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The Technology and Politics of Broadcasting

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Television is one thing that Americans seem to have in common.  About 99% of American households have at least one TV set.  (Mine doesn't.  I haven't owned a TV since 1980.)  Television is powerful and could have been used as a mostly positive influence in our culture, but it has turned into one of the most destructive forces in our society.

Many TV stations and networks are on the air 24 hours a day and seem to have plenty of programming material available to fill the time.  (That's partly because drive-in movies disappeared and the "B movies" are now on UHF TV.)  But if you look closely, much of that material is merely acting as spacers between the commercial breaks.  The revenue from commercials keeps the stations on the air.  Therein lies the root of TV's troubles:  They have to keep your attention, so you'll keep watching, so the ratings for that station will go up, and the advertising rates on that station will then increase.  And the cycle repeats.

This results in programming and advertising that looks like it is designed to entertain and inform people with extremely short attention spans — people who get bored after looking at the same thing for more than five seconds.  In the business of television news, this means less thoughtful journalism and more three-second sound bites and one-liners.  It also means that the typical TV advertisement is a 30-second frenzy of special effects and very short edits.

The sound bite syndrome means that meaningful half-hour debates are condensed down to the few seconds when someone raises his or her voice.  That leads to political arguments (and entire campaigns) in which the winner is the person who has come up with the greatest number of memorable one-liners.  People who base their votes on this kind of shallow information — or on someone else's emotional outbursts — are likely to do more harm than good at the polls.

The effect on entertainment programming is that prime time shows are becoming more and more salacious in an effort to attract viewers.  Material that was considered unfit for broadcast 20 or 30 years ago is now commonplace.  Society's standards didn't change overnight — the TV networks kept "pushing the envelope" gradually to get us where we are today.  But that kind of incremental change seems to go in only one direction.

Much of the blame for the deterioration of broadcasting belongs to the FCC, which has repeatedly deregulated the industry, allowing unlimited advertising time on radio and TV, and ownership of more than one station in each market.  More stations means a diluted market and the desperate need to attract an audience.  The FCC has also abdicated its role as enforcer of basic decency on radio and television, opening the door to FM "shock jocks" and prime time TV programming that would have been unimaginable a few decades ago.

Some of the blame should go to the producers of network shows.  Many of their creations carry the warning, "Viewer discretion advised."  (Apparently if they make that disclaimer, it's okay to include anything in a TV show.)  But why should discretion be entirely up to the viewers?  Couldn't the producers show a little discretion of their own?

The rest of the blame belongs to the audience.  You could say that the FCC has just stepped aside and let our society's downfall run its course.  The government prefers to "let the market decide" what's appropriate or unfit for broadcast, and how many stations can survive in a given city.  But the market doesn't seem to decide that anything is inappropriate.  No matter what is on the air, Americans keep watching and listening.

Newton Minow, in his famous vast wasteland speech on May 9, 1961, said, "When television is bad, nothing is worse."

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Related topics covered on other pages:

All the material about Radio Broadcasting and the so-called Fairness Doctrine has been moved to another page.

News Media Bias,  with numerous subcategories.

Cultural and political bias in the movies.

Cultural and political bias on television.

National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service:  NPR and PBS are taxpayer-subsidized fountains of humanist and socialist propaganda which should support themselves.

My comments about Spanish-language broadcasting can be seen here.

News Media Incompetence:  a discussion of cheap and shallow tabloid news shows.

You may also be interested in my page about the old Emergency Broadcast System.

And you may also enjoy The Last Empty Channel, which is about TV Channel 37, the only TV channel that is completely empty.  (Originally published in TV Technology.)

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Digital TV / HDTV

At last, here is a subject I know a little about.  As a public service, I'm giving you the scoop on the upcoming conversion to digital television, which wasn't put to a vote, but is being quietly implemented anyway.  Many people are unaware that in a few years their good old TV sets will suddenly pick up nothing but snow.  The FCC has undertaken the changeover in order to make radio spectrum space available to the highest bidder.  Whether or not the radio spectrum is something that can be bought and sold (or whether the FCC legitimately owns it all) is another matter.

The new digital TV stations use 8-VSB modulation.  The 8-VSB mode allows HDTV broadcasters to squeeze 19.28 Mbps of data into a 6 MHz TV channel.  Digital TV is all-or-nothing:  In most cases you get a perfect picture or no picture at all.  That makes it a little difficult to tweak an outside antenna for best reception, which is why most people just connect to cable boxes or satellite receivers.  It will also make it difficult to diagnose and identify TV interference problems.

It will be a little complicated at first.  Engineers are sometimes heard to say that "people shouldn't have to learn how to use HDTV."  But that's nonsense.  People had to learn how to use microwave ovens, and cruise control, and any number of other things.  One interesting twist is that some viewers may have to put up an outside antenna — what an anachronism! — to get good (free) HDTV reception from over-the-air stations.*

Have I mentioned that I'm a Certified 8-VSB Specialist?

Your biggest problem with your HDTV receiver (it won't be my problem — I won't buy one) will be the programming.  It will still be the same mind-numbing pap that is on the air today — or worse!  My brother-in-law bought a huge new high-definition TV and he says he finds himself watching a lot of idiotic programming just because the picture is so spectacular!

Pushing Quick Switch To Digital TV.  Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and other industry leaders urged lawmakers Friday [10/14/2005] to speed the transition to digital television in order to free up radio spectrum for wireless broadband services, especially in rural and poor areas.

[Yeah, right.  Bill Gates didn't get rich by selling products in rural and poor areas.]

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Coupons for digital converter boxes


The cost estimate for this boondoggle started out as a mere $510 million, and of course since the federal government was involved, that was not enough.  The latest estimate is about $1.5 billion.  Will you all please ask yourselves this question:  Where will that money come from?  The government is pretending to do you a favor by giving you a "free" coupon, which is paid for by the money they took out of your paycheck!

Right to digital?  Americans have such an entitlement mentality, they seem to think that every pleasure — e.g., digital television — should be a collective right, meaning a federally funded entitlement.

[The gist of the above article is that the government is considering vouchers to help with the cost of a new digital television set.  Is that the proper role of government?  When unleaded gas was mandated, did the government buy everybody new cars?]

Update:
Households to get coupons for digital TV switch.  Brushing aside congressional suggestions that the nation is ill-prepared for the conversion to digital TV in 2009, the Department of Commerce on Monday [3/12/2007] unveiled its plan to help subsidize the switchover from analog.  In the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) plan, each household can claim two $40 coupons that they then can use toward the purchase of a set-top box that can translate digital signals so television shows can be viewed on analog TVs.

Commerce Department Issues Final Rule To Launch Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program.  Starting Jan. 1, 2008, all U.S. households will be eligible to request up to two $40 coupons to be used toward the purchase of up to two, digital-to-analog converter boxes, while the initial $990 million allocated for the program is available.  If the initial funds are used up, the [Digital Television Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005] permits funding to increase by $510 million, upon certification to Congress that the initial allocated amount is insufficient to fulfill coupon requests.

Digital killed the TV star.  That extra $510 million is for "over-the-air households" (people who don't have cable or satellite) only.  How do you prove you're an OTA household?  You say you are. ... Anyone else like the odds for fraud/abuse/malfeasance in this program at around 100 percent?

Congress and Digital Television:  Since the days of Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle, television has been broadcast using the same technology and largely over the same frequencies.  That is about to change.

House OKs switch to digital TV.  As a House committee approved legislation Wednesday [10/26/2005] that laid out the nation's mandatory move to digital TV by 2009, consumer groups warned that many Americans would not be able to afford the transition.  The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the bill 33-17. … The approved bill sets aside $990 million, which would provide 23 million coupons worth $40 to use toward the cost of a converter.  The first-come, first-serve system would allow households to apply for up to two coupons over the Internet or by mail.  Converters could cost around $60.

The Senate's $3 Billion Subsidy for Aged Television Sets:  Specifically, the legislation provides for the federal government to pick up almost the complete cost of the set-top boxes, which it estimates to cost $50 to $60 apiece.  Consumers would be responsible for only a "co-pay" of $10. … Ultimately, however, subsidies are the wrong thing to do.  There is no federal entitlement to analog television, nor should there be one.

FCC Rules Cablers Must Provide Analog Signals.  [The FCC] says about 35 percent of all "television homes," approximately 40 million households, have analog-only sets and receive only analog signals from their cable companies.  To make sure those analog-only cable subscribers can still watch their local TV stations' broadcasts after the transition to DTV, FCC in September adopted rules requiring cable operators to make local broadcasters' primary video and program-related material viewable by all subscribers.

The Editor says...
Between the time a program leaves the network studio and the time it gets to the consumer's TV, the picture will have been converted from analog to digital and back at least three or four times.  Each conversion takes its toll on the picture quality.  It will be several years before the path from the studio cameras to the consumer is all digital.

Retailers to Sell TV Converter Boxes.  Starting Jan. 1, an estimated 13 million to 21 million households that rely on an antenna to watch TV can contact the government to receive two coupons worth $40 each to buy converter boxes.  The $1.5 billion program — which is enough to fund 33.5 million coupons — ends March 31, 2009.

Digital TV Transition Takes Next Step.  Between January 1, 2008 and March 31, 2009, households can request coupons while supplies last in one of four ways. … Coupons expire 90 days after they are mailed, and only one coupon can be used to purchase each coupon-eligible converter box.

