http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:36:38 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/03/14/085628.php#comment-703199 Commercial TV has been unwatcheable for several years, and PBS has become the only source of decent, adult TV. Commercial TV now inserts as much as 25 minutes of ads into every hour of elapsed time. That's why some of your familiar favorites have become even more thin and uninteresting: 5 minutes more of plot had to be excised to allow for the ads. But alas! Now PBS management is determined to make PBS compete with the commercial networks. This is a very stupid move. What's the point? To trick people into watching watered down program content augmented with sugar and made simple-minded? To increase PBS budgets so that the execs get bigger pay? Now PBS is getting worse with it's ads and programming pabulum. The commercial pitches are as annoying as on the commercial nets. The "Pledge Drives" are much more frequent and are parodies of the annual auctions and pledge drives that used to drive the budget of the stations. One of the few refuges is PBS KIDS which consistently turns out programs that adults should watch in hopes of becoming as smart as a 5th grader. Soon, the discriminating viewer will be forced to either abandon TV altogether and/or convert to Pure Pirate Programming by harvesting their own materials from the wealth of good stuff that's available somewhere, if you know how and where to look. Of course, one of the consequences of the iron grip of the network corporate monopolies on broadcasting is that it's impossible for a small individual or group to broadcast their own community TV. In spite of the fact that the cost of TV broadcasting has dropped to very little, and the conversion of huge amounts of analog TV to digital has freed up enough spectrum to accomodate almost everyone who would want to broadcast a non-commercial signal. 703199@blogcritics.org Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:36:38 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/03/14/085628.php#comment-702986 Thanks! I actually have been turning to the PBS over the last month since network TV has been so droll, so I love this summary. I keep forgetting what night Antiques Roadshow is on. I'm thrilled to see someone acknowledging PBS programming. Austin City Limits has been on my TIVO for two years now and that Allison Krause and Union Station one is a repeat. It's pretty good, but you're right, Kathleen Edwards seemed out of place. They should have given Union Station the whole hour. I've been dying for some new shows. They haven't aired a new one since that fantastic Crowded House hour in January. It's still by far the best music show on TV. 702986@blogcritics.org Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:21:07 EDT