'Find out what sucks about TV! Next, when we return."

Currently, I'd say what sucks the most about television is that it's not even pretending these days. Costs are down, stocks are up, ad revenue keeps pouring in and still they keep squeaking the content-advertisement ratio closer and closer to 1 or below. Used to be that they'd run the program for a while then sneak in a little "Brought to you by..." and then show some money-makers. But time went by and they decided to sneak just one more in and we kept watchin' so they tossed one more in again and we kept watchin' and then they threw on more in and we still didn't shut it off. Sure we started to change the channel but there was a one-in-three chance that we'd end up on another channel of theirs and so they'd get to count us as a viewer for that channel too.

These days they just stretch 5-minutes of material into a half-hour program with endless recaps and when-we-come-back's. At the root of it all, I think sporting programs are the main blameholders. At the root, before all of the crazy graphics Matrix-freezeframe cams, they are incredibly easy to produce. One simply sets the camera up and follows the action. Not too hard. Then they started putting ads in during the breaks and then realized that they could put more ads in and make more money if the game went a little bit longer and suddenly football was the national sport because it was new and broadcasters could shape it too their wants. A few more time-outs, the advent of the media-break, pre-and post-game commentaries and BOOM, ya gatch yourself a sport that you've made everyone want to see with a minimum output on your part and a very healthy intake. Re-freakin-diculous.

We've got three to four guys each on at least two or three different channels intimately discussing the pros and cons of a certain star player who's gonna get chewed-up and spit-out faster than 5 o'clock news teams toss out their over-30, slightly-less-perkily-breasted-than-this-cute-new-girl anchorwomen, all while C-SPAN and PBS are literally begging for money.

What sucks the most is that TV tells us we're consumers, rather than citizens. They've been telling us that for a long time and the "If three people tell you you're sick" effect did it's thing and the message slowly, slow enough that we didn't even see it moving, slowly it sank in, and these days it doesn't even need to pretend.