Nation prepares for shift to digital TV.  In little over a year, more than 20 million homes that rely on antennas for free analog television broadcasting will suddenly go dark.  And Sen. Claire McCaskill is already getting nervous.  "There is no anger that comes close to the anger of an American that cannot get television," said the Missouri Democrat.

Digital TV Converters Coming to Retailers.  The coupon program has been funded with $1.5 billion; that's enough to fund 33.5 million coupons.  The NTIA believes the program is large enough to cover all impacted households, and doesn't believe the government will run out of coupons.

Note:  If you would like to use your favorite search engine to find out more, the program is being run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, and is called the Digital-to-Analog Converter Box Coupon Program.

Digital TV shift affects minorities most.  Hispanics are nearly twice as likely as whites to be left without television service following the nationwide transition to digital broadcasting next year, according to a new survey.

64 million dollars worth of coupons so far ...
850,000 Ask Government For TV-Converter Coupons.  More than 850,000 people requested $40 coupons for converter boxes with which old television sets can receive digital signals after the United States abandons analog broadcasts next year.  Each household is entitled to two coupons, bringing the total requested to more than 1.6 million, said Todd Sedmak, a spokesman for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

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Editorial comments

Allow me to share a little conjecture about the future of television broadcasting.  I predict there will be a political upheaval when analog television service is turned off in a few years.  The teeming masses of the lower class who watch television all the time (no matter what's showing) aren't going to stand for it, and they surely aren't going to want to spend a lot of money on a converter box or a new TV.  It will be a big issue on the first election day after analog TV ends.

I don't recall any public outcry demanding digital television.  (HDTV was apparently cooked up by somebody at the FCC during the Clinton administration, as part of a scheme to sell RF bandwidth to raise money for other government projects.)  Hardly anyone had seen a high-definition TV picture until long after the construction of HDTV stations had begun.

What's going to happen ten years later, after the transition is settled?  With digital television in place, it will be easy to encrypt all TV signals and provide the encryption keys only to those who have paid the TV tax, much like the way television reception is taxed in England.

There is more to this digital television scheme than conservation of RF bandwidth and good pictures of football games.  The federal government's long-term plans for digital TV is, I suspect, about monitoring, taxing and regulating everything you watch.

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The Broadcast Flag


The Broadcast Flag:  The FCC's Lockdown of Digital Television.  You [had] until July 2005 to get a DTV tuner card that ignores the broadcast flag.  While this won't help you with cable or satellite TV programming, at least you'll retain your freedom to make digital recordings and copies of network TV programs.

Misleading Term of the Week:  "Broadcast Flag".  Hollywood doesn't need to ask for a true broadcast flag.  The standards for digital television broadcasting already have a place for such a flag.  No government action is needed to allow Hollywood to use a flag to indicate the broadcast status of a program.

 Update:   Appeals court tosses FCC's broadcast flag rule.  A U.S. appeals court on Friday [5/6/2005] struck down a Federal Communications Commission rule designed to limit people from sending copies of digital television programs over the Internet.

Court yanks down FCC's broadcast flag.  In a stunning victory for hardware makers and television buffs, a federal appeals court has tossed out government rules that would have outlawed many digital TV receivers and tuner cards starting July 1 [2005].

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The Transition to Digital TV

HD Boycott dot com:  The purpose of this site is to encourage people to not buy the new high definition DVD technologies which seek to greatly reduce or eliminate the concept of fair use and first sale rights.  Don't buy any new HD gear without getting the facts or you might will regret it later.

Analog Obsolescence Looms:  You might not have noticed that it's been seven-and-a-half years since the U.S. digital television rules came out.  Here are some of the reasons why you might not have noticed:  (1) Almost no broadcasters have been mentioning it.  (2) Almost no viewers can tune it in.  (3) Only about 600 stations are licensed to transmit it.

The citizens of Wales were allowed to vote on the issue before analog TV was turned off.  [1]  [2]

The TV repairman is back in demand.  Small television service shops are experiencing a renaissance thanks to the growing number of homes with high-definition televisions and elaborate home theater systems that require more know-how to set up than a computer.

[That's just an installer, not a repairman.]

Closely related:
You'll Buy It, and You Will Like It.  Most homes have cable or satellite, and little use for a new tuner to receive digital signals via antenna.  The FCC will force them to buy it anyway. … There are 107 million total TV households.  Only twelve percent use TV antennas — the rest have cable and/or satellite reception.

The few people in this country who still use "rabbit ears" don't care about crystal-clear high-definition TV pictures.  Many of them are still watching black-and-white televisions.  They just want the basics.  They didn't ask for digital TV and they aren't going to like it when analog TV is turned off.  But the number of people watching analog TV from an antenna – not cable or satellite – is relatively small, as shown in this next item:

Antenna Myths:  Who's Really Watching Free TV?  The Consumer Electronics Association reports that of the nearly 110 million American homes with at least one TV set, 68 percent receive a cable signal and 22 percent receive a DBS signal.  The research shows that roughly three percent receive both cable and DBS.  In total, 87 percent of American homes have access to cable or satellite.

Yes, but that still leaves 13% of 110 million households, which comes out to 14.3 million TV sets that will suddenly stop working.  Many of those useless TV sets will be in the hands of people who will claim they can't afford a new one (even though they can afford cigarettes and beer).  I hope the politicians don't get the idea that the government should provide television sets to everyone who wants them.

House sets digital TV transition for February 2009.  The bill allocates $990 million to $1.5 billion for a subsidy program that would permit those whose TVs still rely on analog broadcasts to request up to two $40 coupons for digital-to-analog converter boxes.

Some Time in 2009.  Analog TV will be turned off in a few years, but the timing is politically sensitive.

 Free advice:   Analog TV broadcasting will end in February, 2009, a few weeks after the presidential election.  When that day comes, please remember that television is not essential to life, nor is it an inalienable right.  In fact, you'd be better off without a television in your house.  Take the opportunity, when the analog stations are turned off, to give it up once and for all.  Don't waste any more time and money on TV!

Even if the picture is technically flawless, TV content is the big problem.  Television is one of the most destructive forces at work in this country.  If you rely on television "news" coverage, I urge you to turn off your television set and get your information from more reliable sources.  (At least begin to challenge the assumption that everything you hear on television is true.)  If you use television to absorb your spare time and satisfy your hunger for cheap entertainment, you would be much better off with a well-written book.

 Update:   2009 Squeaks By.  Lawmakers have agreed to shut off analog broadcast television transmissions in 2009, not on New Year's Eve nor after March Madness, but on February 17 — the 51st anniversary of the canonization of Clare of Assisi as the patron saint of television.  The 2009 provision was included in S.1932 … ultimately named the "Work, Marriage, and Family Promotion Reconciliation Act of 2005," also included up to $1.5 billion for the set-top converters that would allow analog-only TV sets to process digital signals.

'Rabbit Ears' Find New Life in HDTV Age.  Local TV channels, broadcast in HD over-the-air, offer superior picture quality over the often-compressed signals sent by cable and satellite TV companies.  And the best part?  Over-the-air HD is free.

The Dawn of Digital TV.  Today more than 1500 broadcast digital-TV stations are on the air.  Nearly the entire U.S. population lives in markets with at least one digital broadcast signal available, and more than 90 percent live in areas with five or more such signals.

Congress and Digital Television:  The digital transition has proceeded at a snail's pace. … Almost no one is watching over-the-air DTV broadcasts.  While close to ten percent of households have digital television sets, the content mostly comes through cable, satellite, and DVDs.  Only two percent of households own TV sets that can receive digital broadcasts.

Spectrum Allocation for Emergency Communications.  Last summer, a newly formed company called Cyren Call — headed by Nextel founder Morgan O'Brien — proposed that 30 megahertz of radio spectrum be reallocated to public safety users. … Under Cyren Call's plan, 30 megahertz of the 60 megahertz planned for auction would instead be given free of charge to a new "Public Safety Broadband Trust."  This trust — apparently to be created by the FCC itself — would represent state, local, and federal public safety users.  In turn, the trust would contract with private sector firms to build and operate an advanced broadband network using this spectrum.

For those of you who don't know, 30 MHz of spectrum space is enough to accommodate five HDTV stations.  Without moving a lot of TV stations to different RF channels, there is not (and never will be) a 30 MHz block of unoccupied spectrum.

Disappearing TV spectrum fetches $20 billion.  A US government auction of the wireless frequencies soon to be given up by television companies as they switch to digital transmissions has raised a record $19.59 billion.  The winners of the valuable spectrum will likely use it for new wireless data services for computers and mobile devices, but the victors' identities have not yet been revealed.  The 700-megahertz ultra high frequency (UHF) spectrum is being given up by television broadcasters as they move to digital from analog signals in early 2009.

Articles like the one above raise a number of questions.  Is the radio spectrum something the FCC owns — something the FCC can sell?  When this concept is widely accepted, will the FCC begin to charge TV stations and other wide-bandwidth users for the rental of spectrum space?  The article says that the new owners "will likely use it for new wireless data services."  Does the FCC sell RF spectrum without knowing exactly what it will be used for?

No TV Left Behind:  There is no federal right to analog television, nor should there be. Viewers have no more right to existing TV technology than they did to vinyl records or Betamax video recorders. Viewers have been on notice of the transition to digital television for more than a decade, and those who prepared for it should not have to subsidize those who did not.

FCC will allow unlicensed devices in analog TV spectrum.  The FCC has just announced the roadmap for giving unlicensed wireless devices access to empty "white spaces" in the current analog TV spectrum.  US spectrum is at a premium (just consider the astronomical fees paid by cell phone providers to grab a chunk of it), and the FCC wants to ensure that space is available for innovative unlicensed technology.

