interesting op/ed on the state of television

[Chris Springob]

I thought this op/ed by Jonah Goldberg on the decline in the quality of television was pretty interesting for two reasons:

1) The thesis that the "Golden Age" of television in the 50s and 60s wasn't really as golden as the 80s and 90s. I'm not old enough to make a fair comparison myself, but what I've seen of sci fi television from that era leads me to think that the 90s was better for at least that genre.

2) The idea that quality TV is finished. Had always thought that these things were cyclical, but this article got me thinking that maybe quality TV isn't coming back. Maybe it is in fact a medium that's had its run, and won't be able to attract quality talent in the future.

 

[ElScorcho]

Mr Goldberg makes a good point by stating that in the "golden age" of TV, there was nothing else to watch except for the big networks. Now that nearly everyone has cable/satellite, you can effectively watch TV for hours without actually watching anything. Personally, I try to turn it off if I've been flipping for more than twenty minutes. A hundred channels is too much of a temptation for the short attention span.

The main decline in the mass media is, of course, "reality TV". It's cheap to produce and the audience eats it up. I was at a party recently and heard a group of people talking about people that seemed to be good friends of theirs. Turns out they were talking about Survivor! The networks have come to the conclusion that people will watch just about anything and sadly, they're just about right. It's no problem for them to pull someone off the street who will work for next to nothing to be on TV. Actors are being replaced by nobodies for these mean spirited programmes and the schedules are hard pressed to find room for comedies and dramas. I've heard it said (I'm paraphrasing here) that a certain person could no longer watch TV because they just weren't interested in forensic studies or teenagers singing torch songs. I have to agree with them.

The only thing we've got going now is the industry's surprising success of DVD sales of television series. Season set sales are booming across every genre and now networks are taking the numbers seriously. It's actually worked itself to a point where fans actually have an influence on future programming strategy. And for sci fi fans, we now have the opportunity to see every episode of The X-Files, TNG or DS9 without even tuning in anymore.

Who knows what something like that could mean for the broadcast medium. TV series could end up as a premium service (as with HBO and Showtime or basic cable) or even a pay-per-view service as people begin to see that they have to pay for quality programming because the networks can mass produce pale imitations. DVDs have revolutionised the way I watch TV myself. It'll be interesting to see what happens next.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Goldberg is too young to remember the actual golden age of television himself, which is clearly shown by his use of The Honeymooners and I Love Lucy as his examples. Both came after the "golden age", which was almost entirely a matter of live shows originating out of New York. With their single camera film technique and roots in the Hollywood studio system The Honeymooners and Lucy were in fact the progenitors of sitcoms like Friends and The Brady Bunch and the whole concept of the rerun and syndication. In otherwords they represent the beginnings of the "modern age" of television and a real break with the golden age.

While there was certainly a fair amount of crap in the late 40s and early 50s, the few years that make up the golden age really were a time when what was available in prime time was of an astonishingly high quality. 12 Angry Men, Marty and Reqium for a Heavyweight were all originally written as plays for live television and only later made it to Broadway and/or the movies. Paddy Chaefsky, Neil Simon and Woody Allen were all television writers for either the 90 minute drama series or the live comedy shows like Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour. (At different times Sid Caesar had Neil Simon, Mel Brooks Larry (M*A*S*H) Gelbart and Woody Allen in his writer's bullpen.) The "lowest common denomenator" in those days was a lot higher than it is how.

In 1947 a television was a damned expensive thing. There was not one (much less several) in every American home. Television ownership was restricted, both geographically and economically. Television stations and television receivers were much more common in and around the big cities of the northeast, the upper midwest and the Pacific coast than in the rural midwest and the south. The television audience tended to have more money and more education than the average American. They read books, newspapers, attended the theater and the opera. This is the audience the networks programmed for during that brief period when television had spread just far enough to be a national medium, but not yet so far as to be a true mass medium. As the price of a TV came down (as more and more high tech production capacity was returned from military to civilian use) and incomes rose (in the post-war economic boom) TVs sold in astounding numbers until by the mid-50s you could have a low-brow "hit" like Lucy or Uncle Miltie. (Although the audience was still dominated by big city numbers to the degree that a Catholic Bishop could beat Berle in the ratings thanks to all the Catholic immigrants and their children in Boston, New York, Detroit and elsewhere. ) By that time production was increasingly moving to Los Angeles where the writing was dominated by second and third ranked film writers instead of the more literate East coast fraternity who (often rightly) saw TV as a stepping-stone to Broadway. The Golden Age was over.

Regards,

Joe

 

[GKarsEye]

If any new, exciting, or ground-breaking programming will happen on Television, it will be on cable. The age of broadcast rule is over.

 

[AntonyF]

If any new, exciting, or ground-breaking programming will happen on Television, it will be on cable. The age of broadcast rule is over.

Yep. Undoubtedly. Doens't really apply here in the UK. But US exports.. that pattern is really forming.