July 8, 2006.
Let's begin by stating the obvious: American television is about money. First, last and always. Not art, not entertainment, and certainly not people. Actors and Audiences are treated with equal disdain and viewed only as pawns with which a Network can serve and placate its only true love -- The advertising community and their hugely profitable commercials.
Previously, this disdain for the audience has been held in check and some attempt was made at discretion, but this news from ABC tears away any remaining vestige of doubt and frankly beggars logic.
In a way it could be viewed as bravery - They have decided to abandon any further pretense and openly treat the viewers as the brainless, irrelevant advertiser-fodder their past behavior [in common with other networks] gave ample evidence they believed them to be.
And this news comes just as ABC have completed their up-front advertising sales for the next year, grossing a stunning $2.3 billion. That's $200 million more than the same period last year - but still only 75% of the total advertising they intend to make the audiences endure.
...And still they want more.
Each of their shows involves six or more 'Producers,' who collect gargantuan salaries for doing amounts of work most rational people couldn't locate with a magnifier. To pay for all this intellectual dead-wood the network then infests these shows with commercial breaks so protracted and intrusive, viewers are compelled to either change channel or switch off.
Then the Networks have the guileless impertinence to complain about falling audiences.
Now comes the news that their next ploy is to corrupt the entire procedure so that not only will anyone possessed of the intestinal fortitude to endure this avaricious assault not be able to skip the commercials, they are to be actively forbidden to do so because the Network [ABC for now, but keep watching] doesn't find it acceptable.
This is condescending, pecuniary, drool-flecked greed and a lamentable example of the audience-decimating stupidity of which all networks are increasingly guilty, and of which ABC should be especially ashamed. Actors are not cattle, and audiences are not sheep. If the Networks could learn this, their success with both could exceed their most fervent dreams.
...Were a rationale even needed for why I do what I do, before you lies one isolated example whose persuasive capacity requires little explanation.
Let's begin by stating the obvious: American television is about money. First, last and always. Not art, not entertainment, and certainly not people. Actors and Audiences are treated with equal disdain and viewed only as pawns with which a Network can serve and placate its only true love -- The advertising community and their hugely profitable commercials.
Previously, this disdain for the audience has been held in check and some attempt was made at discretion, but this news from ABC tears away any remaining vestige of doubt and frankly beggars logic.
In a way it could be viewed as bravery - They have decided to abandon any further pretense and openly treat the viewers as the brainless, irrelevant advertiser-fodder their past behavior [in common with other networks] gave ample evidence they believed them to be.
And this news comes just as ABC have completed their up-front advertising sales for the next year, grossing a stunning $2.3 billion. That's $200 million more than the same period last year - but still only 75% of the total advertising they intend to make the audiences endure.
...And still they want more.
Each of their shows involves six or more 'Producers,' who collect gargantuan salaries for doing amounts of work most rational people couldn't locate with a magnifier. To pay for all this intellectual dead-wood the network then infests these shows with commercial breaks so protracted and intrusive, viewers are compelled to either change channel or switch off.
Then the Networks have the guileless impertinence to complain about falling audiences.
Now comes the news that their next ploy is to corrupt the entire procedure so that not only will anyone possessed of the intestinal fortitude to endure this avaricious assault not be able to skip the commercials, they are to be actively forbidden to do so because the Network [ABC for now, but keep watching] doesn't find it acceptable.
This is condescending, pecuniary, drool-flecked greed and a lamentable example of the audience-decimating stupidity of which all networks are increasingly guilty, and of which ABC should be especially ashamed. Actors are not cattle, and audiences are not sheep. If the Networks could learn this, their success with both could exceed their most fervent dreams.
...Were a rationale even needed for why I do what I do, before you lies one isolated example whose persuasive capacity requires little explanation.
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