Broadcasters Oppose Google's Plea For White Spaces.  The battle for the white spaces is far from being over, as Google co-founder Larry Page pleaded once more for the Federal Communications Commission to approve the free, unlicensed use of the slices of spectrum in between television channels. ... Over 90 percent of the wireless spectrum in the U.S. is not being used, and Google, together with Microsoft, Dell, Intel, HP and others target just that.

The Editor says...
Nonsense!  The rash pronouncement that "Over 90 percent of the wireless spectrum in the U.S. is not being used" reveals a complete disconnection with reality.  Was it someone from Google who made this statement, or was this the writer's estimate?  In either case, the absurd "90%" assessment would surely come as a great surprise to the FCC.  In the first place, how do you measure 90% of the RF spectrum, which includes unusably-high and -low frequency bands?  Second, a single radio channel may be quiet most of the time, but that doesn't mean there is not a licensed user who is authorized to use that frequency exclusively.  Third, the new digital TV stations are able to operate on adjacent channels only because they are sharply filtered.  Wireless networking appliances operating on TV channels that the users think are vacant would reduce the TV broadcast channels to another CB radio band, with every user shouting down the others.

The DTV transition countdown shows how much time remains until analog television stations are turned off.

UK to start digital TV switchover, but Australia is still in the dark ages.  Politicians ... do know people.  Cut off millions of registered voters from their drug of choice and they'll take it out at the polls.  It's probably no coincidence that the death of analogue broadcasting comes only months after the 2008 US elections, giving politicians almost four years to sort out the mess.

Time to Revisit FCC Set-Top Box Rules.  Verizon and other telephone companies are rushing into the video business.  The two DBS service operators — DirecTV and Dish Network — have done an about-face and are now supporting equipment containing mainly proprietary features.  And Congress finally has set a firm February 2009 date for the transition away from analog to all-digital broadcast television transmission.  With the changed landscape, this is a case crying out for regulatory relief.

HDTVs prompting antennas' comeback.  Rooftop antennas are back in vogue.  Many people are trading up to expensive television sets and hooking them up to old-fashioned antennas that can pull in the digital and high-definition signals of local broadcasters for free.  That's right, free.  You only get the signals of local broadcast stations — ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, etc. — but there's no monthly cable or satellite fee and no need for a set-top box.

FCC chair promotes post-digital TV rule.  Here's the pitch from the cable TV industry:  One way or another, all subscribers will still be able to tune in their favorite shows when broadcasters shift to digital-only transmission in 2009.  Seeking more than a promise, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin wants commissioners to require cable companies to provide that service.

HD enthusiasts crying foul over cable TV's crunched signals.  As cable TV companies pack ever more HD channels into limited bandwidth, some owners of pricey plasma, projector and LCD TVs are complaining that they're not getting the high-def quality they paid for.  They blame the increased signal compression being used to squeeze three digital HD signals into the bandwidth of one analog station.  The problem is viewers want more HD channels at a time when many cable and satellite providers are at the limits of their capacity, said Jim Willcox, a technology editor for Consumer Reports magazine.

FCC Throws Lifeline to Analog Cable-TV Customers.  The Federal Communications Commission approved rules Tuesday night [9/11/2007] that it says will ensure that millions of cable subscribers will still be able to watch broadcast programming after the digital television transition in 2009.  The FCC says approximately 40 million households are analog-only cable subscribers.  Tuesday's ruling will require cable operators to guarantee analog cable customers will receive broadcast channels until February 2012.

Cable Prices Keep Rising, and Customers Keep Paying.  Cable prices have risen 77 percent since 1996, roughly double the rate of inflation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month.  Cable customers, who typically pay at least $60 a month, watch only a fraction of what they pay for — on average, a mere 13 percent of the 118 channels available to them. And the number of subscribers keeps growing.  The resiliency of cable is all the more remarkable because the Internet was supposed to change all things digital.

The Night The TVs Go Out.  The industry has tried to get the word out, but many consumers still aren't getting the message:  In a year and a half, millions of television screens could go dark.  Not the fancy high-definition TVs or those connected to cable or satellite.  But the 70 million sets relying on rooftop or "rabbit ears" antennas will end up showing nothing but snow.

Tricky signals mean shift to digital TV will be rocky.  The government-ordered switch to digital television broadcasting next year promises razor-sharp picture and orchestra-like sound -- that is, if the signal actually comes in.  Jennifer Jackson, a 26-year-old medical student who lives in Arlington, Va., is discovering that despite her efforts, it might not.  She has a digital converter box, the receiver of choice for those who rely on an antenna and do not have a digital television.  But she is finding that the new digital signals are more capricious than old-fashioned analog.

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Closed Captioning

Closed Captioning started out as a simple favor to those less fortunate and has turned into an entitlement.  It is now mandatory.  But it costs a lot of money to put closed captioning into reruns of old sit-coms, and the TV stations will almost certainly pass the cost along to the advertisers, who will then pass the cost along to you, whether you watch TV or not.

Occasionally during a commercial break on TV, you may hear an announcement such as, "Closed captioning of this program is sponsored by...", followed by one or more commercials.  I find it hard to believe that sponsors sign up for commercial time to pay for closed captioning, since closed captioning is required by the FCC, and the station has to provide it anyway.

The FCC says, "Closed captions provide a critical link to news, entertainment, and information for individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing, enabling these individuals to be part of the cultural mainstream of our society."*

That is simply nonsense.  Television is not an essential part of life, or of civilized society.  In fact our society was more civilized before television came along.  In any event, a person can be "part of the cultural mainstream of our society" without watching television.

The FCC's Closed Captioning Rules:  Definitions, requirements and complaint procedures.

The FCC's Closed Captioning Fact Sheet  says, "Closed captioning is an assistive technology designed to provide access to television for persons who are deaf and hard of hearing."

Usually when you see the word "access" it is a code word for the implementation of special rights and privileges for a protected and politically sensitive minority.  Everybody has access to television; sometimes a little too much access.  If a person can't make sense of a television program without being able to hear the sound, that person isn't missing anything.  I can see where it would be reasonable to require closed captioning on a tornado warning, but to require it on nearly 100% of all programs (no matter how old, unpopular, or self-explanatory) is the kind of foolishness one can expect from an overgrown government.

Brief History of Closed captioning:  The engineering department of the Public Broadcasting System started to work on the [closed captioning] project in 1973, under contract to the Bureau of Education for the Handicapped of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW).  The Federal Communications Commission set aside line 21 in 1976, for the transmission of closed captions in the United States.

The Editor says...
I should have known that the Department of HEW was in on this.  For those of you too young to remember, HEW changed its name in 1979 to Health and Human Services, to get away from the well-deserved stigma of the name Welfare, and to spin off the Department of Education into its own enormous entity.  The two departments devour a total of about $123 billion a year.  But that's another topic.

Closed Caption Deadline Nears.  The clock is ticking on yet another federal broadcasting mandate.  This one does not involve digital television per se, but rather all television in the U.S., both analog as well as digital.  Under provisions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Jan. 1, 2006 is the "drop dead" date for virtually all television programming to be transmitted with closed captions.

Newest disabled right:  audio TV captioning.  The FCC has proposed that TV networks be compelled to provide at least four hours of programming a week with "secondary audio" descriptions of filmed action in hopes of giving blind viewers an "equivalent experience" to what sighted viewers are getting.

 Editor's Note:   Common sense should tell you that "blind viewers" will never have an "equivalent experience" sitting in front of a TV, no matter what provisions are made by the broadcasters.

DVD bonus material captioning:  Lawyers filed a class action on behalf of deaf consumers against Hollywood studios that labeled DVDs as closed captioned but failed to note that "bonus material" on the disks lacked captioning.

Timeline of Closed Captioning Development.  Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 enacted, requiring all federally funded public service announcements to be closed captioned.

This kind of incrementalism only goes one direction.  First it's applied to television, then to movies in theaters, and before long it will be required on DVDs, video games, and anything that can be shown on a television.

Deaf group files lawsuit against movie theaters.  Invoking the Americans with Disabilities Act, eight hearing-impaired persons in Portland, Oregon have filed what aspires to the status of a national class action seeking to force three large cinema chains, Regal, Century, and Carmike, to install closed captioning devices for films in their theaters.

ADA Goes to the Movies.  The movie-theater snob looks for big screens, high-end sound, legroom, and the newest innovation, stadium seating.  If you're a movie-theater snob, chances are you worship at the altar of AMC theaters because they are the gold-standard of the cineplex world.  So naturally, the Department of Justice is trying to put them out of business.

What is Section 508?  If you produce videos or webcasts for federal agencies or receive federal funds for programs, you must comply with Section 508.  In 1998, Congress amended the Rehabilitation Act to require Federal Agencies to make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.  The amendment is known as Section 508 and it specifies the standards defining how Federal agencies must make their electronic and information technology accessible to people with disabilities.

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The V-Chip:
An ineffective substitute for parental supervision.

If you bring a television into your house, you know exactly what you're getting into.  Whether your TV set has the V-Chip or not, if you see offensive programs on TV, it's only because you failed to push the OFF button.

Parents Have the Tools to Control TV Content.  What's so troubling about calls for increased media regulation/censorship in the name of "protecting children" is that it ignores the fact parents have at their disposal many constructive alternatives to censorship.

