Zoneboy
07-01-2009, 09:08 AM
Link (http://www.southbergenite.com/NC/0/2763.html)
Television's recent transition from analog to digital transmission went smoothly at our house because, as I suspect is true of most households in this area, we get our signal via cable.
Frankly, even though I built my own crystal radio set as a small boy and was a radio operator in World War II, I haven't the slightest idea what the difference is between an analog and digital signal anyway. The government says digital TV will free up "spectrum space" for public-safety communications while enabling commercial broadcasters to produce a sharper image over even more channels. I'll take their word for it. Now if only somebody could come up with some programs worth watching.
Since we don't go out at nights that much anymore and a few hours of television before bed has become our main source of entertainment, my wife and I went a bit overboard by taking the deluxe package or whatever it's called from our cable company. I'm not sure how many channels we actually get. I've never counted them. They start with the local network stations followed by a seemingly endless selection of cable news, cooking, travel, science, sports and other special interest channels and end with more than a dozen versions of HBO, Cinemax, Starz and Showtime. Yet most evenings, there's nothing worth watching on any of them unless, of course, you enjoy watching people embarrass themselves by eating worms on one of those fake "reality" shows.
One night last week between 8 and 11 p.m. - the time slot generally referred to as "primetime" - CBS, NBC and ABC offered a choice of half hour situation comedies and hour "dramatic" shows that were all repeats of previous episodes. As for those "premium" movie channels, for the most part they play the same titles over and over for weeks on end. The only choice they provide is by playing them at different times which is really no choice at all since you can Tivo programs and play them back whenever you want.
There's no denying that since the television set began to replace the radio as the American family's favorite means of in-home entertainment in those days following the end of World War II its technological progress has been remarkable. Our first set was a 1950 Zenith that received a flickering black and white picture on a small 16-nch round screen. The improvements came so rapidly that it was difficult to keep pace. The picture went from black and white to color, screens not only grew larger but thinner, audio was expanded to stereo surround sound systems, remotes took over the controls and cable provided not only a better picture but dozens of new channels.
The only problem is that when it came to programming, television left its best days behind. TV's Golden Age was also in the 1950s when the sets of that era, antiques by today's standards, featured an abundance of creative programming un-equaled since. There was one evening, for example, when viewers could choose between Kraft Television Theater on ABC, Four Star Playhouse on CBS or Lux Video Theater on NBC. And those productions featured top performers like Paul Newman, Julie Harris, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott, James Dean, Lee Remick and Grace Kelly, to name-drop just a few.
Then there were the variety shows, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason and, of course, the first sitcoms; "I Love Lucy", "Ozzie and Harriet", "Our Miss Brooks", "Father Knows Best"; shows that didn't need a phony laugh track to make you think they were funny. (Ozzie Nelson, incidentally, grew up in Ridgefield Park; Arthur Godfrey in Hasbrouck Heights.)
As a medium for news, television, along with the Internet, is fulfilling its potential to change the world. All-news channels such as CNN - and the network's foreign correspondents, even with the limited time allotted to them each evening - have been doing a superlative job of penetrating the curtain of censorship that tyrants have relied on to maintain their own power. The change for the better may be slow in coming but it is now eventually inevitable.
But as a medium for entertainment, television has been become a creative waste-basket from which the same hackneyed ideas are continually recycled. And as for those so-called situation comedies, the next time you watch one, try this: When the cackles from the laugh-track fill the room, ask yourself, "What are they laughing at?"
I'll bet that, like Molly used to tell Fibber on the old Fibber McGee and Molly radio show, you'll find yourself saying, "It ain't funny, McGee."
Television's recent transition from analog to digital transmission went smoothly at our house because, as I suspect is true of most households in this area, we get our signal via cable.
Frankly, even though I built my own crystal radio set as a small boy and was a radio operator in World War II, I haven't the slightest idea what the difference is between an analog and digital signal anyway. The government says digital TV will free up "spectrum space" for public-safety communications while enabling commercial broadcasters to produce a sharper image over even more channels. I'll take their word for it. Now if only somebody could come up with some programs worth watching.
Since we don't go out at nights that much anymore and a few hours of television before bed has become our main source of entertainment, my wife and I went a bit overboard by taking the deluxe package or whatever it's called from our cable company. I'm not sure how many channels we actually get. I've never counted them. They start with the local network stations followed by a seemingly endless selection of cable news, cooking, travel, science, sports and other special interest channels and end with more than a dozen versions of HBO, Cinemax, Starz and Showtime. Yet most evenings, there's nothing worth watching on any of them unless, of course, you enjoy watching people embarrass themselves by eating worms on one of those fake "reality" shows.
One night last week between 8 and 11 p.m. - the time slot generally referred to as "primetime" - CBS, NBC and ABC offered a choice of half hour situation comedies and hour "dramatic" shows that were all repeats of previous episodes. As for those "premium" movie channels, for the most part they play the same titles over and over for weeks on end. The only choice they provide is by playing them at different times which is really no choice at all since you can Tivo programs and play them back whenever you want.
There's no denying that since the television set began to replace the radio as the American family's favorite means of in-home entertainment in those days following the end of World War II its technological progress has been remarkable. Our first set was a 1950 Zenith that received a flickering black and white picture on a small 16-nch round screen. The improvements came so rapidly that it was difficult to keep pace. The picture went from black and white to color, screens not only grew larger but thinner, audio was expanded to stereo surround sound systems, remotes took over the controls and cable provided not only a better picture but dozens of new channels.
The only problem is that when it came to programming, television left its best days behind. TV's Golden Age was also in the 1950s when the sets of that era, antiques by today's standards, featured an abundance of creative programming un-equaled since. There was one evening, for example, when viewers could choose between Kraft Television Theater on ABC, Four Star Playhouse on CBS or Lux Video Theater on NBC. And those productions featured top performers like Paul Newman, Julie Harris, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott, James Dean, Lee Remick and Grace Kelly, to name-drop just a few.
Then there were the variety shows, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason and, of course, the first sitcoms; "I Love Lucy", "Ozzie and Harriet", "Our Miss Brooks", "Father Knows Best"; shows that didn't need a phony laugh track to make you think they were funny. (Ozzie Nelson, incidentally, grew up in Ridgefield Park; Arthur Godfrey in Hasbrouck Heights.)
As a medium for news, television, along with the Internet, is fulfilling its potential to change the world. All-news channels such as CNN - and the network's foreign correspondents, even with the limited time allotted to them each evening - have been doing a superlative job of penetrating the curtain of censorship that tyrants have relied on to maintain their own power. The change for the better may be slow in coming but it is now eventually inevitable.
But as a medium for entertainment, television has been become a creative waste-basket from which the same hackneyed ideas are continually recycled. And as for those so-called situation comedies, the next time you watch one, try this: When the cackles from the laugh-track fill the room, ask yourself, "What are they laughing at?"
I'll bet that, like Molly used to tell Fibber on the old Fibber McGee and Molly radio show, you'll find yourself saying, "It ain't funny, McGee."