I think we're witnessing a path to total pay per view. It seems logical to me. It would provide cable show access to every household (not cash for the "pay" part, at least access). The thought that any business at all is better than none should be easy for the big cable-cos to digest. If not? It won't be long before we see street signs on corners that read "will work for cable package". Really, at a hundred or so a pop combined with rent-mortgage, POWER, insurance, car payments, cell bills etc.,'s like FOOD, gas, batteries, chocolate, bubble bath.. uh huh and chocolate and bubbles rank higher on my needs list than does cable tv tho ive become addicted to certain things like cspan and msnbc. i didnt watch any television for 7 years, it seemed like an easy way to free up a lot of time but after i finished grad school i sort of eased back into the habit over the years.
.As for losing popularity? I can't answer why anyone would prefer to watch Gay or Straight, Mommas Boys or Wife Swap over ANY CSI. It's not real, per se, but there's some real science and an element of reality in the plots.
i liked wife swap the first season or so. i thought it a great sociological experiment and tho it has to be edited with a perspective there is no ongoing obvious commentary from the outside, only people being who they are in the strange situation of walking into someones life and switching and ive liked the pairings: pagans with southern fundamentalists, a lesbian couple with some homophobes people who have very unbalanced regimented anal lifestyles with the uber laid back, blacks with whites and you can literally see people grow in the exchange. i have to wonder tho what some of these people think when they watch themselves later after behaving in such extreme ways.
How our government ever got so deep into what and how we watch or listen to amazes and disgusts me. Why we ever allowed them to saddens me. But no, now everyone without cable requires a "box" and "vouchers" to purchase them with.
i get the voucher thing. for information, news and govt to be transparent in a world where info is broadcast mostly over the net and on the tv restricting access to either or requiring that someone pay for what was once free seems..i dunno..a step backwards maybe?
And yes, apparently I am about to be "anonymous" again...
As for the "cop" shows, I recently discovered Criminal Minds, and really enjoy it. The interaction between the characters is a positive example of teamwork, something we lost sight of as as society. Now that I think of it the show may have been cancelled and I'm seeing it in syndication on cable anyway. . I really don't know.
oh no its still on. that was one of the few network hits and the season began a month or so ago. a friend tapes it for me each wed because thats a work night for me and i like the show a lot. its much better now than it was in the beginning. the last episode i watched seemed to be a precursor to the events in dallas over the last few days. a fed up middle aged balding guy is tired of being emasculated in society and turns his aggression on hapless drivers. looks like the picked up a suspect in the dallas incidents tho it also appears that he tried to kill himself in the aftermath.
"...With reality TV becoming more popular, other shows such as 'Boston Legal' and 'The Shield' are losing their popularity and being canceled. 'Total Request Live,' the afternoon video show that has been an MTV flagship for 10 years, came to an end this year.
The long running shows ER, MADtv and King of the Hill will also be ending their runs at the end of the current TV season this spring."
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Have we really come to the point where "entertainment" is so devalued we are willing to dump shows with ACTORS and PLOTS to watch other people live their lives? Have we truly become so voyeuristic a nation, that "art" can so easily be excluded from our television fare?
Precious few are the decent dramas on non-cable TV. I can, off the top of my head think of two, and one of them is in the list above. All the rest are rifle with violence -- "cop shows."
I'm fully expecting the Christmas Special this year to be CSI North Pole.
I think we're witnessing a path to total pay per view. It seems logical to me. It would provide cable show access to every household (not cash for the "pay" part, at least access). The thought that any business at all is better than none should be easy for the big cable-cos to digest. If not? It won't be long before we see street signs on corners that read "will work for cable package". Really, at a hundred or so a pop combined with rent-mortgage, POWER, insurance, car payments, cell bills etc.,'s like FOOD, gas, batteries, chocolate, bubble bath...As for losing popularity? I can't answer why anyone would prefer to watch Gay or Straight, Mommas Boys or Wife Swap over ANY CSI. It's not real, per se, but there's some real science and an element of reality in the plots.
I don't know. As with anything I like choice. Though I rarely stray from four or five channels anyway. Total PPV may be an interesting thing to test. It might also save an industry, maybe add some new jobs and still provide a needed distraction from the realities of the reality show we call life. How our government ever got so deep into what and how we watch or listen to amazes and disgusts me. Why we ever allowed them to saddens me. But no, now everyone without cable requires a "box" and "vouchers" to purchase them with.
And yes, apparently I am about to be "anonymous" again...
As for the "cop" shows, I recently discovered Criminal Minds, and really enjoy it. The interaction between the characters is a positive example of teamwork, something we lost sight of as as society. Now that I think of it the show may have been cancelled and I'm seeing it in syndication on cable anyway. . I really don't know.