When the Chips Are Off:  If Americans overwhelmingly favor the V-chip, why don't they use it?  In his 1996 State of the Union address, President Clinton urged Congress "to pass the requirement for a 'V' chip in TV sets, so that parents can screen out programs they believe are inappropriate for their children."  He said the technology would enable parents "to assume more personal responsibility for their children's upbringing."  This was an odd way to characterize the V-chip, which actually represented an abdication of parental responsibility.  Instead of monitoring what their kids watch and deciding for themselves what was appropriate, parents would rely on ratings assigned by the networks.  There would be no need for active supervision or discussion:  Once the V-chip was programmed, everything would be automatic.

The obscene "reality" at MTV. There's approximately one instance of foul language every three minutes.  None of that onslaught would be caught by your supposedly foolproof V-chip, since MTV is skipping out on identifying its own filth.

The networks are fighting a two-faced war.  To parents and the general public, they talk of social responsibility, and spend hundreds of millions of dollars talking up their V-chip, and how they aid parents to navigate the channels.  But in court filings, and in the councils of power, the networks are unmasked for what they are:  people who believe in no limits, no standards, no scruples.  It's an industry that is just a profitable assembly line of garbage, and wants the "right" to offend many millions of families, using the public airwaves owned by those families to do so.

Ratings, V-Chips and Self-Policing:  "The ratings system is a fraud, and therefore the V-chip is, by extension, useless," said PTC Founder and President Brent Bozell upon the release of the April 2005 special report The Ratings Sham.  The report studied 638 different shows during 2003 and 2004 on the seven broadcast networks.  Among its major findings:
  •   Every network had problems with accurate and consistent application of content descriptors.
  •   NBC didn't use any content descriptors on its programs.
  •   81% of CBS's TV-14-rated shows contained sexual dialog yet lacked the "D" descriptor.
  •   43% of the Fox shows were missing appropriate content descriptors.
  •   73% of ABC's TV-14-rated shows lacked appropriate content descriptors.
  •   82% of WB's TV-14-rated shows containing sexual behavior lacked the "S" descriptor.

Cable's creepy lobbyists.  For the V-chip to work effectively, it must rely on an accurate ratings system.  This ratings system is at best wildly inconsistent, with each network making its own decisions determining what is or isn't offensive in its own programming.  At worst, it's a joke.

The V-chip is no magic pill.  For starters, most parents have no idea how this V–chip works or know that their TV set even contains one.  A survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation discovered that only 15 percent of parents they surveyed have used the V–chip.

Say Goodbye to Family Friendly TV.  Avoiding objectionable material has become more difficult, despite V-chips, which allow parents to control access to certain programs.  And one of the more toxic areas is now the ads.  Not only do commercials try to use sex to sell everything from automobiles to soap, it seems half the ads on TV now are marketing sex itself in the form of sex-enhancing drugs.  And there's no avoiding the ads, no matter how careful you are with selecting your programming.

The TV Boss.  A web site developed by the Ad Council to explain how to use the V-Chip.  (If you can't figure out how to use the V-Chip, would you be able to get to this web site?)

NBC slices and dices "Veggie Tales".  This is one of those moments where you understand that networks like NBC are only talking an empty talk and walking an empty walk when it comes to the First Amendment, and "creative integrity," and so on.  They have told parents concerned about their smutty programs like "Will and Grace" that if they're offended, they have a remote control as an option.  The networks have spent millions insisting that we have a V-chip in our TV sets.  Change the channel.  Block it out.  But when it comes to religious programming — programming that doesn't even mention Jesus Christ — just watch the hypocrisy.

TV's trouble with religion:  For an industry that claims to reflect reality, the results are not good.  Religion is virtually ignored, and when covered, more often than not it's attacked.

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Senseless Violence
and the FCC's attempts to put a lid on it.

More Television, More Crime?  In the fight against senseless violence, Hollywood remains a tempting target.  But don't blame the remote control.  Blame a remote dad.

FCC Seeks To Rein In Violent TV Shows.  The Federal Communications Commission has concluded that regulating TV violence is in the public interest, particularly during times when children are likely to be viewers — typically between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., FCC sources say.  The agency's recommendations — which will be released in a report to Congress within the next week, agency officials say — could set up a legal battle between Washington and the television industry.

ACLU Fires Back.  Although Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) grabbed the spotlight with his attack on TV violence, little noticed at the time was a proposal by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) to craft a bill strengthening the FCC's profanity-regulation powers and giving it authority to regulate violence.  The American Civil Liberties Union wrote to legislators asking them to oppose such a move.

The Editor says...
The ACLU's position is surprising:  They see no need to regulate profanity on television because of the "technologies enabling parents to control content".  They assume that children are the only people adversely affected by violence on TV, and that everybody makes use of the V-Chip and the OFF button.

Media Violence and the American Public:  Scientific Facts Versus Media Misinformation.  Over the last 50 years, the average news report has changed from claims of a weak link to a moderate link and then back to a weak link [between media violence and aggression].  However, since 1975 the scientific confidence and statistical magnitude of this link has been clearly positive and has consistently increased over time.

The Ancient Problem of TV Violence.  How ancient is the concern over violence on television and its effects on society?  Crack open a cobwebbed copy of Lyndon Johnson's National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence from 1969, where it reads, "Public concern for violence in entertainment television programming has been with us since at least 1954."  In other words, go back to the days when people were still using their first TV sets.  You'd also discover reading this report that even back then, the TV industry execs were trying to duck and weave out of any public concerns.

[The "violence" that LBJ saw on television was probably just a fistfight on "Bonanza."]

TV violence found to be more frequent, graphic.  America's children are being exposed to more dead bodies, fistfights and perverts than ever before, according to an analysis of violence on prime-time television released yesterday by the Parents Television Council.  Violent content from 8 to 11 p.m. on weekdays jumped 75 percent from 1998 to 2006, largely because of popular crime-solving shows and medical dramas such as "Law and Order" and "CSI," the Los Angeles nonprofit concluded in its report, titled "Dying to Entertain."

Here is their report:
Dying to Entertain.  TV violence has become a paradox of sorts.  Medical and social science have proven conclusively that children are adversely affected by exposure to it — yet millions of parents think nothing of letting their children watch C.S.I. or other, equally violent programs.  Prominent leaders in the entertainment industry publicly decry violent entertainment — but then continue to produce and distribute it.  Despite the widespread consensus that TV violence is a significant problem, it has become not only more frequent, but more graphic in recent years.

Remote control:  On Tuesday [6/26/2007], the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing to discuss whether there is too much violence on cable and satellite TV and what to do about it.  The issue of TV violence is the baby of Kevin J. Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, who was scheduled to testify, but canceled at the last minute for family reasons.  Martin thinks there is too much violence on subscription TV.

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Criticism of TV in General — and of the FCC

You probably know people who leave their television on all the time just for background noise.  I know a few, and I also know people who watch less-than-mediocre programs "because that was all that was on."  Television seems to be the primary source of entertainment for almost everyone — an indispensable part of their everyday routine.  But about 1980 I realized there was channel after channel of nothing worth watching, and gave away my last television set.  You'd be surprised how much spare time that opens up.

If you watch fifty hours of television every week, you might see one or two minutes of material that was informative, fresh, edifying or uplifting.  Something you're glad you watched.  But the rest of the time you're probably thinking to yourself, "What a pointless show!" or, "What a stupid commercial!"  It's like digging through a barrel of garbage, knowing there's a perfectly good chocolate chip cookie in there somewhere.  It just isn't worth immersing yourself in garbage to occasionally find one little morsel.

Another section you might enjoy is called Cultural and political bias on television.

Hollyork Nation:  Denunciations of television have become as routine as breathing:  the programming is crass, stupid, propagandistic, so bad that only an idiot would watch it yet everybody does.  Actually things are worse.  They are much worse.  To see what is happening, start with what may be the crucial truth of our times:  People will watch a screen.  They will watch anything in preference to nothing, watch programs they don't really like, comedies so unfunny that only the laugh track tells them when to respond.  The bright know that the fare is witless, that it is directed at fools.  The ads irritate them.  Yet they too watch.  People cannot not watch television.

Television Addiction Is No Mere Metaphor.  Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the struggle for survival is how easily organisms can be harmed by that which they desire.  The trout is caught by the fisherman's lure, the mouse by cheese.  But at least those creatures have the excuse that bait and cheese look like sustenance.  Humans seldom have that consolation.  The temptations that can disrupt their lives are often pure indulgences.

Why TV Addiction Links to Liberalism:  An important new study from the Culture and Media Institute shows that those who describe themselves as "heavy" TV viewers embrace distinctly liberal attitudes on a range of crucial issues, placing them well to the left of those who report "light" TV viewing.

We're Struck Dumb.  The award show is cotton candy television at its most vacuous.  There's no story line to follow.  It's just a parade of famous people there for our viewing pleasure.

HDTV's turning Americans into couch potatoes.  The numbers are in, and it appears that high-definition television is getting Americans to spend more time glued to their TV than ever before. … At a minimum, consumers seem to find high-definition TV a more compelling experience.  In a survey conducted on behalf of ESPN, 22 percent of sports fans said they watched sporting events they would not have watched because they now have HDTV.

Soap Operas Blamed For Lack Of Babies.  Researchers trying to discover why Brazil's fertility rate has plummeted in recent decades think they have found the problem:  Brazilians watch too many soap operas.  The London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) says that unrealistically small families portrayed in the hugely popular programmes influence the number of children women want.

