Minnow's speech about the future of television is something that is truly motivating. Had I been one of those privileged media producers in that room, I feel I would have been truly inspired to take action over most of the things that were addressed. His ideas, his honesty, and his cold rationale are something that seem unparalleled in today's media industry.
Minnow begins by affirmatively reassuring the audience that television is not a bad thing. It is a wonderful tool that has endless possibilities to expand the minds of millions of Americans, and when it is good, “nothing is better.” He then addresses that most television unfortunately doesn't fall under this category and speaks of how television itself has become a “vast wasteland.”
Minnow goes on to discuss many important issues in his speech: children's educational programming, rating systems, censorship, networks, licensing, and diverse and alternative programming. He makes fantastic points on every single issue and reassures all broadcasters that he is not there to stop the progress of television, but simply push it in the right direction.
However, I couldn't help but feel disturbed while reading this speech. Simply put, none of these amazing ideas ever surfaced. Today, networks are still slaves to the ratings, advertisers still control the programming, educational television is still at a minimum, and diverse programming is becoming less and less while stations look to capitalize off of others' previous successes. It's troubling to read about how different the future of television could have been if these producers would have looked up toward the horizon rather than down at the Nielsen. Like Minnow said, “Never have so few owed so much to so many.”
No comments:
Post a Comment