"...With reality TV becoming more popular, other shows such as 'Boston Legal' and 'The Shield' are losing their popularity and being canceled. 'Total Request Live,' the afternoon video show that has been an MTV flagship for 10 years, came to an end this year.
The long running shows ER, MADtv and King of the Hill will also be ending their runs at the end of the current TV season this spring."
---------------------------------
Have we really come to the point where "entertainment" is so devalued we are willing to dump shows with ACTORS and PLOTS to watch other people live their lives? Have we truly become so voyeuristic a nation, that "art" can so easily be excluded from our television fare?
its the place where home entertainment has to rethink itself and find new ways to prosper id guess. good dramas have high price tags. the acctors have to be paid, the writers have to be paid and all of that either means that you have shows with few characters or situations or ya get reality tv which pays next to nothing for those who "star" in them. look at all of those shows where there are 40 people competing for one prize. id expect the payoff for advertising on shows has dropped off what with tivo and other internet spaces where you can watch shows without the ads so how do we fund a system that supports shows with good writing and good acting. the arts have never been well funded under the best of circumstances and with the world economy in turmoil i dont expect the government to pick up the slack anytime soon tho whats another trillion here or there!?
the other side of this is more difficult and thats what is it that people want to see? people apparently like watching train wreck tv and that has meaning if we spend any amount of time looking at the why of that?
i can think of many reasons:sensory overload, poor attention spans, an educational system that does not allow critical thinking or an appreciation for the arts, people whose lives are so consumed with methods and means of production that they have to experience lived experience vicariously. i could go on and on here but the bottom line is that i think what were seeing means something and that something is important.
every epoch seems at times thematic and there is a theme to the kind of mindlessness that we are seeing. its up to us to decide what, if anything to do about it.
televison is not the only casualty. theatre suffers the best offerings are now done in non main stage settings because of the belief that good innovative makes you think theatre wont sell tickets or attract funding. sort of a self fulfilling prophesy tho isnt it? we give them crap and crap becomes what they want to see.
movies follow along the same lines. the multiplexes are owned by the same corporations and the movie makers apparently owned by corporations as well. some multiplexes wont show films produced by a competing corporations filmakers. the end result is to look at the marquee of the 12 movie palace and see 4 kids films in two theaters each along with some numbskull comedy by a numbskull comic who entertains us with variations on P enis gags. giving up 2 or 3 hours of life to sit thru one of these is not exactly appealing for me. the good or thoughtful movies now require a trek of maybe 20 miles to find some obscure art theater that might show them. i want to see doubt, and frost/ nixon and slumdog millionaire and revolutionary road and the reader and good and the boy in the striped pajamas and the curious case of benjamin button and perhaps only the latter will be shown at the local multiplex, the rest i have to travel to see. meanwhile the multiplexes are closing like crazy and the art houses are jammed with theater goers. someone made a bad call in deciding what people who go to movies want to see. they may have judged the pulse of america correctly by thinking about what the majority of people who watch tv want and then moving that idea over to film but those apparently arent the movie ticket buyers so the multiplex plays to nearly empty theaters and sells popcorn for 9 dollars a bucket while the art theaters sell tickets for 7 bucks and popcorn for 350. thats been my experience anyway. last time i went to the multiplex i was the only one in there and my ticket was a freebie and when i went to see milk last week the theater was completely full and it was sro for the show after that as well and it wasnt opening night either, itd been there for a week.
bottom line is i think there is a market for intelligent entertainment but i think those who are in charge pander to those who dont really care what they watch as long as it stimulates some receptors somewhere.
I'm fully expecting the Christmas Special this year to be CSI North Pole.
and thell try them abd fry them on law and order north pole!
"...With reality TV becoming more popular, other shows such as 'Boston Legal' and 'The Shield' are losing their popularity and being canceled. 'Total Request Live,' the afternoon video show that has been an MTV flagship for 10 years, came to an end this year.
The long running shows ER, MADtv and King of the Hill will also be ending their runs at the end of the current TV season this spring."
---------------------------------
Have we really come to the point where "entertainment" is so devalued we are willing to dump shows with ACTORS and PLOTS to watch other people live their lives? Have we truly become so voyeuristic a nation, that "art" can so easily be excluded from our television fare?
Precious few are the decent dramas on non-cable TV. I can, off the top of my head think of two, and one of them is in the list above. All the rest are rifle with violence -- "cop shows."
I'm fully expecting the Christmas Special this year to be CSI North Pole.
. I really don't know.