Cable Company Bills Tornado Victim $2,000 for Damaged Equipment.  Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland [Wisconsin] residents for equipment destroyed in the Jan. 7 twister that struck the southeast corner of the state.  [Ann] Beam's bill covered five cable boxes and five remote controls.  She immediately called the cable company, but a man who identified himself as a manager said there was nothing the company could do. … [But then, after the news media picked up the story,] Time Warner Cable spokeswoman Celeste Flynn said Beam's case was simply a misunderstanding.

Viewers turned off by Hollywood writers' strike 'may never switch TV on again'.  American TV networks have lost almost a quarter of their audiences because of the Hollywood writers' strike, according to new figures, and executives fear that "orphaned" viewers may never return.

Writers vote to end strike that crippled Hollywood.  Striking Hollywood writers are going back to work.  The Writers Guild of America said its members voted Tuesday [2/12/2008] to end their devastating, three-month strike that brought the entertainment industry to a standstill.

The Editor says...
It is very difficult to feel sorry for the unionized writers.  These are the people who develop such great products as the TV series based on the Geico cavemen, and a great number of other shows whose "pilot" episodes weren't good enough to put on the air even once.  When you look at the worthless pap on prime-time television, you have to wonder if that's the best they can do.  If it is, our country would be better off if the writers stayed out on strike forever!

Think about it.  How many movies and TV shows about time travel, space wars, talking animals, talking babies, pirates, foul-mouthed cartoon characters, dysfunctional families and children-as-super-heroes can you stand?  Not to mention the sappy, predictable romantic films ("chick flicks"), or the unreal reality shows, or the cheap and insipid programs stitched together from other people's video clips, like America's Wackiest Dash-cam Videos?  Being a Hollywood writer requires less talent than the writers would have you believe.  It is only natural that they band together in unions, and even then, the writers' union would be worthless without the support of the other labor unions and the on-camera talent.

HDTV is a threat to Canadian culture, critics warn.  Bart Beaty and Rebecca Sullivan argue that while HDTV is offered as part of an expanded choice for consumers, the selection of programming using digital over analog technologies is almost exclusively American.  "If you were to ask most Canadians what's wrong with Canadian TV, they wouldn't say 'image quality,'" said Beaty, co-author with Sullivan of the newly published book Canadian Television Today, in a statement Thursday [11/23/2006].

Americans see media aiding moral decline.  Most Americans think culture is becoming more immoral, and they view the media — both entertainment and news — as prime culprits, according to a new survey.

American Pop Culture:  Degeneracy On Parade.  With television, movies, the Internet and even local stores and markets acting as conveyers of debauchery, it seems there is no escape.  Once confined to the margins of society, depravity has now become mainstream.  Those who mistakenly thought television shows geared toward families, such as "American Idol" and its dance version "So You Think You Can Dance," were a safe bet, might want to think again.

Turn the channel?  Are you kidding?  All information is not equal.  You would think we would know that by now, but all education is not equal either.  In fact, it seems like our modern education prepares us more to be consumers than connoisseurs of information.  A connoisseur of wine can tell the difference between an exquisite wine and a merely good one.

Media easily influenced.  In between wars and terrorist attacks and election nights, reporters have very little to actually report. … Seasoned reporters make a good living sitting back and waiting to be pitched on the day's possible stories, and they grow accustomed to the spoon-feeding.  Add to this natural human inclination toward laziness most political reporters' left-leaning political ideas, and you get the current state of political journalism.

Inventor of TV Remote Control Dies at Age 93.  Robert Adler, who won an Emmy Award along with fellow engineer Eugene Polley for the device that made couch potatoship possible, died Thursday [2/15/2007] of heart failure at a Boise nursing home at 93, Zenith Electronics Corp. said Friday.  In his six-decade career with Zenith, Adler was a prolific inventor, earning more than 180 U.S. patents.  He was best known for his 1956 Zenith Space Command remote control, which helped make TV a truly sedentary pastime.

What are you laughing at?  In 1953, Charles Douglass invented a machine called the "laff box," which we commonly refer to today as the "laugh track," ushering in a new era of comedy on television.  Counterculturalist Paul Krassner once called the laugh track "the epitome of televised hypnotic suggestion."

More TVs Than People in Average Home.  The average American home now has more television sets than people.  That threshold was crossed within the past two years, according to Nielsen Media Research.  There are 2.73 TV sets in the typical home and 2.55 people, the researchers said.  With televisions now on buses, elevators and in airport lobbies, that development may have as much to do with TV's ubiquity as an appliance as it does conspicuous consumption.  The popularity of flat-screen TVs now make it easy to put sets where they haven't been before.

Beating back the TV takeover:  The typical household accommodates only 2.55 people, but 2.73 televisions.  An astonishing 50% of all homes boast three or more TV's, and only 19% contain just one.  In 1975, by contrast 57% of households owned only one television, and only 11% contained three or more.

Just Say "Off".  I was trained at a young age to worship television.  It was the center of our home, akin to a shrine.  From within the wooden box, a powerful force seemed to pull our small family of three toward it.  Our day didn't begin before the set was turned on, and no one went to bed until it was turned off.  The compelling need to constantly watch left me laying on the floor for hours, leaning first on one arm, then the other, until my elbows formed nearly permanent impressions of broadloom fibers.  Rather than be interrupted by meals, we simply adapted by eating on wobbly trays.

TV Addiction Quiz:  Do you eat dinner while watching TV?  Can you turn off the TV now, right now, and leave it off for three days?  Do you flip mindlessly through the channels to find something good?  Do you need TV to unwind or fall asleep after a hard day?  Do you need TV to wake you up in the morning?  Do you watch TV more than you talk to your family?

Television:  opiate of the masses.  The signs of addiction are all around us.  The average American watches over four hours of television every day, and 49% of those continue to watch despite admitting to doing it excessively.  These are the classic indicators of an addict in denial:  addicts know they're doing harm to themselves, but continue to use the drug regardless.

The Failure of Technology:  When Jerry Mander suggested in his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, published in 1978, that television was not reformable no matter who controlled the medium, it represented the first time anyone had dared suggest that we do away with television altogether.  Mander argued that television is visual intoxicant that entrances the viewer into a hypnotic state and thereby replaces other forms of knowledge with the imagery of its programmers.  It infuses young children with high-tech, high-speed expectations of life, so that a walk in nature would likely seem interminably boring.

The Editor says...
Yes, he's right so far, but as the interview goes on, you'll find that Mander is opposed to all forms of "high tech", just like the Unabomber. And if you look around the web site where this article appears, you'll see that it's strictly for left-wing "activists" and anti-capitalist troublemakers.

TV or Not TV?  Not!  Television emerged as a mass medium in the 1950s and quickly came to occupy a key role in an orchestrated campaign to eradicate conventional middle-class morals and culture.

Turn Them Off — Turn Them All Off.  Mitch Altman's invention is called TV–B–Gone.  It fits snugly in the palm, a near-weightless lump of black plastic.  Its shape vaguely suggests the Batman logo.  A tiny diode rests on the very tip of Batman's head, between his pointy bat ears.  Press a button and from this diode a beam of invisible light escapes that can turn off any television — any television — within a radius of 45 feet.

Hundreds turn out for media forum.  Panelist Traci Griffith, a professor at St. Michael's noted that many people don't realize that while they might have hundreds of channels to choose from on their TVs, many of the stations are owned by the same companies.  General Electric, for example, owns MSNBC, Bravo, A&E, The History Channel, NBC News, NBC Sports, NBC TV, CNBC and others, she said.  "Cable has so many stations.  The problem is they are owned by the same five companies," Griffith said.

Morning Show Retreat:  Almost half a million fewer women tuned into the big three morning shows this season compared to last.  And though that number may not be devastating to ABC, CBS, and NBC just yet, the 10 percent drop off is making networks and their advertisers (a good portion of whom have their revenues tied up in moms' purse strings) nervous.

TV media finally feeling print media's pain.  What happened this week at KPIX, where 15 of about 250 station employees were laid off, is both an old and a new story.  Old in that it — and other CBS-owned and -operated stations from Chicago to Dallas — weren't making enough profit, so salaries were shed.  And new in that local TV stations are finally feeling the impact of the changing ways people consume media.

CBS Moves Ahead With Layoffs in News.  News operations at CBS stations in several cities started a series of job cuts this week even as the CBS News network moved ahead with plans to lay off about 1 percent of its nearly 1,200 employees.  Over the last several days, layoffs were ordered at local stations that CBS owns, including ones in New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco.  Dana McClintock, a spokesman for CBS, said the actions at the network and the local stations were not related.

Dead Air:  Why CBS should shutter its news division.  To judge by the ads, the most loyal adherents to CBS' quasi-journalistic programming are impotent and incontinent.  It so happens that they share these afflictions with the network's actual news division. … Most weeks, the perfectly decent Bob Schieffer, who will retire after the 2009 inauguration, sees Face the Nation to a finish as the third-rated Sunday show.  And the only thing worse than the Nielsen numbers is the product.

FCC Auction Rules Offer Easy Escape.  Although the rules call for the winner of a 22 MHz block of the coveted spectrum to allow any phone, device, or application to work within that group of frequencies, they also hedge, stating this network neutrality requirement is "subject to certain reasonable network management conditions that allow the licensee to protect the network from harm."  "Reasonable" is delightfully elastic.

