"The History of Television" has already won a Peabody
This is the seventh and most controversial installment of The History of Television: A History of Television, in which the Mayor of Television ramps up his efforts to be salacious in order to get PBS documentarians to pay attention to him. It began here a long time ago but if you read it all, you'll be worthy of a position as an "expert" in the PBS miniseries, as well.
Chapter Seven: The Terrorists Win: Reality TV
Historians generally place the War on Terror as beginning on Feb. 26, 1993, with the initial (failed) bombing of the World Trade Center, or on Oct. 12, 2000, the date of the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.
In fact, it actually began in 1992, when George H.W. Bush was empowered and MTV premiered "The Real World," the inspiration (if not, actually, the progenitor) for a subsequently noxious genre dubbed "reality TV," the anti-America movement writ large within the realms of American TV itself, a radical-fundamentalist movement to dispirit the hearts and minds of Americans by depicting prototypical young Americans as rampantly vapid, self-involved, distillery-quaffing, opposite-sex-exploiting individuals anxious for vulgar self-promotion and disinterested in the good of the nation.
The fact that initial installments proved so successful in appalling right-thinking Americans only invigorated the insurgents, who further beleaguered the country's can-do spirit with further attention-grabbing explications of stultifying, self-abnegating portraits of socially abject behavior.
Soon thereafter, all networks, incapable of stopping themselves, took to airing their cynical incarnations of "reality TV" - CBS's "Survivor," "Big Brother," "Rock Star" and "Armed and Famous;" NBC's "Fear Factor," "The Biggest Loser" and "The Singing Bee;" Fox's "The Swan," "Temptation Island," "Who's Your Daddy," "Mr. Personality," "Joe Millionaire" and "Nanny 911;" ABC's "Wife Swap," "Extreme Makeover," "Welcome to the Neighborhood," "The Bachelor: Singapore" and "Fat March;" The WB's "The Surreal Life" and "Big Man on Campus;" The CW's "America's Next Top Model," "The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll" and "One Tree Hill;" MTV's "Laguna Hills," "Date My Mom," "My Sweet Sixteen" and "The Hills;" A&E's "Intervention" and "Gene Simmons' Family Jewels;" Bravo's "Being Bobby Brown," "Blow Out," "Workout," "Flipping Out" and "Making Out;" Fox Reality's "My Bare Lady" and "Sexy Cam" - each terrifying viewers to an increasingly amplified degree with craven depictions of the most caustically and soul-atrophying superficial behavior in which human beings can aspire.
But even the most diabolical of reality-TV producers were taken aback when VH1 debuted "The Flavor of Love," which featured a crazy street person with a large clock around his neck in lieu of jewelry training women with Down Syndrome in the art of scraping their teeth on concrete. Stunned at the humanity devastated in this project, insurgent producers agreed to meet with viewers' representatives at The Hague for a series of peace talks, and a hasty arrangement was made that reality television would adhere to the Geneva Convention, that such human degradation would never again be permitted, unless, of course, Howard Stern was involved.
Immediately Spike TV halted development of a show, "Masturbating Maniacs." Though the network's official explanation was that their tissue budget was stretched beyond the breaking point, officials privately crowed that The Hague Reality-TV Conference had claimed its first victory. Its second came when A&E quietly removed "Vatican Hookers" from its development slate.
For a genre that purportedly was not scripted, its product was stultifyingly formulaic. An initial episode would invariably begin with a number of participants confiding to a cameraman that they were going to win whatever carrot was placed on the stick before them because they had the moxie and the attitude and the talent and the will to win. Then, to a host of war whoops and guttural shrieks, the participants would meet the program's host, who always had shiny hair (or a shiny bald pate), extremely white teeth and a manner far too urgent for the show's subject matter, who would warn the participants that what they were about to do was extremely difficult and in some cases illegal, but one lucky person would emerge with a good story to tell at a bar when they were in their 50s. Then, as the participants embarked upon their mission, they would invariably complain to the cameraman that this was much harder than they ever imagined and was stretching them to their limits and then they'd weep a solitary tear. Then they'd vehemently bicker with the other participants, and all was well.
A sub-genre emerged: The celeb-reality show, in which someone with whom viewers were vaguely familiar explained that they had a fantastic and kooky life but even if they didn't, the mere fact that they were famous should be enough for viewers to want to watch what amounted to home movies of them shopping and pretending to be nice to ordinary civilians. At some point, the celebrity would visit a psychic, and feign dismay at whatever gibberish the psychic would spout at them.
In each of these programs, a clear message rung out: "Hey, people are stupid."
