Re: [ARSCLIST] Half-vast wasteland--was: Slides and inconvenient media (was spin it again)

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Cox" <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> That is only true in the USA. 
> 
> BBC TV carries advertising only for BBC products, and many countries
> have only a state TV service whose function is to carry government
> propaganda.
> 
> For many years the TV channels in Britain also carried the Open
> University programs during the night.
> 
Well, I used to watch German TV in the late sixties...and don't recall
seeing that much improvement (a lot of old US programs with new sound-
tracks in German added...or, sometimes, subtitles [which were fun to
watch, since I read German fairly well, and could compare what I heard
against what I read...]). Colour was much better, though!
> 
> >  The creators of the
> > medium enthusiastically forecast all sorts of programming which
> > would "bring culture to the masses"...ignoring the reality that
> > "the masses" have absolutely NO desire for "culture!" 
> 
> I believe the audiences for some of the BBC cultural and scientific
> series were quite large. At least the educated middle-class masses watch
> them.
> 
> (For example, Kenneth Clark's "Civilisation", or "Walking with
> Dinosaurs".)
> 
Personally, I've owned the same colour TV set for about a decade
(70's vintage Sony, basically indestructible...!) and watch it for
an hour or two a month. In fact, when I do see a program that appears
interesting, I usually forget to watch the dommed thing!

Like the Internet, television has the possibility of making available
A LOT of information...but the evolution of both (with TV 99.9%
advertising-driven, and the Internet headed that way rapidly...!)
has been in exactly the opposite direction. Once a medium becomes
advertising-driven...and thus much more interested in the quantity
of viewers than the quality of content...the latter heads toward
zero, given the sort of material that quickly attracts all too
many viewers...

Steven C. Barr