CommenTerry

Just a Concept?

Several months back, a guy who authors a popular television technology website posted an article that referred to the fallacious 500-channel universe. As I have stated in some previous posts, there are no cable or satellite systems in the U.S. (that I know of) which will currently allow their customers to subscribe to 500 or more channels. Yet people, including the guy I am referring to, talk about the 500 channel universe as if it has been a reality for over 15 years.

Anyway, I emailed him and challenged his 500-channel assertion. He promptly and sarcastically replied back that everyone knows the reference to 500 channels is "just a concept." Everyone but me, it seems.

I wonder what would happen if we applied this same kind of logic to other things. Let's suppose a company was opening up a new factory in your town and was placing help-wanted ads with salaries advertised as $1000 per week. Then suppose their new-hires took a look at their pay stubs after their first week of work and discovered that they had each received only $700 in gross pay for that week. If their boss explained this discrepancy by saying, "Come on folks, the $1000 a week thing is just a concept", do you think those workers would accept that as a valid answer?

Game Show Contestants I Don't Root For

Unlike many people, I refuse to root for every single game show contestant to win money and/or prizes. There are certain types of contestants that I just refuse to root for. These kinds of contestants are described below:

1) Those who seem overly street smart.

2) Those who seem aggressive or extremely assertive.

3) Those who appear presumptuous (they start celebrating too early and/or seem to presume they are going to win).

4) Those who seem to have sense of personal entitlement (they feel that they deserve to win).

5) Those who seem to be poor money managers (obviously, these people don’t deserve to be handed large sums of money).

6) Those who seem too secular-minded (having little time for God or religion).

7) Those who like to party a little too much (sorry, but I have a built-in bias against such people). 

8) Those who appear to be muckety-mucks or other highly credentialed, venerated, or decorated individuals.

9) Those who appear to have been born into a life of privilege.

10) Elitists.

Greta Van Susteren's Variety Show

I get so tired of all the TV news shows that seem to cover the same topics all the time. However, you won't find that on Fox News Channel's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren. No siree! Unlike the hosts of all those other shows, Greta offers an unparalleled variety of topics.

For example, here's what she covered during just one recent week:

On Monday, she brought us breaking news on the Natalee Holloway case.

Then on Tuesday, she gave us breaking news on the Natalee Holloway case.

On Wednesday, she uncovered breaking news on the Natalee Holloway case.

On Thursday, she delved into the subject of breaking news on the Natalee Holloway case.

Finally, on Friday, she revealed breaking news on the Natalee Holloway case.

Folks, I don't know what we would do without Greta Van Susteren.

Satellite TV Must Change or Die

The satellite TV industry must change its strategy or die. Satellite's current model of settling for the role of "cable on a stick" is not going to work too much longer into the future. Cable has everything satellite is currently offering plus even more innovative things like video-on-demand and IPTV that the satellite providers will never be able to match.

Satellite operators seem bent on wasting their bandwidth on making all local channels available in HDTV. But that's like putting lipstick on a pig. Besides, cable can always provide stuff like that much easier and much better. Instead, the satellite TV should be using all that bandwidth to provide content that cable will never provide, i.e., lots of niche and international channels with programming not available anywhere else. Will they ever do this? Probably not until desperation sets in.

A Name Change for Food Network?

While flipping through the vast wasteland of what we know as the cable TV channels, I recently came across a show on Food Network entitled Everyday Italian. The hostess of the show is a buxom Italian lady by the name of Giada De Laurentis. During this particular installment, she was wearing a very low-cut blouse and showing an awful lot of cleavage. Needless to say, I was so distracted by the display of flesh that I cannot for the life of me tell you what she was actually cooking. After all, like all the shows on the Food Network, Everyday Italian is a cooking show, so why the need for all the distracting cleavage? And I thought the name of the channel was Food Network, not Boob Network!

Wheel of Fortune's Presto Chango

Did anyone else notice the Wheel of Fortune snafu on Monday, December 10th? After the show returned from a commercial at approximately the 18-minute mark, there were three completely different contestants than before. Apparently what happened was that someone was asleep at the wheel (pun intended) and mistakenly aired the Tuesday installment for the first 18 minutes and then realized their mistake and completed the time slot with the Monday installment. The mistake may have originated at my local affiliate, as I am not sure who is at fault.

The One-Eyed Living Room Sex Monster

I can’t even sit down to watch the evening news or a football game anymore without having to endure some of those disgusting Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis commercials. There are lots of topics I like to explore while watching TV, but old men’s sexual dysfunction is not one of them. Even when and if I ever have the need to be treated for such a problem, I still wouldn’t want the treatments advertised on TV. Those products should be recommended to me privately by my doctor, not tastelessly pasted all over everyone’s TV screens.

And why does every episode of every TV “comedy” nowadays have to be filled with sexual innuendo? Can’t they just do one episode once in while that doesn’t lean on sexual perversion for laughs? Besides, I’ve never understood the concept of using sex as comedic fodder. I can see how sex could be considered serious fun, but there’s absolutely nothing funny about it, in my opinion.

My TV Viewing as a Kid

During my preschool/elementary school days of the mid-to-late 1960's, my favorite TV shows were Batman, Lost in Space, Wild Wild West, The Red Skelton Show, and Bewitched. As I recall, my bother (who is just 11 months younger that I) seemed to like the same shows. My parents weren't big TV watchers at that time (they really didn't get into the whole TV thing until about a decade later), so they pretty much let us watch what we wanted. Back then, they didn't have to worry about the kind of inappropriate stuff that parents have to be concerned about now.