Unidentified Old-Timey Guy Talking Head (speaking over the strands of the Pussycat Dolls' "Don't Cha"): "Reality TV was the deal-breaker, the life-changer, the thing that transformed everyone, from the most talentless dimwit from the Midwest to the most talentless dillweed from Beverly Hills with a powerful Daddy. Anyone could be a star, anyone, even Rod Stewart's @sshole son, who had neither any discernible ability nor a celebrity parent of significant note who could otherwise call in enough favors to project him into infamy. It was a democratization of television, and viewers soon discovered that they really didn't mind TV's oligarchy after all."
Coming soon: The bitter end.
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About this blog
David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place.
August 21, 2007
Television Transistions Blog written by Emmy Award Winner and Viacom Founder Ralph Baruch http://probitaspress.blogspot.com/
New York, NY— "The FCC is still at it! It is, once again, about to make a serious regulatory error in the auction of public airwaves. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t.
Let us look at the sad history of this august body:
The FCC, originally, gave us a bad television signal of 525 lines, while other places, Europe, for example, have a standard of 625 lines, providing a much better picture.
When television was first thought of, believe it or not the FCC prohibited the inclusion of commercials. As a matter of fact, the Commission fined a television station for running a commercial.
After World War II, being unable to decide which frequencies (channels) should be allocated to various markets in the U.S., to avoid interference they held up all new licenses, claiming that in a few weeks or months they would make that decision. That was 1948. It took them until 1952 – four years later – to make these decisions, allocating both VHF (channels 2-13, since channel 1 had been given away to the military) and UHF (channels 14 and above) to various communities. In most major markets the FCC allocated 3 VHF channels, with the remainder to be in the UHF spectrum.
Four major entities operated at that time: ABC, CBS, NBC, and to a lesser extent, the Du Mont Television Network.
Applicants for new television licenses in most cases had relationships in radio with the three major networks and obtained the VHF licenses. Du Mont had to be satisfied with lesser outlets, in many, many cases, in the UHF spectrum.
There was just one problem: Between the time the FCC had decided on a “freeze” in 1948 and the time when they allocated the frequencies in 1952 and 1953, it is estimated that approximately 25-30 million television sets were manufactured, virtually none of which could receive UHF. It was not until ten years later, in 1962, that the U.S. Congress mandated that all television sets had to be UHF “able.” But even then the sets were unsatisfactory. That spawned cable television. Eventually, Du Mont went out of business by selling its stations to Metro Media, later sold to Fox, and this became the basis for the Fox Network.
Originally the FCC denied it had jurisdiction over cable television, a position it subsequently had to reverse.
Then color television appeared. CBS had developed a color system which required a high-speed rotating disc to be part of the receiver – a system which was non-compatible. If you owned a set with the CBS color system you could not tune to black and white television. If you had a black and white set, you could not watch color television on the CBS color system sets. Nonetheless, the FCC approved the CBS system. Years later they had to once again reverse themselves and adopt the RCA compatible system.
The restrictions on cable and pay-cable were onerous, while at the same time the FCC claimed that the marketplace should rule. How could the marketplace rule when the playing field was completely uneven? The FCC then ruled that cable systems with more than 3,000 subscribers had to originate programs, a rule which was later scrapped by the Commission. The importation of cable signals had to be approved by the FCC and the exhibition of motion pictures on systems such as HBO or Showtime was severely restricted. A number of other FCC rules restricted cable competition with broadcasting. Eventually a new Communications Act in Congress, and the courts combined to free cable from its restraints.
How can “marketplace regulation” kill an industry? Here’s how: Years ago AM stereo radio made its appearance in the marketplace, having been developed by a number of manufacturers. The Harris Corporation and others designed AM stereo broadcasting systems, but each system required a different receiver. In its infinite wisdom, the FCC decided that the marketplace should decide which system would win out. In order to receive all of them the consumer would have to own several receivers!
To illustrate how ludicrous this decision was, let me cite another example: Let’s say that in my car I have an AM stereo receiver using the Harris system (stations broadcasting AM stereo on systems other than Harris cannot be received on it). I then travel to Philadelphia where two stations are broadcasting AM stereo, but neither used the Harris system, so my car radio becomes useless.
What was the result of this FCC decision? AM stereo was never heard from again.
These are just a few of the FCC’s ill-considered and ill-conceived past decisions. Now let’s look briefly at the future.
