kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@mc.lcs.mit.edu (08/27/86)
... I see lots of opinions I don't like on TV. I take this
as a good sign. - CWM]
I see lots of opinions I don't like in books and magazines. I also
see lots of opinions I *DO* like in books and magazines. There is a
great deal of diversity. There is little diversity on broadcast TV.
I don't know enough about cable TV to comment.
Anyone on this list can write a book or at least write articles and
short stories for magazines. How many people ever get a chance to
write for TV? It's just a much smaller demand. Since producing a TV
program costs so much more than producing a book or magazine, every TV
program must appeal to many millions of people just to break even.
If I wrote a book and it sold ten million copies I would be famous
and probably rich. If I wrote a TV program which was watched by ten
million viewers it would be cancelled before the end of the season.
Because of this big audience requirement, producers tend to be
extremely cautious and always aim for the lowest common denominator.
This means the same old set of tried and true westerns, police shows,
sitcoms, etc. In politics, the lowest common denominator is a sort of
watered down liberalism, and this is the political view that is
presented on TV almost exclusively.
...Keith
[ Well, like I said before, cable TV's diversity is where TV is going.
The 'establishment' of TV said that narrow-interest stations like MTV
and CNN (and ESPN, and CBN, and MSG, and CNN2, and HBO, Showtime,
etc., etc.) would never make it. Nevertheless, they survive and
prosper. I'm surprised that you are so down on TV shows 'sameness'.
The producers of most TV shows operate on the principles you hold
dear: sell what people want. If people don't want what they sell,
they watch something else. If a show stays on the air, people are
watching it. If the producers of TV shows don't have much
imagination, well, that's too bad. As to a 'liberal blandness',
perhaps it is the people who run the stations that have this bias.
Jesse Helms, before he became a Senator, was vice-president of Capital
Broadcasting in North Carolina (Channel 5, Raleigh). He gave an
editorial every night. If you think that was a 'liberal blandness',
think again. - CWM]
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