Yay! The new TV season is being announced this week !!

By this time next week everybody will know whether or not their marginal network beloved show made it for another season or not. Shows will be added, cancelled and moved in record time. None of it will make any sense to average people. Most of us will not care one way or the other because the majority of the shows are crap to begin with and the planet will keep on revolving whether we like it or not.

Sigh. I should be sitting in the front room right now, like many of you, trying to figure out what to watch, if I didn't have a brain at all and couldn't entertain myself that is.

I have observations : (Check out http://TvByTheNumbers.zap2it.com/

Television production networks spend millions and millions of dollars every year trying to figure out how to have the best shows on television. None of them are ever successful for more than 4-5 years and then somebody figures out that some other type of show is better. Next thing you know, everybody is schlock-ing along making the next batch of TV goo for us to watch.

Its pathetic. First there was one good cop , forensic drama and then next thing you know there is 35 of them. What do ya think is going to happen to your content when you start boring me to death with something. You think that makes me want to watch more of it ?

The people who make decisions about TV shows really have no clue why those of us who were watching their crap aren't watching it any more. They are listening to all the wrong people for one. I'll bet none of them has went outside their comfort zones and asked real people questions in a dozen years or more. The reason why is they have been sold the lie about "Research" and statistics that have to do with demographics (age related analysis) and marketability, and sustainability. Problem is that has little to do with engaging content.

All these metrics tell you is that you figured out how to catch our attention for a few minutes in a virtual ocean of choices , and hardly any of your decision making has to do with content. How well you market a show has more to do with whether or not I'll give it a shot than the content does, as I have no idea what you are talking about before I watch it a few times. If I was able to "innately understand the characters" as I heard one of you idiots say this week, why bother marketing it? I can see it now "Hop on Pop - The TV Series".

The people who make TV shows have to bend to the will of dozens of other people in order to get a show on the air. It is a wonder anything ever gets made at all. (Network Exec - "Put a woman in it!! It has to sell product to women !! Flunky TV producer - "But sir Its a Gay prison drama!! ) Its one stupid decision, one cancellation and one more craze after another and real, thoughtful content or real funny content is never given a chance. If it doesn't sell to marketing folks who push their schlocky ads in the precious few minutes that there is in a show to tell the story line to begin with,then zip zam zowie am swoosh , its gone and to hell with it and good riddance. Until that is they start recycling the crap, over and over and over....

Marketing Folks , in turn have absolutely no clue what people like, they only know what we don't turn off. The whole entire TV industry is built around the concept of ratings, which is actually a system that measure the fact that "We didn't turn your crap off, we turned somebody Else's crap off." Is it any wonder we find other things to do ?

I'd just as soon hit my fingers with a hammer than watch some of the absolute crap you people put on and seriously think somebody will watch it. I'd much rather pay my best friend to tighten my testicles in a vice than to watch some of the tripe that you call "TV". "Medium", "V", "Outsourced" ? Seriously? This is the best you could come up with ? How about this. Whenever you have nothing but a snoozer loser to put on, first , send the producers back to the drawing board and tell them "This crap is not good enough". Then instead of subjecting us all to more of your choices made while on cocaine, put up a re-run of the best shows you ever made in the last ten years until they come up with something better.

We don't watch your crap because of a lot of reasons like maybe ; it is too narrowly focused (like on 8-13 year olds - like Hannah Montana), has too many themes going at once (a friendship/romance/action movie) or maybe, wait for it, because it was crap!

Really, there are hundreds of choices and you put a snoozer cheesy show up , nobody watches it and you think the answer is to spend less money, on worse shows, with lower budgets and this fixes the problem ? Jersey Shore is the frigging answer? Top Dog Chef of China next on the Food network. The food network ? Oooh, shows are too expensive to make , so if they are too expensive, we can't charge as much for marketing, which means the show has to cost less to make, which after all cheapens the show and its content, which means you are gonna stop watching it and you are gonna do it all over again with another batch of shows next year !!

You people are absolutely 100 % no kidding bat-shit crazy. Is Gary Busey is in charge of the TV Industry ?

I love the way they all sit around and moan about the loss of the attention span of the average viewer. Oh what a wad of baloney !! If only it were true.

See here is the problem. They all say they recognize that it is 1969 anymore and everybody all say they know that Wally and the Beav aren't plunked down in front of a 3 channel television anymore and that the landscape has changed dramatically. Then everything they do , regardless of what they say, is more of the same old hashed out tore up liquid logic from 1979.

Here are some truths they would be good to get in touch with :

1. We have more options now than we ever had before. When TV was a 3 channel deal, if we don't like what Dad was watching, playing outside on the step with a stick in the dirt was about the only option. How else do you explain playing cards clothes pinned to bicycle spokes ? or shooting each other in the eye with BB guns?



2. Now if your crappy show sucks, we can watch another TV in the house, probably a flat screen TV to boot. Or if we have a blue ray player or a DVD player (or even a CD or VCR) we can watch recorded content or make our own content and bore everybody else with it. Can you say YouTube? Or maybe if it is one of your kids they can yammer on the phone for hours or send text messages to 10 people at once. While they are driving. On their way to the library.



3. We also have phones that deliver content that is not as good as a TV, but the way TV has been going that ain't saying much.



4. Everybody has computers and i-Crap, and MP4G players and all the other cute little made up names for new gadgets. Oh and our phones, they are cameras, they play videos, they take pictures, they have Internet access, and when all else fails they have face book access as well. Angry Birds for cryin out loud, Angry Birds !!



5. Did I say Facebook? Ooh I'm selling cheesecake in my new shop and i need a baking pan can you get one for me. Jesus H. Christ on a crutch !!



6. We could watch out home theatre if we don't want to go to the movies (and apparently we don't like this activity anymore either), and there is all the various streaming content providers like Hula, Netflix, Flixter, etc. BTW-psssst If you didn't know, Sell your Blockbuster stock.



7. Normal options apply, we just can't go very far at $5 a gallon. So yeah, a road trip is in, but not more than 5 miles or so. The small percentage of us who don't spend all our leisure time stoned, drunk or naked have to do something to keep from going crazy trying to find something to watch in the wasteland of TV programming.


8. Did I say Porn ? There is more instant porn available today than ever before and its just getting bigger. Yes Mr. TV man you compete with porn. Get over it. If you didn't it wouldn't keep growing while all your stuff is dying. Well honey, there's nothing on TV, I'm going upstairs !!



9. Two Words. Massive Multi-player. go to google and look up MMORPG. - nuff said.



10. ....and saving the best for last - VIDEO GAMES of all kinds , but especially online game communities. Toasty !! Finish Him !! COD Black Ops ! Halo, friggin Halo !!

So keep your head in the sand and keep thinking if you just make one more reality show or one more schlocky cheezey gag me with a spoon sitcom that everything will get better. While you are doing that Netflix and Nintendo and Sony are getting rich watching you sit on your sorry asses.

Did I say that out loud ?

Thankx for reading my Rant

- BigMike