Newton Minow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1961 to 1963, famously called U.S. television a “vast wasteland” in his 1961 speech to the National Association of Broadcasters. He criticized television stations filled with violence, predictable comedies, and meaningless commercials, and urged broadcasters to focus on serving the public good.
While his speech at least led to public television, Minow must not have realized our national religion, even in those innocent days, was still capitalism, and money was the driving force behind content.
I didn’t complain about television in 1961. We had Bonanza, Wagon Train, Maverick, The Rifleman, and The Lone Ranger. I had a Lone Ranger book satchel for school. It had silver bullets around the edge of the flap. I had to fight the ladies off with a fly swat.
As time passed, I continued to watch a lot of TV. Like most Boomer kids, television helped raise me and my siblings. From gathering together around the screen on Sunday nights to watch Lawrence Welk and Ed Sullivan to climbing on the roof and twisting the antenna so Daddy could see his favorite football game, television was a major force in our lives.
Throughout my youth and teen years, I marveled at the blinking screen and went from wanting to be a cowboy to staring in wonder at something called the Hullabaloo Dancers—and then cable television came along.
Early cable TV not only gave us more channels to be disappointed, by it gave us prime networks, which really meant paying extra money for channels that weren’t censored by local Baptist ministers.
These days, television has both improved and regressed, again dominated by money. On one hand, television reception is unreal, especially for those of us who remember three channels of fuzzy reception that stopped broadcasting at midnight.
My brother once told me not to get HiDef TV; it would ruin me. He was right. The Smithsonian Channel was my first HiDef experience, and after seeing a woman flying with condors in the Alps, anything HiDef was better than everything not HiDef.
Now everything comes in HiDef, but the quality of the product is horrible. Entertainment executives long ago joined other rich conglomerates in getting greedy. With 1980 tax cuts for the rich legislation, every industry realized it was now easier to make and keep lots more revenue than the old pay a fair share tax days. This resulted in reduced employees, poor quality, and the disappearance of customer service. And it has been happening for 45 years.
For television, loss of quality programming has been the outcome. Reality shows and click bait programming lowered the bar to limbo levels. I thought the bottom was reached a couple years ago when horrific viewing became regular fare on formerly quality networks. Dr. Pimple Popper was on the Learning Channel for nine years and is switching to Lifetime. Naked and Afraid is featured on Discovery. And now ABC, the network that once featured programs like Roots, Grey’s Anatomy, and Happy Days, now broadcasts Dancing with The Stars and the ultimate cringe TV, Golden Bachelor. I shudder to think there’s something worse than that.
Vast wasteland indeed.
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