In little more than a year from now, the FCC is requiring all television broadcasting to switch from analog to digital service, in the process vacating a substantial portion of the spectrum. But wait: this will cause another problem. It is estimated that 75 million television sets currently in use not connected to cable or satellite service will be unable to receive these digital signals. Owners of the estimated 75 million sets will have to request forms from the government, which upon completion and return, will provide them with $40.00 coupons, only two to a household, for the purchase of converters which, when properly installed, will enable them to receive digital signals. There may be an additional catch: These coupons will only be valid for 90 days and it is rumored that these converters may be initially priced at substantially more than the $40.00 coupon price, especially in the early days before the 2009 deadline. Since the coupons are only valid for 90 days any difference would have to be paid out of pocket. It is said that the price of the converters would eventually drop as the deadline approaches, but the coupons may have expired.
So the owners of these 75 million analog television receivers would have to request the form, send it to the government, wait for the coupons and then go out, purchase and install a converter, all in order to be able to watch television. What a mess!
What is worse is that this has been a well-kept secret and that very few, if any, consumers are aware of this rapidly upcoming change.
What to do with the vacated analog spectrum of these public airwaves is to be decided at FCC auctions in 2008, but the auction rules, once again, as the New York Times, in its August 6 editorial says, mean that this is a only “a half-win” for consumers. The FCC gave in to the established carriers and its auction rules do not require winners at the auction to sell cellular phone capacity wholesale. As the New York Times says, “under the new rules, newcomers’ chances of winning at auction are slim.” The Times continues, “American consumers have once again been denied a truly open and competitive cellular market.”
The FCC prevents a newspaper in a market from owning a television station in the same community in order to ensure that news reports and local voices can obtain maximum exposure. In New York, News Corporation and the Tribune Company obtained a waiver of this rule. Now News Corporation is buying a major newspaper which can compete with every local television and radio station in the country in the propagation of news, editorials and other positions. Why should not the FCC review this matter, as one commissioner has already suggested?
In going back to the long history of FCC errors, or even malfeasance, I am not even going to comment on the long past indictment of a commissioner, the resignation due to conflict of another, its preoccupation with “indecency,” in what may have been a well-organized campaign of complaints to the Commission, or some of the other incidentals. I only wish that, just for once, the Commission would have consumers like me in mind when it makes its decisions."
Emmy Award winner Ralph Baruch is author of Television Tightrope: How I Escaped Hitler, Survived CBS and Fathered Viacom (Probitas Press Spring 2007) and How Cable Happened Despite the FCC as a Senior Fellow at Columbia University. He was a group president for CBS Television and founded Viacom, Inc. You may contact Ralph for interviews through his publisher ymaddox@probitaspress.com , visit www.probitaspress.com, or call 800-616-8081 for more information.
August 21, 2007
Television Transistions Blog written by Emmy Award Winner and Viacom Founder Ralph Baruch http://probitaspress.blogspot.com/
New York, NY— "The FCC is still at it! It is, once again, about to make a serious regulatory error in the auction of public airwaves. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t.
Let us look at the sad history of this august body:
The FCC, originally, gave us a bad television signal of 525 lines, while other places, Europe, for example, have a standard of 625 lines, providing a much better picture.
When television was first thought of, believe it or not the FCC prohibited the inclusion of commercials. As a matter of fact, the Commission fined a television station for running a commercial.
After World War II, being unable to decide which frequencies (channels) should be allocated to various markets in the U.S., to avoid interference they held up all new licenses, claiming that in a few weeks or months they would make that decision. That was 1948. It took them until 1952 – four years later – to make these decisions, allocating both VHF (channels 2-13, since channel 1 had been given away to the military) and UHF (channels 14 and above) to various communities. In most major markets the FCC allocated 3 VHF channels, with the remainder to be in the UHF spectrum.
Four major entities operated at that time: ABC, CBS, NBC, and to a lesser extent, the Du Mont Television Network.
Applicants for new television licenses in most cases had relationships in radio with the three major networks and obtained the VHF licenses. Du Mont had to be satisfied with lesser outlets, in many, many cases, in the UHF spectrum.
There was just one problem: Between the time the FCC had decided on a “freeze” in 1948 and the time when they allocated the frequencies in 1952 and 1953, it is estimated that approximately 25-30 million television sets were manufactured, virtually none of which could receive UHF. It was not until ten years later, in 1962, that the U.S. Congress mandated that all television sets had to be UHF “able.” But even then the sets were unsatisfactory. That spawned cable television. Eventually, Du Mont went out of business by selling its stations to Metro Media, later sold to Fox, and this became the basis for the Fox Network.
Originally the FCC denied it had jurisdiction over cable television, a position it subsequently had to reverse.
