I admit it. I’ve been itching to write this column for more than two months. But other things needed to be said first.
There’s a time to be serious. There’s a time to be funny. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, much like the sudden nature of the coronavirus crisis, everything shut down abruptly. Serious people took over doing serious things. It offered a calming confidence.
Then, one day – one night actually – the time for non-stop seriousness ended. On Saturday night, September 29, 2001, nearly three weeks after the September 11th terrorist attacks, Reese Witherspoon stepped onto the stage at NBC Studios in New York City’s GE Building for the airing of the season’s first episode of Saturday Night Live.
Only she wasn’t the first one on the stage. In lieu of the standard cold opening, Mayor Rudy Giuliani appears on stage with members of the New York City Fire Department, the New York City Police Department, and the Port Authority Police Department. In a quiet and Continue Reading “Yes, I Was Wearing Pants”
Tucker Carlson Signals Old-Style Broadcast TV Business Model Faces No Tomorrow
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the dominance of network TV has dwindled over the last two generations. With the advent of easy-to-access cable TV over the last forty years, viewers have weened themselves from the network nipple.
This change in behavior hasn’t necessarily occurred deliberately. The very act of presenting so many options paralyzes viewers into non-decision. This is a common reaction to what behavioral psychologists call “choice overload.” But don’t give them credit. Alvin Toffler first introduced the concept in his 1970 book Future Shock. He called it “overchoice.”
Of course, if you want to be a stickler, choice overload is merely a derivative of Continue Reading “Tucker Carlson Signals Old-Style Broadcast TV Business Model Faces No Tomorrow”