Bad Data & Broken Databases at the FCC.  How does one determine the sex or ethnicity of a corporation?  Clear Channel Communications — one of the nation's largest owners of radio stations — has issued nearly 500 million shares of stock.  Has Clear Channel polled every share holder about their race or gender?  It's doubtful.  It's also doubtful that any method of determining the race and gender of the owners of corporate stations could ever be done in a way that's meaningful or anything close to a basis for sound public policy.

NY Times:  FCC set to fine Univision a record $24 million.  Univision Communications Inc., the nation's largest Spanish-language broadcaster, may face a record-setting $24 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission for falling short of regulators' expectations for educational children's programming, a newspaper reported Saturday. ... Federal rules require television broadcasters to air at least three hours a week of educational shows for children.

[They couldn't come up with three hours of children's programming?]

Switch off TV and switch on your memory.  Turning off the television, picking up a crossword and eating more fish could be the key to a better memory, an Australian survey has found.  Those who took part in the test were asked to fill in a survey on a range of habits, such as alcohol consumption, television viewing and reading habits.  The results found no differences between men and women, with the same scores for both groups on all the tasks.  But it found television viewing had the main impact on results.

Too much TV for tots.  Many parents have created homes where the TV is a nearly constant presence, all around the house.  Almost half the children (43 percent) aged 4 to 6 have a TV in their bedroom.  Even more shocking, there's an idiot box in 19 percent of the rooms with babies one year or younger.

A new study reveals the obvious:
TV Linked to Kids' Short Attention Spans.  Because the brain of a newborn develops rapidly throughout its first several years of life, researchers from the University of Washington and Seattle-area mental health professionals theorized that early exposure to TV might affect brain development.

The Media is the Politics.  In a random telephone survey of 1,000 parents of children ages two months to 2 years in Washington state and Minnesota, parents said they let their babies watch television for "fun and education."  Few of them admit they use the tube as an electronic babysitter.  In other studies, doctors suggest that babies who watch television experience changes in their brain development at a time when they should be learning to talk through association with the larger of their species.

TV and Tykes Don't Mix.  Kids aren't just gravitating to the tube; the one-eyed monster is being used as a babysitter by parents who think they're too busy for them and by folks who see giving a child his own tube as a way of allowing parents to gorge on TV themselves. … This is so sad, because TV makes kids fatter and dumber.

Babies and TV Screens Don't Mix.  By the time children are two years old, 90 percent are spending two or three hours a day in front of a screen.  According to the article in TIME, "…the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos.

TV Really Might Cause Autism.  Today, Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of 3.  The researchers studied autism incidence in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington state.  They found that as cable television became common in California and Pennsylvania beginning around 1980, childhood autism rose more in the counties that had cable than in the counties that did not.

Indecent Proposal:  End, don't mend, TV content regulation.  Broadcast spectrum is a "national resource" only because the government insisted on nationalizing it.  There's no reason in principle why the right to transmit at a certain frequency in a certain area could not be treated the same way as the right to graze cattle or build a skyscraper on a particular piece of land.  Broadcast licenses already are de facto property, bought and sold along with stations, except that the Federal Communications Commission occasionally clobbers broadcasters with fines if it does not like what they air.

The New Media Elites:  It has become a staple of Sunday newspapers, television talk shows, and late-night news programs:  the cautionary tale about the Internet turning America's youth into a generation of socially inept zombies, plugged in but tuned out, incapable of any conversation longer than an instant message, and headed for a sedentary life of weight gain, eye strain, and information overload.  But if anyone is in danger from the growing power of the Internet … it is not America's youth but the old media themselves.

Do not adjust your set:  TV is about to blow apart.  The internet, in the television industry as in many others, is both the infection and the cure.  It will do to television what it has done to journalism:  make everyone a producer and everyone a potential star. … I don't know about you, but I rarely leave my evening viewing to chance or to programmers any more.  It's planned and recorded in advance.  And even if I watch live I delay starting for 10 minutes so I can zip past the advertisements.

Turn that confounded thing off.  I have read the bumper stickers saying "Kill Your TV" and know the reasons why you should.  I realized that TV was creeping into my psyche:  the violent and overtly sexual shows, penetrating ads, the put-down humour, the time-draining, mind-numbing influence.  Most of all, it was hurting my relationship with my husband, my best friend.

A Low-Water Mark for Broadcast TV Viewing.  TV viewers must have taken to the beach:  It was the least-watched week in recorded history for the four biggest broadcast networks.

Don't Expect Hollywood to Learn from Academy Awards Broadcast Bomb.  So Sunday's Oscar™ broadcast was, underwhelmingly, a television ratings bomb.  Not even the allure of Tinseltown's beautiful people walking down the red carpet in free gowns and borrowed jewels could tempt Americans to tune into what's known as the biggest self-congratulatory backslapping event in the history of mankind.

The CEO of silliness.  The late Steve Allen used cite a delicious analogy to describe why the public airwaves should be kept free from offensive content.  If a stranger walked into your house, stood before your children in the living room, and started stripping and cursing, would you feel their innocence had been violated?  Why then, he'd ask, should TV networks be allowed to do the same, using the airwaves owned by those very parents?

Americans will devote half their lives to forms of media next year.  In 2000, Americans each spent an average of 3,333 hours consuming media — and most of that time (1,467 hours) was spent in front of the TV, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a media-oriented money management company that supplied much of the media data used in the report. Next year, Americans will spend 3,518 hours with their beloved media, including 1,555 in front of the TV, says Veronis Suhler Stevenson.  That means the average American will spend roughly 146 days, or five months, consuming media.

In every corner, a television set.  Television ownership used to be an accepted indicator of wealth and social class:  the higher the number of sets in a neighbourhood, the better off the residents.  No longer.  Indeed, some of the poorest corners of Britain now have the highest ownership rates. … Find a household with no television and it is likely to be a sign less of poverty than of middle-class sensibilities.

Medic, Marcus Welby, Dr. Kildare, Medical Center, Ben Casey, The Doctors, General Hospital, St. Elsewhere,
M*A*S*H, AfterMASH, Emergency, The Nurses, ER, Chicago Hope, House, Grey's Anatomy ...
TV, heal thyself.  What is it with you people and medical shows?  How is it that I and every other normal human being hates going to the hospital even if it's just to bring candy and flowers to someone who has to be there, but when it comes to TV, you can't seem to get your fill of smocks and surgical masks?

Unanswered TV questions.  Sure, I watch TV for entertainment, but sometimes it's all I can do not to put a foot through the screen in frustration.  Many reasons for that (the general quality of shows these days, Hollywood's obsession with wealth), but the shows also invite weird plot-related irritation with their UQs — Unanswered Questions.  Every show has one or more, questions that normal people would ask, but that would ruin the entire plot of a show if they were actually voiced.

Rumors of Broadcast TV's Death Are Premature.  Financial analyst Steve Kamman has said that, with the advent of digital video recorders and video-on-demand, there will no longer be any demand for broadcast television. … [However] Watching television is a passive activity.  To be entertained, you don't have to do much more than turn on the TV and surf until something good comes up.  If there were no channels to surf, only thousands of programs you could call up on demand, how would you know what to watch?

[What an odd question.  If there were no TV stations, how (and why) would you stay in the habit of watching TV?]

FCC's Emergency Alert System Coming to Your Cell Phone Soon.  The Emergency Alert System (EAS) has "fallen into disarray and needs major reform," concluded FCC Chairman Michael Powell recently as he announced agency plans to revamp the system, according to a report in Broadcasting and Cable.

 Editorial Comment:   It was the FCC that cooked up the current EAS system, and now, after they have added more and more uses for it, now it has "fallen into disarray".  The new modernized version will be able to turn your TV or radio on, if it isn't already.  Why not just make it illegal to turn the TV off?  If these people have their way, we'll all have Orwellian Telescreens in our homes.

Why cable 'a la carte' won't roll.  Americans love channel surfing, and many spend their evenings flipping through the vast ocean of inexpensive programming available through cable television packages.  But if the Federal Communications Commission has its way, that value-priced ocean could be reduced to an expensive puddle.

Cable choice now.  Increasing numbers of public policy organizations, political leaders, and even telecommunications companies are endorsing the very simple concept that consumers should take and pay for only that which they want on cable television, rather than having to continue subsidizing programming they find offensive or just plain lousy.

Man admits killing the cable guy.  A Gary [Indiana] man became so enraged when he learned his TV wouldn't readily accept his newly installed cable, he shot and killed the cable guy.  Fransuah Mathews admitted Thursday he fatally shot a man installing cable for him to repay a debt when Mathews realized his TV was not cable ready.

Americans are Eager to Know about Economics, Study Says.  Television, by far the most popular conduit for those seeking economic knowledge, leaves its viewers with below-average knowledge.  But television viewers outperform those who turn to political leaders, friends, relatives, or civic or religious leaders as their primary source of information, according to Blinder and Krueger.

Congress Urged to "Clean House" at FCC Over Profanity Ruling.  (Editor's Note:  The following contains references to language the reader may find offensive.)  A pro-family group is calling on Congress to "clean house" at the FCC.  The demand follows the FCC's ruling in October that the "f-word" does not violate the commission's obscenity standards.

NBC's on-air war on the FCC.  Calling this "news" opens a big profanity loophole.  Even worse is the commission's creation of a provision for the networks themselves to determine what fits this "news" definition.  What's next?

TV Profanity Will Go Before Appeals Judges.  Fox and CBS's First Amendment challenge to regulations against on-air profanity could either open the way to more cursing on network television or encourage broadcasters to play it safer with tamer programming.

