What IS wrong with American TV? by Ruthie

TALK STORY

What IS wrong with American TV?

POSTED BY: RUTHIE
UPDATED: Saturday, August 7, 2004 10:15
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 15386
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Friday, July 23, 2004 11:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
When I was young till up to only just 2-5 yrs ago (this is where I beleive the down fall, at least for me, happened), I had a show to watch almost every night of the week. Now I'm down to re-runs. You be the judge.

Not knowing the schedules over there, can't comment in detail - but my argument is that there are good shows there in the same proportion; you may have to look harder (or indeed pay) to find them though.

"I threw up on your bed"

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Friday, July 23, 2004 1:26 PM

CGREALMS

Quote:
Originally posted by Shute2Kill:
So, if any of my Canadian neighbors are still reading this, could you please post a list of Canadian TV shows that I should look for? I'll do my best to experience as many as I can.

I'm so ashamed

Not Canadian, but I know Comedy Central does (or atleast did) show alot of Canadian programming.

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Friday, July 23, 2004 2:31 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Only a few major religions have a monotheistic god - if you say 'god' (rather than gods, or family ancestors) you are either talking about Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. I don't think the show is about Judaism or Islam.

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Friday, July 23, 2004 2:43 PM

CGREALMS

Quote:
Only a few major religions have a monotheistic god - if you say 'god' (rather than gods, or family ancestors) you are either talking about Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. I don't think the show is about Judaism or Islam.

True enough that it's limited to a monotheistic view of God. But my point was that the show isn't specifically about Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. It takes and borrows where needed to further the plot lines of its episodes. Should the idea of God in and of itself be banned from television? 'Cause I personally think there's a good deal to say.

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Friday, July 23, 2004 2:57 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

If 'bible-preaching lite' is your cup of tea. Other religions prescribe a different meaning to life - learning indifference to pain or pleasure to got off the wheel, performing 'right action' by starting with 'right thinking' (socially determined) etc. But making the show pseudo-mystical doesn't make it any more interesting to me. It's still pretty tired.

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Wednesday, July 28, 2004 7:34 AM

DYSTOPIA

Two words. Reality Television.

We have to put a bunch of people together on an island, or fight for a date with a maybe millionaire, watch families and celebrities make complete asses out of themselves for friggin' entertainment? What the hell happened to good old fashioned original story ideas?

Give me a girl with super powers who fights evil, a vampire with a soul who helps the helpless, a group of very different people on a spaceship, a show about the behind the scenes of a show with puppets, a comedy about teens in the 80's, oh wait... we had those...

"When you can't walk, you crawl and when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you."
--The Message

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Friday, July 30, 2004 8:44 PM

PURPLEBELLY

Perhaps Fox Network could be persuaded that this would be a useful additon to their make-over collection:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1273196,00.html

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Sunday, August 1, 2004 10:45 AM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"Different voices do not mean different viewpoints, and these huge corporations all have the same viewpoint – they want to shape government policy in a way that helps them maximize profits, drive out competition, and keep getting bigger."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0407.turner.html
My Beef With Big Media
By Ted Turner, Washington Monthly. Posted July 26, 2004
excerpts
Today, media companies are more concentrated than at any time over the past 40 years, thanks to a continual loosening of ownership rules by Washington. The media giants now own not only broadcast networks and local stations; they also own the cable companies that pipe in the signals of their competitors and the studios that produce most of the programming. To get a flavor of how consolidated the industry has become, consider this: In 1990, the major broadcast networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox – fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.
Large corporations are more profit-focused and risk-averse. They often kill local programming because it's expensive, and they push national programming because it's cheap – even if their decisions run counter to local interests and community values. Their managers are more averse to innovation because they're afraid of being fired for an idea that fails. They prefer to sit on the sidelines, waiting to buy the businesses of the risk-takers who succeed.
Meanwhile, the forces of consolidation focused their attention on another rule, one that restricted ownership of content. The rules essentially forbade networks from profiting from reselling programs that they had already aired.
In 1957, the commission pointed out, independent companies had produced a third of all network shows; by 1968, that number had dropped to 4 percent.
For a time, Hollywood and its production studios were politically strong enough to keep the fin-syn rules in place. But by the early 1990s, the networks began arguing that their dominance had been undercut by the rise of independent broadcasters, cable networks, and even videocassettes, which they claimed gave viewers enough choice to make fin-syn unnecessary. The FCC ultimately agreed – and suddenly the broadcast networks could tell independent production studios, "We won't air it unless we own it." The networks then bought up the weakened studios or were bought out by their own syndication arms, the way Viacom turned the tables on CBS, buying the network in 2000. This silenced the major political opponents of consolidation.
In the summer of 2003, the FCC raised the national audience-reach cap from 35 percent to 45 percent. The FCC also allowed corporations to own a newspaper and a TV station in the same market and permitted corporations to own three TV stations in the largest markets, up from two, and two stations in medium-sized markets, up from one.

The article is much longer, and covers not only the loss of localism and creativity, the slanting of news coverage, and other topics.

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Sunday, August 1, 2004 6:35 PM

CGREALMS

Quote:
In 1990, the major broadcast networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox – fully or partially owned just 12.5 percent of the new series they aired. By 2000, it was 56.3 percent. Just two years later, it had surged to 77.5 percent.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. If Twentieth wasn't also the production company for "Firefly" there's no way a show that expensive would have even made it to the air. The fact the the WB didn't own Angel is part of the reason they killed it. And don't think that having the programming owned by other companies makes a huge difference. ABC only orders ABC content, NBC only orders NBC content, etc. Just to get on the air, it's already been neutered to appease the corporations behind the respective networks.

This isn't to say that I like the idea of one corporation owning every information outlet in a market. I despise it in fact. Clear Channel and the like are a plague upon a creative, diverse market of ideas. But eliminating the wall between content creation and distribution made sense. In fact, ironically, in an increasingly fractured TV market, allowing networks to produce their own content with a very minimum of restriction has perhaps saved what's left of network television.

Imagine of HBO and its ilk were not allowed to produce their own programming?

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Tuesday, August 3, 2004 12:34 PM

RUE

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Imagine if they were not able to produce their own content? The Indies would do the job. It's not like it wouldn't get done.

But my beef is with the notion that $$ drives the faceless corporations, which drive production and airing. Ted Turner points out the independents care more about content, innovation, etc. That may be true on a channel/distributor level, but not at production level. Through the power of the contract, megamedia would still drive the indies and determine what gets made and aired.

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Saturday, August 7, 2004 10:15 AM

ARAWAEN

With the understanding that I am an American, I must state my belief that what is wrong with American TV is Americans.

They willingly watch total drek like reality tv, and unfathomable (for me anyway) things like Nascar, Golf and Fishing and actually seem to prefer 'news' that consists of two pundits hurling insults at each other rather than actually having reporter doing any investigation into the truth of a matter.

Whole genres are ignored or watered down into background plot for action movies because Americans have shown repeatedly that thinking shouldn't be a part of their entertainment.

Arawaen

P.S. I am a hypocrite, as I have gotten into MXC which by my own definitions should be in the stupid category.

Um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm Angry. And I'm Armed.

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