On Sat, Jul 25, 2015 at 11:51 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > > But capitalism is not about making a profit, it is about continually > increasing profits. A real news cable channel could make a small, stable > profit, but not the kinds of margins the mega-corps demand for their > shareholders. > > Your point is, sadly, valid. Such greed is what killed the whole "500 channels" promise of cable TV back in the 90s, when we were told there'd be unique programing for every individual taste and interest. But even though a certain percentage of the population liked learning how things work and liked watching classic movies, not enough did, so The Learning Channel and American Movie Classics became Tlc and Amc (I don't capitalize all the letters since their own branding indicates they are no longer abbreviations).
It's bad enough we don't have the flying cars promised to us decades ago, but to have to contend with pandering networks all trying to spend as little as possible to attract as many eyeballs as possible (looking at you, Sharknado 3), the 21st century has not lived up to expectations. There will come a day (hopefully not for a long time) when mankind experiences a disaster that dwarfs 9/11, Pearl Harbor, and Oklahoma City combined. Perhaps terrorism, perhaps the result of mother nature, the disaster will require thoughtful insight and analysis. The public will want answers... but there will be nobody to give them. Gone are the days when we have news anchors or reporters we can trust. For that matter, we now pride ourselves as a nation that elects "regular guys" instead of leaders or experts, so none of the "drinking buddies" in high office could go on TV to offer any substantive reassurance (after all, when the guy at the end of the bar tells you everything will be OK, you don't believe him). The networks will send people to report live from the scene, but all that will do is point a camera at a situation we still know nothing about, and any police statements offered at the scene won't be trustes because nobody trusts law enforcement anymore. We'll go online in search of support, but only find inaccurate Wikipedia entries and Buzzfeed articles about the Top Ten worst things to ever happen to humanity. But we will have Keith O to tell us who the Worst Person in the World is, and we will have Anderson Cooper spend 10 seconds between stories about Kardashians and Hiltons to "Keep 'em honest." The Daily Show will exist to mock the lack of journalistic integrity, but that won't help. The network newscasts will offer inarticulate summaries, urging viewers to head to their respective dot-coms for additional information, but when viewers do that, all they find is a video link and transcript of the same inarticulate summaries. Most will absorb all this media and assume due to the oversaturation that they have been informed, never realizing it was all a cycle of babbling incoherence. Happy Saturday everybody! -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