Note:  This article is replete with profanity.
The words you can never say on TV, except when you can:  It's obvious by now that the FCC makes up the rules for acceptable speech as it goes along.  In the paradigmatic example of broadcast indecency, Carlin's monologue about "the words you couldn't say on the public airwaves," there's no question that the expletives were "integral" to the routine, which was partly about the very censorship to which it became subject.

Have TV shows gone too far with raunchy language?  "It's a clear path from not too long ago where we had standards for language to where there are practically no standards anymore," said Tim Winter, president of the Los Angeles-based watchdog group whose 1.1 million members generate the overwhelming majority of complaints the government receives about TV's offensiveness.  "We're talking about broadcast television in prime time, not a New York taxi stop, not a football locker room, not the way a vice president may talk in private."

Does Profanity Reign Supreme?  The Supreme Court has taken up the case of FCC vs. Fox Television Stations, the bizarre case in which Fox and other broadcast TV networks have argued that "fleeting" profanities are mere accidents that should not be punished with fines.  While it's laudable that the nation's top court would take up the matter, it's beyond outrageous that what Hollywood really wants — and, in a cowardly way, is refusing to declare publicly — is the "right" to bombard your living room, and your children, with obscenities.

The Editor says...
It is fairly easy for a TV network to include a ten-second delay into any "live" program, in order to catch and filter out profanity before it gets on the air.  With that technology available (and indeed, already installed), nothing gets on the air accidentally.  At least not at the network level.  So-called "fleeting" profanity is being justified and defended for one reason:  to open the door for more frequent, intentional and offensive outbursts, and eventually normalize every imaginable sort of corrupt communication.  Once again I remind you, this kind of incrementalism only goes in one direction.

Fox Refuses To Pay FCC Indecency Fine.  In an unusually aggressive step, Fox Broadcasting yesterday refused to pay a $91,000 indecency fine levied by the Federal Communications Commission for an episode of a long-canceled reality television show, even as the network fights two other indecency fines in the Supreme Court.  The FCC proposed fining all 169 Fox-owned and affiliate stations a total of $1.2 million in 2004 for airing a 2003 episode of "Married by America," which featured digitally obscured nudity and whipped-cream-covered strippers.

Stop Taxpayer Subsidies for all Broadcasters!  As another conservative journalist is exposed on the payroll of the Bush Administration, the nation's leading media watchdog, Accuracy in Media (AIM), called on public television and radio to give up their $400 million in taxpayer subsidies.  AIM Editor Cliff Kincaid says that it is obvious that the liberal media are only against taxpayer subsidies for journalists when they are conservative.

The Disappearing Anchor 'Man'.  Turn on your TV for the nightly newscast and you're now more than likely to see a woman on the screen — whether it's Katie Couric, Elizabeth Vargas or the woman delivering your local news.

[Why do you suppose that is?  It is partly because TV stations are under pressure to hire women and minorities, but it is also because people have become accustomed to women as figures of authority, thus credible bearers of serious news.  Forty years ago it wasn't that way.]

The Struggle for Control of the Media:  One of the key, though underestimated, ways in which America differs from other Western democracies is that it lacks a partisan media system.  By this, I mean a complete panoply of openly partisan outlets in every form of media.  It has this today only on the Internet, and is acquiring it on television.

FCC Chief Wants More Minority Broadcasters:  The nation's chief telecommunications regulator wants to take advantage of the television industry's transition to digital broadcasting to make channels available to small businesses that may be owned by minority programmers.

Television Statistics:  According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than four hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year).  In a 65-year life, that person will have spent nine years glued to the tube.

The FCC's not our mommy and daddy.  Why the federal agency is wrong to recommend regulating violence on TV.

It's about time to clean up our act.  [The FCC] recently released a report that said Congress has the authority to keep programs with violent content from being shown during hours when children could view them.  Ha.  That is laughable.  Imagine Congress or any other lawmaking body in this country actually trying to regulate social behavior in an effort to give us a healthier climate to live in!  No, it won't happen because the self-centered majority won't let it happen.

Toned-down awards shows:  The "wardrobe malfunction" that launched a national outpouring of rage against televised soft-porn slime continues to reap great benefits for the forces of reason, reticence and decency on television.

The F-word vs. the Stripper Pole.  The post-Imus, out-to-get-you reality is that making a vague reference to stripping will earn you a week of criticism, and perhaps even some calls for your job.  But you'll see no FCC repercussions for slipping an f-bomb into a live broadcast.

Judges vs. the FCC:  The federal judges who ruled against the FCC suggested the agency's rulings were "arbitrary and capricious."  But is there anything more arbitrary and capricious than an egotistical celebrity dropping the F-bomb on national TV?  Or the network refusing to administer a tiny delay?  Pardon me if I can't imagine Thomas Jefferson and Co. pledging their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor for the valiant cause of transmitting the potty mouths of washed-up pop singers and spoiled-rotten mall princesses into millions of American households.

The Editor says...
When you turn on a television, you know exactly what you're getting into.  When someone curses on television, or exposes herself (or himself), or sets a bad example for your kids, it gets into your home only because you didn't turn off the television. If it happens more than once, it is only because you didn't get rid of your television.

Reed Irvine, R.I.P..  In its infancy, network television news was a rip-and-read enterprise, 15 quick minutes of wire service copy.  But as TV news divisions recognized their own political power, they began actively to steer a national audience toward a political worldview of their liking.  Sometimes it was as simple as covering something, or refusing to cover something.

Top Ten Best & Worst Shows on network prime-time television:  At the conclusion of each television season, the Parents Television Council applauds those television shows which provide families the best entertainment free of gratuitous sex, violence and foul language.  Moreover, the PTC alerts parents to the most vulgar and violent programs, particularly those marketed to the youngest audiences.

Dishonor Awards:  The Most Outrageously Biased Liberal Reporters of 2001.

Even as Viewers Tune Out, BBC Bosses Get £3.7 Million.  The BBC paid its top managers £3.7 million in salary and bonuses last year despite losing more than half a million television viewers to rival digital channels and the internet, according to the corporation's annual report.

Media bias regarding gun control:  Today, the right to own a gun is under assault like never before.  Every time a firearm is used in a high-profile crime, calls for stricter gun regulation — even outright prohibition — are pounded into us by a press that has taken sides.  In fact, when it comes to guns, journalists have clearly made up their minds.  According to a recent study, television news stories calling for stricter gun laws outnumbered newscasts opposing such laws by a ratio of ten to one.  In other words, we are hearing only one side of the story.

Violence and Promiscuity Set the Stage for Television's Moral Collapse.  Long hailed as the cheapest form of family entertainment, television has cost us our imagination, our conversation, and our children's innocence.  As Dr. George Gerbner puts it, "The roles [young people] grow into are no longer home-made, hand-crafted, and community inspired."  Instead, they are developing a worldview based on television and not their own experience.

The Dumbing Down Of Politics:  [Scroll down] The [LA] Times noted that Barack Obama, during a tight schedule that had him shuttling between New York and Washington last Thursday, "managed to squeeze in time to visit an influential national television program:  'The Tyra Banks Show.'"  "During the hourlong show," the Times said, "the supermodel turned TV personality challenged her guest to a game of pickup basketball and had him look in a crystal ball to divine his future."

The Editor says...
To describe the Tyra Banks show as "an influential national television program" is either a gross distortion or a sad commentary on the number of malleable dupes who watch it.  Tyra seems to have forgotten that she got where she is based entirely on her gender and her race, even as she preaches that all women and blacks are victims of discrimination.  The show is an hour of meaningless pap that exists only to fill the gaps between commercial breaks.

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Are commercial breaks louder than TV programs?

Yes and no.  The peak audio level is the same, but the average level is usually higher, simply because most advertisers have only 30 seconds to make their point and pitch their product.  Most movies, soap operas, and dramatic productions have long quiet scenes -- especially in the last few seconds before a commercial break.  Comedy shows are usually augmented with canned laughter and applause, so the viewers don't notice much contrast in loudness when the commercial break begins.

Bill seeks to turn down sound on TV ads.  Fed up with TV ads so loud that they send viewers scrambling to hit mute on their remotes, a Bay Area lawmaker is pushing a new bill that would force federal regulators to ratchet down the volume of commercials.  The proposal was introduced this week by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, and it isn't winning her any friends in the broadcasting or advertising industries.  But Eshoo's House colleagues are warming to the idea, which could address a daily annoyance for millions of TV viewers.

I sent a message to the writer of the article above, to say...

Over-the-air TV stations already have equipment that regulates the peak audio level of everything that goes into their transmitters.  Soap operas, commercials, and local news programs are all treated the same way, and variations in audio levels (from one second to the next) are surprisingly small.

To impose new regulations on the subjective loudness of commercials, and keep those audio levels lower than the surrounding program material, the broadcasters would have to artificially boost the volume on program segments that are not necessarily intended to be loud, and actively suppress the effectiveness of commercials.  It is the commercials, after all, that pay the bills at a TV station, and I'd hate to be a TV advertising salesperson having to explain to a client that his spots will be intentionally half-muted.

Twenty years ago I noticed that the video levels are just as different as the audio levels.  Soap operas (a/k/a daytime dramas) are usually very dark, while the interspersed soap commercials are bright.  This is still true today.  Since many soap operas are produced by Proctor and Gamble, this should come as no surprise.

Rep. Anna Eshoo may or may not have a good idea, but its implementation would require a new set of unambiguous standards for the measurement of average loudness, and a long discussion about how much reduction is enough, and whether it would be just as annoying and tiresome for a movie to have a constantly loud sound track.

