Television Mission Statements: A DOMEOFGLASS.com Investigative Report

    Fifty years ago an artsy-craftsy personage with the unlikely name of Newton Minnow described the television landscape of his day as a Vast Wasteland.
    Geez! Poor Mr. Minnow! He oughta be alive today (and, strangely enough, he is). I mean, like, he was living in the Golden Age of boobtubedom and he didn’t even know it. Those were the days of B&W video and 4-by-3 TV screens and Philco television sets. They were also the days of Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason and The Honeymooners, of Perry Mason before he blew up like a blimp and Carol Burnett and I Love Lucy and Jack Benny and the Twilight Zone and Ed Sullivan with Elvis and the Beatles and some really great shews. (Okay Godfrey was around, but hell, you gotta give Arthur credit for providing satirical material for Bob and Ray.)
    Slow-forward to the present ─ broadcasts in dazzling full color, fiber-optic networks, hundreds of channels (or is it thousands?), oblong wall-to-wall video displays, enough coax cable to encircle the solar system, comsats clogging the stationary earth orbit, HDTV, surround sound, flat-screen plasmas and LCDs up the chotch, and, most important, that holiest of holies, massive, chaotic, cutthroat COMPETITION, that sacred American modus operandi sure to result in programming tailored to fit the lowest common denominator of American mass stupidity.
    No more Vast Wasteland. Instead a VAST FUCKING DISASTER, a super-tanker of dazzling technology loaded with a cargo of phony reality shows, phony talent competitions, phony weight-reduction scams, phony butt-enhancement scams, phony muscle-building scams, phony funniest home videos, phony paranormal documentaries, phony cops-and-robbers epics, and phony biographies of phony rock-and-roll luminaries no one with half a brain gives a shit about. And all this cornucopia of waste matter salted with endless reruns of bad ‘60s and ‘70s series and worse ‘80s, and ‘90s series with an occasional dash of Bulgarian-made horror flicks thrown in.
    But of all the reprehensible trash on television, what ticks me the most is the bottom-line hypocrisy practiced by channel after channel when you compare their noble-sounding "Mission Statements" with the wretched actuality of what their marketing experts choose to show. The chart below makes clear what I mean. The data comes mostly from a scan of programs scheduled on a recent Thursday.

Channel

The Noble Mission Statement

The Grim Reality

Proposed New Statement

Arts and Entertainment (A&E)

The leader in quality entertainment featuring the best in comedy, drama, documentaries and performing arts. A&E also leads the country in programming with educational merit

8 pm - 9 pm: The First 48
9pm - 10pm: The First 48
10pm - 11pm: The First 48
1pm - 12 m: Fugitive Chronicles
12m - 1 am: The First 48
1am - 2am: The First 48
2am - 3am: The First 48

Arts and Entertainment: The world leader in recycled crap

The Travel Channel (Trav)

The exciting new Travel Channel invites you to explore the people, places and cultures of our world. Programming includes first-class travel documentaries, adventure excursions, international cuisine and travel tips

7 pm - 8 pm Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmerman
8pm - 9pm: Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmerman
9pm - 10pm: Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmerman
11pm - 12m: Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmerman
12m - 1am: Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmerman
1am - 2am: Bizarre Foods With Andrew Zimmerman

(And on a recent Sunday)
7pm - 7:30 pm: Man v. Food
7:30pm - 8pm: Man v. Food
8:pm - 8:30pm: Man v. Food
8:30pm - 9pm: Man v. Food
9pm - 9:30pm: Man v. Food
9:30pm - 10pm: Man v. Food
10pm - 10:30pm: Man v. Food
10:30pm - 11pm: Man v. Food
11pm - 11:30pm: Man v. Food
11:30pm - 12m: Man v. Food
12m - 12:30am: Man v. Food
12:30am - 1am: Man v. Food
1am - 1:30am: Man v. Food
1:30am - 2am: Man v. Food
2am - 2:30am: Man v. Food
2:30am - 3am: Man v. Food

DFC, The Disgusting Food Channel, invites you to travel the world watching people scarf down earthworms, snake genitals, elephant turds, and other amazing culinary delicacies

 

 

 

The Learning Channel (TLC)

Entertaining and Informative programming 24 hours a day

8pm - 9pm: Police Women of Broward Country
9 pm - 10 pm: Police Women of Memphis
10pm - 11pm: Mall Cops of America
11pm - 12m: Police Women of Memphis
12 pm - 1am: Mall Cops of America
1am - 2am: Police Women of Broward Country
2am - 3am: Miami Ink

18 hours a day of boring nonsense about armed females confronting shoplifters followed by 6 hours of paid-program hucksterism 

Oxygen (OXY)

Oxygen is a TV channel created for women that is dedicated to empowering women to do great things

 

7pm - 8pm: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
8pm - 9pm: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
9pm - 10pm: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
10pm - 11pm Law & Order: Criminal Intent
11pm - 12m: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
12m - 1am: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
1am - 2 am: Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Oxygen is a TV channel created for women empowering them to hate men and bring their husbands, boyfriends and other low-life slime to book

SyFy

SyFy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year-round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction fantasy

7pm - 9pm: Jeepers Creepers (Crap B-Movie Horror)
9pm - 11pm: Hotel Part II (Junk B-Movie Horror)
11pm - 1am: Hostel (Trash B-Movie Horror)
1am - 3 am: See No Evil ( Shit B-Movie Horror)

SyFy is a sleasy destination that perverts the meaning of Science Fiction to include any sort of low-budget rubbish that will let us turn a profit


Norm Mack, Peterborough, dog@myfairpoint.net

 

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