Then color television appeared. CBS had developed a color system which required a high-speed rotating disc to be part of the receiver – a system which was non-compatible. If you owned a set with the CBS color system you could not tune to black and white television. If you had a black and white set, you could not watch color television on the CBS color system sets. Nonetheless, the FCC approved the CBS system. Years later they had to once again reverse themselves and adopt the RCA compatible system.
The restrictions on cable and pay-cable were onerous, while at the same time the FCC claimed that the marketplace should rule. How could the marketplace rule when the playing field was completely uneven? The FCC then ruled that cable systems with more than 3,000 subscribers had to originate programs, a rule which was later scrapped by the Commission. The importation of cable signals had to be approved by the FCC and the exhibition of motion pictures on systems such as HBO or Showtime was severely restricted. A number of other FCC rules restricted cable competition with broadcasting. Eventually a new Communications Act in Congress, and the courts combined to free cable from its restraints.
How can “marketplace regulation” kill an industry? Here’s how: Years ago AM stereo radio made its appearance in the marketplace, having been developed by a number of manufacturers. The Harris Corporation and others designed AM stereo broadcasting systems, but each system required a different receiver. In its infinite wisdom, the FCC decided that the marketplace should decide which system would win out. In order to receive all of them the consumer would have to own several receivers!
To illustrate how ludicrous this decision was, let me cite another example: Let’s say that in my car I have an AM stereo receiver using the Harris system (stations broadcasting AM stereo on systems other than Harris cannot be received on it). I then travel to Philadelphia where two stations are broadcasting AM stereo, but neither used the Harris system, so my car radio becomes useless.
What was the result of this FCC decision? AM stereo was never heard from again.
These are just a few of the FCC’s ill-considered and ill-conceived past decisions. Now let’s look briefly at the future.
In little more than a year from now, the FCC is requiring all television broadcasting to switch from analog to digital service, in the process vacating a substantial portion of the spectrum. But wait: this will cause another problem. It is estimated that 75 million television sets currently in use not connected to cable or satellite service will be unable to receive these digital signals. Owners of the estimated 75 million sets will have to request forms from the government, which upon completion and return, will provide them with $40.00 coupons, only two to a household, for the purchase of converters which, when properly installed, will enable them to receive digital signals. There may be an additional catch: These coupons will only be valid for 90 days and it is rumored that these converters may be initially priced at substantially more than the $40.00 coupon price, especially in the early days before the 2009 deadline. Since the coupons are only valid for 90 days any difference would have to be paid out of pocket. It is said that the price of the converters would eventually drop as the deadline approaches, but the coupons may have expired.
So the owners of these 75 million analog television receivers would have to request the form, send it to the government, wait for the coupons and then go out, purchase and install a converter, all in order to be able to watch television. What a mess!
What is worse is that this has been a well-kept secret and that very few, if any, consumers are aware of this rapidly upcoming change.
What to do with the vacated analog spectrum of these public airwaves is to be decided at FCC auctions in 2008, but the auction rules, once again, as the New York Times, in its August 6 editorial says, mean that this is a only “a half-win” for consumers. The FCC gave in to the established carriers and its auction rules do not require winners at the auction to sell cellular phone capacity wholesale. As the New York Times says, “under the new rules, newcomers’ chances of winning at auction are slim.” The Times continues, “American consumers have once again been denied a truly open and competitive cellular market.”
The FCC prevents a newspaper in a market from owning a television station in the same community in order to ensure that news reports and local voices can obtain maximum exposure. In New York, News Corporation and the Tribune Company obtained a waiver of this rule. Now News Corporation is buying a major newspaper which can compete with every local television and radio station in the country in the propagation of news, editorials and other positions. Why should not the FCC review this matter, as one commissioner has already suggested?
In going back to the long history of FCC errors, or even malfeasance, I am not even going to comment on the long past indictment of a commissioner, the resignation due to conflict of another, its preoccupation with “indecency,” in what may have been a well-organized campaign of complaints to the Commission, or some of the other incidentals. I only wish that, just for once, the Commission would have consumers like me in mind when it makes its decisions."
Emmy Award winner Ralph Baruch is author of Television Tightrope: How I Escaped Hitler, Survived CBS and Fathered Viacom (Probitas Press Spring 2007) and How Cable Happened Despite the FCC as a Senior Fellow at Columbia University. He was a group president for CBS Television and founded Viacom, Inc. You may contact Ralph for interviews through his publisher ymaddox@probitaspress.com , visit www.probitaspress.com, or call 800-616-8081 for more information.
You are a very smart person!