Posted on 09/23/2013 8:37:57 AM PDT by Shout Bits
At last night's 2013 Emmy Awards, actor Don Cheadle offered a rambling salute to the power of TV. Starting with Walter Cronkite's emotional reporting of Pres. Kennedy's assignation and moving on to other touchstones of leftist history, Cheadle argued that TV is the binding force of modern society. TV tells society what to feel, how to think, and what is OK to express openly. TV is the vanguard and constitution of all that is worthwhile. Cheadle's eyes tracked the teleprompter as if in disbelief of the propaganda he was required to spew. Far from an assertion of dominance, Cheadle's speech was a desperate gasp of self-denial, for TV is actually dead as a social arbiter.
The Emmys are an industry award show designed to promote TV viewership. For decades, this meant nighttime programming on the big-three broadcast channels. Per the Ricardian theory of competitors moving toward each other, broadcast TV offered a single view of society and its history. Cheadle's speech celebrated this stultified past but did not acknowledge today's free market of ideas.
For starters, the Emmys do not even represent prime-time broadcast TV as they once did. Where there were once three contenders, there are now countless cable channels with incongruous marketing strategies. Rather than fighting for the heart of the US demographic, Emmy contenders now can slice off a profitable niche. Worse, one Emmy winner was a Netflix program that may never be broadcast. House of Cards was released at once onto the internet. There was no control over when it was to be watched, and its marketing model is contrary to broadcast TV because there are no advertisements or syndications. There are no remaining gatekeepers between creators and audiences – TV's power is a wistful memory in Cheadle's teleprompter.
Every category of TV's dominance is gone. Small players like Matt Drudge and Andrew Breitbart took down broadcast news's power to spike stories like Pres. Clinton's abuse of power to cover-up an affair or Acorn's abuse of its tax-exempt status to advance a radical-left agenda. NBC will eventually learn that it can no longer deceptively edit tape to shade the truth as anyone can now listen to the original.
In entertainment, TV is also losing its war. For every program like Glee which seeks to conflate gay issues with Democrat politics, there are more like Duck Dynasty that humanize traditionalists. Tina Fey was one of last night's winners, but her show was never a ratings success. Perhaps Ms. Fey is an example of how a self-focused program with a mean-spirited leftist agenda can kill otherwise entertaining fare – viewers no longer have to swallow her politics to get a laugh.
Most people watch the various entertainment awards programs not to root for their favorite shows, but rather to see what the stars are wearing. Titillation without substance is pornography, and that is where broadcast TV is headed. Meanwhile, the unshackled audience is free to explore without the control Mr. Cheadle pined for. His speech was really an obituary, and nobody is going to miss the control the Emmy's once represented.
Shout Bits can be found on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShoutBits
The Emmys are an industry award show designed to promote TV viewership.——
Shocking revelation!!!!
Back in the late 50s, someone (whose name I have long since forgotten) predicted that TV would become "the great wasteland". It's there. Hollyweird is devoid of new, original ideas and all that remains is crap based on older, better programs or "reality TV (AKA more crap on TV)".
Sadly, back in the 50s and 60s - when Hollyweird still knew how to tell great stories and people demanded better programming - TV was pretty much in its heyday; thus the success of MeTV.
These days, I'd rather watch whatever MeTV is showing or slip in a DVD of a movie made sometime between the 30s and about the mid-70s. After the mid-70s, good movies and good TV become increasingly rare until we got today's TV garbage.
Hollyweird reached the "great wasteland" status a couple of decades ago . . . . . . . and now they have started to dig!
Well I agree that TV has lost the impact it once had but libtards turned the schools into the propaganda organ once reserved for the now vulgar, insulting and unwatchable telly.
It was Newton Minnow, Chairman of the FCC and he called it a “vast wasteland.”
The Emmy’s, like the Academy Awards, have sunk their standards to cesspool level, glorifying sexual and intellectual perversion, vulgarity and obscenity. It is just another freak show.
Maybe that is why we are living in a golden age of television. What compares in the past to Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Hell on Wheels, Ray Donovan, Sherlock, Game of Thrones, Rome, Band of Brothers, Deadwood, Merlin and the list goes on and on.
“Well I agree that TV has lost the impact it once had but libtards turned the schools into the propaganda organ once reserved for the now vulgar, insulting and unwatchable telly.”
Academia is next. Nobody can really afford a private school education, and the rate of in-state tuition growth is unsustainable.
The internet will liberate students from the left’s stranglehold on diplomas. Liberal Arts degrees are worthless, and very soon this pyramid scheme fueled by federal student loans will come crashing down.
The left wing media cannot even get a self congratulations show correct.
.
it was not about the knowledge it was the fact a dipoloma “certifies” a level of knowledge.
There is no way to certify knowledge from the internet.
Somebody actually watched that crap?
Tina Fey got an award.?? She should thank Sarah Palin.
If not for Sarah no one would have ever heard of her.
Her whole act was playing Sarah Palin. Still is.
now we are posting to facebook pages?
I have a quirky theory that the loss of intelligent and interesting storylines (writing), started going downhill along with education, when the unions took over our schools. Children no longer have a good grasp of language, grammar, and simply how to write something that is understandable and interesting.
I would add The Hour, Broadchurch, Top of the Lake, Justified, previously The Shield and the Sopranos, Damages, Masterpiece Mystery, all top notch.
I am not a big fan of the fantasy genre, but before it’s over Game of Thrones will be considered one of the great series of all time.
And the sports coverage is far more from a quantity and quality standpoint. In the 60s you could pay for the Ali fights at the theaters and if you didn’t you couldn’t see the fight. Now they replay the pay-for-views a week afterwords for regular subscribers. Several channels broadcast boxing 2-3 weeks per month. You can see any baseball or football game if you can afford it.
The cable companies have raised the bar and you can turn more and more to tv and now the net and away from the theatres. Look at House of Cards, Arrested Development and Orange is the New Black on Netflix, with more coming.
There’s enough to criticize and some real junk, but we have many more choices of quality programs and for those opposed we always have the turn off button.
Trivia moment - Sherwood Schwartz named the charter boat in Gilligan's Island after the FCC Chairman, in part due to that comment.
Plus, the shows themselves are not, in large part, very appealing to me or my husband. I think the only new show that we have watched this season is Sleepy Hollow. The landscape has changed, Hollywood needs to understand this. Perhaps they are getting the message, as House of Cards actually won a big award yesterday.
Ah good old Don was delusional in high school as well
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.