Recently I tweeted this deep thought: Reminder: Commercial television stations produce ENTERTAINMENT. They base content and broadcast decisions on “eyeballs.” Bear that in mind.
A twitter follower whose tweets are always thoughtful and interesting quickly sent the following reply: True. Honest question, not a challenge: what alternative do you propose? PBS?
I actually enjoy the challenge of trying to conveying a concise and complex thought within twitter’s 140-character limit. But serious thoughts are particularly difficult, so I usually stick to lame attempts at humor or even lamer social observations.
Here’s what I replied: Very good question. My intent was to encourage consumers to analyze what they see and hear from a fresh, critical perspective.
But, of course, that barely scratched the surface of everything behind the original innocuous-sounding comment.
So here’s a longer response.
First, I almost left out the word “commercial”, since Public Broadcasting Stations really have the same need for funding. They just approach it a different way. I do confess that when I must have linear video to test something at work, I tune to the local PBS station, because it is always SFW (safe for work), and has virtually no advertising. Which, of course, is one of the meanings of “commercial”.
To further complicate my thoughts on TV, I am quite un-fond of advertising in any way, shape or form. I understand the need for advertising, and there are, of course, some ad campaigns that even I will watch, such as the old Mac vs PC ads. But I don’t like broadly cast ads. (Of course, television advertising is changing, thanks to internet video and dvrs, forcing advertisers to be ever more creative and focused. We’ll save that for another post.)
The reality is, I don’t watch much TV of any sort, certainly less than the national daily individual average, which is just north of 4 hours per day. That’s average, meaning that half the country watches more than that!
It’s not that I don’t like television – more like the reverse. Apparently I am irresistibly drawn to its images, more so than most folks. Often, even into my adulthood, my dad would comment that I seemed to get lost in the television, even while we were trying to talk. I have been in many houses where the TV would run continuously in the background, through dinner and conversation. Frankly, it nearly drove me crazy: I wanted to yell, “Either watch it or turn it off!!!”
I suppose it is a natural side effect of this attraction that video content almost always produces some sort of deep, visceral reaction in me, especially intense action scenes. My heart races. I feel responsible. I am immersed.
There is no small irony here. My current job includes work on interactive television applications; there is at least one television in every cubicle on my floor. I am surrounded by television. Even in my boss’ office, I am drawn to the monitor behind her. I have to force myself to focus on our conversation.
Yet, despite this direct connection to my brain, I do not find video to be an efficient form of information transfer for me. It is clearly good for a few, very visual topics, but generally I would much rather have a thick, well-organized document to read through, scan, pore over.
At home I do watch a few shows, mostly joining my infinitely patient spouse, who has learned that Big Bang Theory or Doctor Who will almost always entice me away from whatever else I am doing at the time.
OK, it’s time to stop this awkward self-analysis and get back to my tweet interchange. My thinking in this area goes back to my first noticing the phenomenon of day-time radio commentators. These folks are given hours per day to fill, and fill them they do. Even though I did not listen much, I often heard reports of their internal inconsistencies and outlandish claims, and noticed their dedicated listeners. It all perplexed me. Then one day I heard someone say that they are not really doing news reporting or analysis – they are attracting listeners, and they say whatever they need to say to keep those ears. All of a sudden, it made sense to me. They are entertainers.
It seems to me that advent of the 24-hour television news stream, coupled with near-instantaneous transmission of even the most minor events, on a world-wide scale, has produced a similar effect. The news channels are obligated to fill their air space whether the information density of the day warrants it or not. If it is a “slow news” day, they find something to talk about, which unavoidably amplifies the importance of whatever they focus on.
Years ago I read that the value of content (what I’ll call “information quotient”, or IQ) is proportional to the time required to produce the content in the given format. The IQ of a news article is less than a magazine article, which is less than a book. That observation hasn’t really changed much, even as technology has provided new forms of content distribution. Tweets are low-IQ, blogs are higher, but they are less than news articles (especially if you consider additional quality-increasing factors such as group review and editing.) A multi-part television documentary may actually contain more IQ than a book.
Lately I have heard stories of people who say they want to cut off their cable service. They have become super-saturated. I certainly understand – like many people, I had to put myself on an “internet information diet” during the last few weeks leading up to the election.
So I guess that leads me back to the recommendation that I so foolishly tried to summarize in 140 characters. There is so much more you can do with your time than watching television. Go outside. Organize your life and/or house. Read. Write. Think. Invent. Teach. Learn. Meditate. Draw. Paint. Rhyme. Converse. Sleep.
And when you do consume content, budget your eyeball time and your eardrum time. Try to round out your diet – try a station or genre you don’t usually watch or listen to. Feel free to enjoy your “comfort food” content, but make sure you’re getting some information “vitamins,” too.
Bon appetite.