I think we should leave things the way they are, and "let the market decide" if it's really that big a problem.  The viewers have plenty of options available, including the OFF button.

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The United States of Advertising.  America is, I think, the only country in the world which permits advertising of drugs which are available only through your doctor.  The insidious message is simple; if your doctor is not offering you this drug, maybe you should be asking for it.  …The whole point of [prescription drugs] is that it is not considered safe to let us simply buy them over the counter.  They are so strong or so habit forming that it is up to the doctor to decide that we really need them.  Advertising subtly changes that relationship….

Why TV Ads Are a Waste of Money:  To the extent that TV ads have ever had an impact in a general election, that influence has been sharply diminished by the Internet and TiVo Ages.  Viewers now receive their information in ways that minimize their contact with commercials.  Sure, advertisers still flock to television.  But effective product commercials these days run far more often and strategically than do political ads, and production-value-wise, they are light years ahead of anything the candidates ever put out.

Warning:  Products Ahead.  Hide the children:  Commercial products are visible on network television.  That's the urgent message from a clatch of public interest groups who wrote to the Federal Communications Commission last week demanding an end to "advertainment." … This conspiratorial view of advertising goes back to Vance Packard and the "Hidden Persuaders," the book unmasking the supposed media manipulation of the 1950s.

TV and Test Scores Don't Mix.  A new study finds that children who have TV sets in their bedrooms score lower on school tests than those who don't, according to the New York Times. … The issue may have more to do with parental control.  Parents may not be aware if their children are up all night watching television, or if they are watching inappropriate programming.

Networks Plan on Blaspheming God — Most Shocking TV Season Ever:  ABC, CBS and NBC are considering dropping many of the few remaining standards on network prime-time TV programs — and will likely allow expletives and four-letter words never spoken before on broadcast TV.

Violence on Prime Time Broadcast TV.  Concerns about the impact of television violence on society are almost as old as the medium itself.  As early as 1952, the United States House of Representatives was holding hearings to explore the impact of television violence and concluded that the "television broadcast industry was a perpetrator and a deliverer of violence."

Foul Language on Prime Time Network TV.  The connection between media violence and real life violence has been well documented.  The consensus of the scientific and mental health communities is that children are profoundly influenced by the violent images they see on television and in films.  Constant exposure to media violence can result in aggressive, anti-social behavior, and even violent outbursts.

Sex Loses its Appeal.  For years conventional wisdom in Hollywood has been that "sex sells," and the more, the better.  That mantra has been reflected in increasingly frequent and increasingly graphic depictions of sex on television.  But does sex really attract more viewers?  In recent years, countless surveys have shown that not only are parents increasingly concerned about how exposure to sexual content is affecting their children, but even adults are turned-off by the rampant sex on TV.

This might be a case of over-analysis...
The Use of Offensive Language by Men and Women in Prime Time Television Entertainment.  A content analysis examined prime-time television entertainment programs aired on 7 broadcast networks during the 2001 season.  Profanity use within inter-sex and intra-sex interactions was explored.  Swearing occurred most often in man-to-man interactions, followed by women-to-men.  Men and women tended to use mild curse words more when talking to the opposite sex.  Unmarried women more often directed expletives at both men and women; unmarried men cursed more at other men.  Offensive language was most often met by a neutral response; men and women were equally likely to respond positively and negatively to cursing.  Men in feature roles, as compared to minor roles, used more profanity when speaking to men and women.

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The Disappearing Family Hour

Parents' Television Council Says Family Hour Has Gone From Bad to Worse:  Violence, vulgarity and profanity are more prominently displayed on television's family hour than ever before, according to the Parents' Television Council.

PTC Study:  Broadcast TV Family Hour Fare Filthier Than Ever.  A new Parents Television Council™ study of Family Hour programming conclusively shows that children watching television during the first hour of prime time are assaulted by violence, profanity or sexual content once every 3.5 minutes of non-commercial airtime.  During the 2006-2007 study period, almost 90% of the 208 television shows reviewed contained objectionable content.

The Frustrated Family Hour.  Since 2000-2001, violent content during the family hour has increased 52 percent.  Sexual content is up 22 percent.  Foul language is down 25 percent since 2000-2001.  But wait.  The decrease is almost entirely due to the drop in less objectionable words….  The major curse words have hardly declined at all, just 3 percent.

The Editor says...
Television (and radio, for that matter) can only provide inexpensive family entertainment in a country where either (a) the producers of broadcast programs have the self-control and common decency to present only G-rated shows and (b) the viewing public tolerates only the most benign material.  These conditions have not been met in the U.S. since the 1960's.  There is no "Family Hour."  Prime-time television, with rare exceptions, is a cesspool of tawdry and salacious pap that is unfit for consumption.  If you allow television into your home, you will not benefit from it, unless your goal is to squander your time and take your mind off your troubles.  For that purpose, television is cheaper than alcohol and safer than heroin.

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Tuned In, Turned Off, and Ticked Off, Too:  The Culture and Family Institute — an affiliate of Concerned Women for America — has released a report accusing the FCC of failing to crack down on broadcasters who allow foul language, sexual innuendo, and partial nudity to air during prime time.

The Coax Straightjacket:  Stopping Cable Copy-Protection Abuse.  The Supreme Court "Betamax" decision decades ago established the fair use rights of consumers to make copies of television programs, and save them on videocassettes.  But with the demise of VHS, the newly ascendant technology is Digital Video Recorders (DVRs), such as the TiVo and its various cruder generic cousins (the latter typically cable company supplied).

The FCC Circus Comes To Town.  Last week's FCC media ownership hearings in Nashville were the very definition of a dog and pony show, with apologies to dogs and ponies.  In a fully scripted, eight-hour day, an army of people addressed the four commissioners present, who did a remarkable job of appearing attentive and engaged the whole time.

Bad news for WFAA:
Senate nullifies FCC rule on media ownership.  The Senate voted Thursday night to nullify a Federal Communications Commission rule that allows media firms to own a newspaper and a television station in the same market.  The unusual "resolution of disapproval," sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and 24 other senators, was approved by a voice vote.

Dumb and dumber:  An invitation to a dialogue on America's intellectual capacity.  Back in the 1950s, the popular television show The $64,000 Question once showed a contestant six paintings and asked not only the artist and subject but also the name of the teacher with whom the artist studied.  As Professor Robert Thompson of Syracuse puts it, "In the '50s game shows, you had to know the exact answer.  Today we get multiple choice on a show whose title isn't even punctuated correctly."  Any doubt which direction we are moving?

TV commercials can literally be a pain, German experts say.  If you have mysterious back pains which your doctor cannot explain, the cause may be partly due to watching TV commercials about pain-relief medication, according to findings of a revolutionary new study in Germany.  The German researchers said incidence of back pain among people living behind the Berlin Wall increased dramatically after German unification as East Germans became inundated by West German commercial television networks.

Wake-up call to a.m. news:  moms tuning out.  Several years ago, the 34-year-old mother of three stopped watching the morning shows.  After getting TiVo, she had no patience to sit through multiple commercial breaks during a live newscast.  On top of that, the segments began to seem more and more frivolous.  "Watching morning television for me is the equivalent of reading People magazine in the dentist's office," said Lauck, who writes for websites from her home in Santa Rosa, Calif.  "They don't have anything new or particularly relevant to my life.  It seems like a lot of fluff.  I feel like I can get information faster and cleaner on the Internet."

Reporting from inside the media vacuum.  With industry-wide belt-tightening, news organizations are dispatching fewer reporters to the trail, and [Mark] Halperin added that "some major candidates, some for whole days, don't have reporters from major news organizations with them."  Predictably, lower-tier candidates have only a handful of reporters with them at this point.

US news chiefs warn of evening TV news demise.  Paul Slavin, senior vice president of ABC News Gathering told a House of Lords Select Committee on Communications that while the network's evening news audience is growing, its audience in the 25-54 demographic is declining.  He stated that if this group continues to turn away from the evening news, then it is not inconceivable that evening news will disappear across the networks.

CBS evening blues.  CBS executives deny it, but there's a growing feeling within the network that Katie Couric is an expensive, unfixable mistake.

Anchor Away:  Katie Couric's ill-fated voyage with CBS.  The viewership of nightly national news began to decline more than two decades ago, before the Internet and before cable news became a big deal.  The erosion that has occurred on all fronts of all the news divisions, beginning in the mid-eighties, when Capital Cities bought ABC and G.E. bought NBC, is well documented, all the more fastidiously because it not only combines business and human interest but also involves media people's favorite subject:  media people.

Viewcrime:  TV dealers [in Great Britain] are required by law to collect the names and addresses of people who buy televisions.  This info then goes into a giant database.  Let me be perfectly clear.  This is mandatory.  This is about watching television.

Interesting new invention:  The advert enforcer.  If a new idea from Philips catches on, the company may not be very popular with TV viewers.  The company's labs in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, has been cooking up a way to stop people changing channels to avoid adverts or fast forwarding through ads they have recorded along with their target programme.

The Editor says..
My recommendation is to abandon television altogether.  It has been rendered obsolete by the internet (for news) and DVD's (for entertainment).  It takes a lot of effort and imagination to raise children without television.  Fortunately, many books have been written, such as the following:

Alternatives To TV Handbook:  A sweet and practical guide to raising children with little to no TV, with very workable solutions for children of all ages.  Marie McClendon has an MA in Early Childhood Education, and is a mother of four resourceful children, raised with the methods outline