Mass Media 101

So they canceled John from Cincinnati.

I'm going on hiatus. First because my semester is starting and I switched majors. Second it is because TV has no faith in TV.

Sure shows like Dead Like Me and Futurama get canceled and brought back on DVD. Other like Jericho and Family Guy come back on TV but most just disappear.

Radio killed vaudeville then TV came along.
The first television transmission was in 1925. During 1948-1952 there was a TV freeze and cable was born. The freeze was to set the frequencies and distance for each station.
VHF=very high frequency channels 2-13
UHF=ultra-high frequency channels 14-83 then reduced to 14-69

The Golden Age of Television
Happened in the 1950s with soldier returning from WWII and Korea with big paychecks and cheap televisions. In 1953 an affordable color TV set hit the American market.
Shows became cheaper to make thanks to "plugs" and other in show marketing.
Greats like The Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, Meet The Press, and the Today Show first were born along with quiz show and variety hours. Movie were introduced to the small screen thanks to Disney.

Then came the decline
Ratings were introduced in 1961 and a system of cost-per-viewer dominated. Then a backlash against New York and east coast taste caused the industry to move to the west.
All that was left in New York were soaps, those to eventually went. This is why the only soaps I can stomach are As the World Turns and All My Children since they are still filmed in NYC. Shows like General Hospital, Seinfeld, and countless others know that there success lies in being set in the east but they don't film here, the true heartland of America.

TV killed radio dramas and took a chunk out of the movies. The film industry hit a peak in 1946 but TV killed that quickly after the freeze was lifted.

The Turning Point
Not even the internet could stop TV. The internet is for amateurs and most people are dumb. TV has gatekeepers for a reason they filter out the crazies. Online is full of haters, deniers, and straight up thieves. The few decent people get over run by the former.

If I want to learn about elephants and how they came into existence the only place to turn is a TV documentary. Online a person who believes in the Creation Myth will only read sites that supports their view using some facts that are taken out of context. A real researcher will only find partially written articles or over priced journals.

The internet is still fun & entertaining as I tried to keep all my sites but there are others like TMZ who publish five lies and one truth and are praised for it. Now these sites are affecting TV more to the point the viewers. Every viewer wants his version of Lost or his ending of The Sopranos ignoring the creators.

What does the writer do?
He leaves an open end to appease idiots. Or in the case of Lost he tries to lose all the die-hard fans to get back to his original idea hoping to shut up the crowd.
This is not a test audience that networks now deal with, it is every audience member.

I kind of hope TV does fade away, I know it won't. It should be abandoned by the mainstream and for a few years real fans and viewers get to watch shows that have a beginning, middle, and end. No matter how low the ratings. I still have one radio station in NYC that plays radio dramas and they're great.



P.S. I'll right about once a month or if anything good happens. I still have shows to watch and maybe something else. Something to do rather than complain.