr. Minow's experiment many times. Yes true to scientific experiments it is repeatable and verifiable! I’m
astounded why books are not more popular as a brief exposure to TV should
surely send book sales skyrocketing!
Let’s take a look at the corporate approach to TV and
advertisers. From the beginning TV was not possible without revenue from
corporate sponsors. So the dilemma for TV people was how we can hold the
interest of our viewer’s in-between commercials. So this is where modern TV
programming sprung from, and the TV show was born. Soon a variety of TV shows
was created and continues to be created today in an effort to hold viewers’
attention between commercials.
Guess what the powers to be found out? The quality and
content of the fillers didn’t matter any junk they could come up with worked
just as well. Thus we have the TV of today and yesterday a vast pile of moronic
content emanating from every channel. Don’t believe me, turn your TV on and
flip thru the channels, firstly you’re going to get advertisements (mostly
dishonest) , infomercials, and misleading (actually immoral) pharmaceutical
ads. Turning on your TV is like inviting hundreds of lying salesmen into your living room to pitch bull-shit and deception right in your face! Oh the real content, yes, bathroom humor sitcoms generated by sophomoric
minded teenage boys masquerading as writers. Formula generated dramas that
wallow in stereotype characters. Nonsensical game shows, reality shows, soap
operas and phony doctor shows such as Dr. Oz and others.
Oh, let’s not forget the news, starting with our local news
channels here in the Bay Area. I believe local news starts at about 5am. Every
local channel ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX has morning news programs running until
about 9am. Every channel has the same news and content at the same time as if
they were programmed by one person. Here is one astounding characteristics of
these channels, they are obsessed about the weather, all start their program
with the weather report, usually presented by a well-dressed “meteorologist”
standing in front of a weather map reading about 20 temperatures that don’t
vary more than 2 degrees. You get the feeling these weather reporters have
never been outside, because their hair is perfect! Here is an exercise, next
time the weather segment (about 3 times every ½ hour) comes on switch to the
other 3 stations, guaranteed you will see the exact same thing, just a
different “meteorologist” calling out temps from the map! It’s perplexing
because anyone familiar with Bay Area weather realizes there is no weather in
the Bay Area; it’s the most anemic climate just about anywhere. I could see
this weather emphasis say for the Buffalo area, but here?
It’s a shame that with such a block of time there is no
creativity in the realm of TV news. What an opportunity for one of these
channels to come up with an innovative idea to be unique and creative, given
the bland competitors this could be a slam dunk for progressive action.
Let’s not forget our great cable and corporate news outlets
and the bought and paid for company men such as Brian Williams spouting
nonsense and spreading propaganda as dictated by the corporation. Am I the only
one that sees these cable and corporate networks as being complicit in the run
up to the Iraq assault and the many other conflicts now raging? Did you notice
how gung-ho the anchors were selling the invasion and bringing on consultants
usually ex generals on the payrolls of defense companies? This goes on today
with little objection, but of course who is going to report it?
So now the only thing
left for me to enjoy on TV is watching the wonderful Giants playing baseball!
The only issue here is I have to watch baseball alone; my wife refuses to watch
because baseball players spit! Dang I wish she would not have pointed that out
to me!
