Television: The Vast Wasteland

by James Hudnall

In 1961, John F Kennedy’s FCC chairman Newton N. Minow gave a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters which is still cited today. You’ll understand why when you read the money quote:

When television is good, nothing–not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers–nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and-loss sheet or rating book to distract you–and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, violence, audience-participation shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western badmen, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence and cartoons. And, endlessly, commercials–many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you will see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, try it.

Sound familiar? Aside from the dated reference of station sign offs, this is pretty much what you see today. Except now we have over 200 channels.

Today, if you have a certain interest, there’s a channel for it. But even that gets old.

Minow’s speech was in 1961 when you were lucky to have 3 TV stations in your town. In 1980 the band Pink Floyd released “The Wall” album which had the classic line “13 channels of $#!+ on the TV to choose from.” And here we are, almost 30 years later and the song remains the same (except the 13 channels part).

Yesterday I talked about the point of a story. Today I want to talk about why so much stuff on TV is drek.

Back in the day, it was a industry view that television shows existed to deliver consumers to advertisers. Shows were made as good as they had to be to achieve that goal.

In the minds of the executives, it’s as mercenary as that. Entertainment brings viewers in. And once they’re in, they’re sold to. That’s been their business model for decades.

The creators of these shows, the entertainers who starred in them, may have thought it was all about them. But from a business standpoint, the suits were looking to get money from advertisers and they wanted shows as a product to sell to them. Every year they have conventions where they bring out this season’s new series, and they try to get the local stations and advertisers hyped up on them.

As a result, they’re looking for certain kinds of proven formulas to reach a target group. The groups being people who fit into certain demographics, a.k.a. demos.

In the old days, broadcasting was a new method of disseminating information. The only way to do that before was via print or public speakers. Broadcasting transmitted its message to radios and later to televisions. You hoped that a large percentage of viewers would like what you were selling. The target group was anyone who watched or listened.

But as times changed and marketeers got more sophisticated, they moved to “narrowcasting”. Narrowcasting involves sending your message to a select few. Say, women. Or teens. Now we’re splitting hairs to the point where we’ve got channels for aspiring cooks, sports fans, documentary freaks, movie buffs, decorators, etc. They know which people watch these kinds of shows and they sell the ad time accordingly.

In the near future we’ll be dealing with “pointcasting”. Broadcasting is to the many, narrowcasting is to the few. Pointcasting is to the individual. With modern technologies like RFID chips and frequent shopper cards (like the ones your grocery store gave you), they can track what kind of products you buy and they will be able to target specific ads to your personal tastes. Even in stores. So when you walk into a store right now, and you see flat screen TVs playing something, they will eventually play something for you specifically. This technology exists. I’ve worked with a company that is developing their product in that area. They are not alone.

There may come a time where TV series are tailored to the tastes of the narrowest of demos. The individual. We’re getting there.

TV fans just want the shows. They don’t want the ads. They’ve learned how to cut them out. So the TV networks, faced with the loss of revenue from advertisers, have had to think up new ways to get those ads back in front of the viewers. They’ve resorted to having more product placement in shows. They’ve created sites like Hulu which allow you to see their shows for free, but you have to sit through the ads.

Ultimately, it’s about bringing the consumers to the advertisers. Whatever can be done to achieve that goal will be done.

From a creative standpoint, we have to consider new approaches as the old systems die off, or morph into something entirely new.

There are many excellent shows being made right now. Television has been more interesting than film in the last few years. But the wasteland quote still applies.

As TV viewership dwindles, as people spend more time on the Internet and elsewhere, there will be an opportunity to find a new means of bringing in the consumer. People will always want entertainment. But what will be the format?

We’re slowly moving away from the broadcasting age and toward a new, “pointcasting” age of entertainment which will take strange new forms. Next time I’ll talk about that.


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Posted Jan 14th 2009 at 6:00 am in Entertainment, Media Criticism | 38 Comments