The Daily Show's chief ranter gives TV executives a piece of his mind...
The always almost-about-to-pop-a-blood-vessel Lewis Black got to speak his mind at the Emmys this week. As usual, he hit the mark about what's wrong with television in general, mocking everything from the dysjunctive nature of the "crawl" on news channels to the annoying tactic of broadcasting a sped-up crunched-down display of the credits at the ends of shows (often overlapping with the start of the next show), just so that there will be more time to squeeze in commercials. As Black explained to the TV executives in the room, "sure, nobody pays attention, but the people who did the work do [pay attention] and they deserve to see their names. They actually do the work--what do you do?"
(Believe it or not even Ryan Seacrest gets to close the moment with something funny...)
Yup. The guy totally nailed it. Actually, networks view the show as an interruption in the commercials. Of course they try to minimize it. If we had a voice, we could try to pressure them into showing more show and fewer commercials. But, as long as people are watching, they will try to increase commercials. And, they'll add product placements when possible.
My answer? Drop to basic cable, not standard, basic, and get netflix. The news is better online anyway, where you can actually get more than one source of information.
Comment by Misanthropic Scott — September 20, 2007 @ 9:54 am
If you drop back to basic cable, you would miss the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, the only decent sources of real news left to us. Of course, there's always
YouTubeComedy Central's web site for viewing the best moments from these programs, provided you religiously watch them every day...Comment by Rich Rosen — September 20, 2007 @ 10:11 am