My brother and I were quite obsessed about regularly watching these shows. One Friday night, when my father was working the four-to-midnight shift at the plant, Wild Wild West was pre-empted by a special program. I was okay with it, but my brother went nuts! After having a temper tantrum (which included beating his head against the floor), he asked my mother for the phone number at the plant where my dad worked. When she asked him why, he said he was going to tell him to go down to the TV studio and shoot the station manager for allowing his favorite show to be taken away that night!

Speaking of preemptions, they used to pull this trick on The Red Skelton Show that always irked my brother and me. When it was time for the show to come on, an announcer would say, "The Red Skelton Shelton Show will not be seen tonight so that we may bring you a special episode of ... The Red Skelton Show!

Neither of us realized at the time that Batman was actually a comedy. We took it very seriously and were often scared to look during some of the sequences when the villain was about do Batman and Robin in. We also found Lost in Space a bit too scary and intense at that time.

I hated the way the Wednesday night episode of Batman always left us hanging until the Thursday night episode. I didn't understand why they couldn't (just once, anyway) resolve everything on Wednesday night. But I guess that woud have meant no Thursday night episode. I remember Lost in Space also pulling a regular "to be continued" stunt. Instead of showing some previews of next week's episode (like most other shows did), it would actually start the next week week's episode at the end of the current week's program and leave us with a cliff-hanger.

The main reason I liked Bewitched is because I had a crush on Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha. I remember my brother and I getting into this big debate about who played Serena, Samantha's cousin on the show. I contended that she was also played by Elizabeth Montgomery, only in a black wig and trashier outfits. My brother, however, insisted that she was played by a different actress. He even claimed he had seen the actress' name listed in the closing credits. Of course, he never really did, because I was right -- as usual.

Ten Reasons I Watch C-SPAN and C-SPAN2

I find myself watching C-SPAN and C-SPAN2 more and more often. Here are ten reasons for this, in no particular order:

1) No screaming or yelling (except when Congress is in session).

2) Truly fair and balanced: Allows input from all sides -- with no agenda or spin.

3) No celebrity lifestyles or gossip.

4) Intelligent discussion and debate.

5) Unfiltered coverage of the important issues of the day.

6) No reality shows.

7) No "soft" news, feel-good stories, or "magazine" shows.

8) No commercials.

9) Not dominated by commentators (or their personalities).

10) Provides a public forum to leading newsmakers and authors.

Serious News Network?

All of the current cable news channels are rife with so much fluff that it's often difficult to discern what the real news is. I would like to see a new kind of cable news channel that only carries serious news. They could give it a name like Serious News Network, or SNN. Of course, its name wouldn't matter nearly as much as its content.

Here are some of the ground rules that I would propose for this channel:

1) As much national and world news as reasonably possible would be covered. Every effort would be made to cover news from all regions of the world.

2) There would be no editorializing by any of the broadcasters and no pundits would be regularly featured or employed by the channel. Reporters would not be allowed to make value judgments on any news story -- they would be directed to report all stories as is. The channel would take no official position on any story. However, politicians and political operatives across every spectrum would be interviewed from time to time. Also, opinions sent in by viewers would be read on-the-air at regular intervals.

3) No "soft" news or "feel-good" stories would be carried. In addition, no magazine-type stories or programs would be featured.

4) The reporting of facts about impending court cases would be severely limited to prevent the poisoning of jury pools. For cases involving an alleged rape, the identities of both the alleged victim and the alleged rapist would be kept confidential until a determination of guilt could be made. If the alleged rapist is found guilty or plea bargains, his identity would be revealed at that time. If the alleged victim is, at any point, found to be lying, her identity would be revealed.

5) No story, other than something involving a serious national or world crisis, could get more than five minutes of air time in any one-hour period.

6) There would be no celebrity lifestyle stories or programs. However, celebrities could be included in any serious stories they might happen to be involved in. Deaths of major celebrities and sports icons would be reported but not dwelt on. 

7) No loud or annoying music would accompany the broadcasts.

8) "Teaser lines" -- obscure, sensationalized, and often misleading references to upcoming stories -- would not be used.

9) No attempt would be made to "make" news by participating in "gotchya" journalism, assisting in sting operations, going undercover, etc.

10) Reporters with strong personalities that might overshadow the news coverage would not be hired.

11) Controversial stories would not be shied away from. However, every attempt would be made to cover all angles and viewpoints involved.

12) Stories that appeal to our voyeuristic tendencies, such as those about attractive white women kidnapped or killed, would not get a special priority (see item 5 above).

13) On election night, only the actual vote totals would be reported as they came in. No winners would be declared until they had mathematically clinched the election. Politicians' and/or candidates' internal polls would not be reported. Exit polls would be forbidden.   

14) The numbers of casualties resulting from accidents, wars, terrorist attacks, natural disasters, manmade tragedies, etc. would not be reported until at least 24 hours after the fact. In addition, the privacy of the victims and their families would be respected, i.e., no employee of this channel would shove a microphone in one of their faces shortly after the incident. 

15) No speculative reporting would be done and no anonymous or off-the-record sources would be used.