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Saturday, December 11, 2010

If I ruled TV

What if all the network and cable TV programmers were all struggling to create programming that suited YOUR tastes instead of that mysterious 18-35 intellectually challenged male that they seem to like? How would that change TV?

 For instance, take my tastes: news programs would be very different. Anytime a political or social figure made a statement it would be rigorously truth-squadded immediately after the statement was aired. Statements contrary to fact or egregious attempts at spin would be relentlessly exposed. There would also be an ombudsman segment where egregious lies by political commentators on other channels would be truth squadded. Any failure to do this would be considered cheap, shoddy journalism. 

 Most entertainment programming would be SciFi, fantasy and action/adventure programming of the sort that used to be commonplace on TV but has disappeared lately in favor of dull reality shows and CSI stuff. The programs would have predictable plots so you could have them on in the background without paying much attention to them while you did interesting stuff on your computer. Whenever anything interesting is about to happen, there'll be musical cues to let you know that a fight or a sex scene or a sense of wonder scene is about to happen, so you can watch. 

 Oh, there'd be sex scenes alrighty, but not enough to slow down the plot. Plenty of nudity, too. Maybe there'd be a secret code you could enter to blip that stuff out if you objected to if. But they'd be there. The most popular cable channel would be Naked Women Dancing with naked women dancing to excellent pop, rock, jazz and so forth music. Maybe a separate Naked Women Dancing Channel for difference kinds of music. The next most popular channel would be Half Naked women dancing. 'Nuff said. 

 There would be a Mythbusters Channel where the "mythbusters" approach of testing various and beliefs and assertions to see how they jibe with reality. It would take on controversial topics like Intelligent Design, the benefits of jailing drug offenders, etc., testing assertions for and against various beliefs as well as is possible and presenting results. There would be plenty of followup shows where objections raised by viewers to procedures, etc., could be dealt with. 

 There would be porn comedies with interesting characters and good plots. They would actually be funny. Those who didn't like them could use the secret code.

 That oughtta do it for now. Many of you might have other ideas on how TV would be different if your tastes controlled the medium. Your call, of course.