THE WEST WING drew 17 million viewers a week.
But PBS is a virtual midget compared to the state-controlled broadcast authorities such as the ones I mentioned in my prior post. In fact, many of the best PBS drama series are sourced from those state-run broadcast organizations.
Indeed. But in many cases, events like awards shows are often part of state broadcasting, such as the San Remo and the old Dischi per l'estate festivals in Italy, all run by RAI.
And it tends to aim more at the largest group of "the masses" as there is no government subsidy.
And, given the horrible quality in the last several broadcast network seasons, that will be an improvement. But I have a huge concern for the large percentage of Americans who depend on broadcast TV and can't afford alternatives.
Also, a lot of local news is being replaced by social media postings, and sites like "Nextdoor", where a lot of local news items are posted. My suburb of over 100K used to have its own newspaper. That folded into a non-working website in the 2010's, and has since been replaced by Nextdoor neighborhood and similar social media.
Both The West Wing and Beverly Hillbillies were very good shows in their time. Two very different kind of shows though and drastically different demo targets.
Newspapers are still pretty cheap in my end of town and a hell of a lot less expensive than a cell phone, a trip to the beauty parlor or a subscription to a bunch of mind-dulling TV fluff.
Anyone with a name like Newton Minnow was obviously born with a chip on his shoulder. But he was right.
There is a quick and easy fix to this problem and that is to fine/jail the business owners/managers who hire these illegals. The only problem then is who would do all the work they are doing now?
Not really. Both targeted 18-49 larger urban area adults... because that is where the overnights came from.
Political shows tend to mirror our electoral system of campaign, 4 year presidency, re-election campaign and then they fade out.
www.insider.com
Costs of doing TV in the 50's were amazingly high because the technology was not mature. Video tape came later in that era, and film was expensive and costly to edit. Cameras and master control required a huge team to operate. Studio lights generated so much heat that breaks were frequent and A/C could not run due to the noise. Transmitters required fulltime engineers.
Only the US (and for a while, Canada) licensed daytime AM radio. All those daytimers you knew in the 50's are still there, along with about 1000 more.
Considering the costs, technology and the fact the for much of the 50's most households did not have a TV, they did a pretty admirable job.
Bingo. Start checking the food processing industry for a start... but legislators fear that there would be product shortages and election losses!
Some smaller stations are already pooling their resources and doing this to some extent. Where my parents live, for instance, their (small market) station airs 3 or 4 local 30 minute newscasts per day, but their 5 or 5:30 newscast is a regional or statewide one where I believe 3 different stations contribute stories, and a central anchor presents them so you see a mix of stories from around that state or region. To be frank, if their local stations had to do more than those few newscasts each day, it would be incredibly repetitive and monotonous. As it is they use a lot of state and national stories to fill time, they run on a shoestring so even the "anchors" from that station go out into the field, shoot video, do interviews and post on social media, and so little that's truly "newsworthy" happens in that area that many of the newscasts might as well be repeats of the earlier ones. At times I've seen them report out the same stories with the same video roll for more than a few days in a row. In their case it most likely does make more sense for a few stations to pool resources, and just keep a few staff local to shoot video and cover breaking stories and larger events.
Nobody under about 50 buys a newspaper. Cities like Cleveland and New Orleans don't even print a paper every day.
On that we agree. There needs to be a better qualification of those receiving assistance so that those really needing it get more and those who put their free food money into cars and luxuries have to work for those items.
Yep, but as long as politicians know that they will get more votes if they provide more people with free stuff, this won't stop.
The problem is that behind the curtain, the well healed and influential are quite pleased with how much they pay for their lawns to get cut, or the sewer line across their estate to be hand dug.
Allow the retired copy editor to jump in and correct the man's surname to Minow.
And that idiom is "well heeled."
Making my point that the decline in broadcast ratings is not simply a reflection of the decline in the quality of the programming.
