TV 101: Why you're not allowed to complain about what's on TV

Hey, did you hear? Anna Nicole Smith died and there's a fight over her corpse. Also, there's genocide in Darfur, quite possibly because of something Howard K. Stern said.

Over the last two weeks, I've been subjected to a rash of televised news about fluffy non-stories that I didn't care about. I bemoaned the state of American News Television and nodded knowingly when SNL (such a satire, that SNL) ran a skit that said the same thing.

Except here's the thing: I did sorta care about Anna Nicole Smith. And yes, I cared more about her than the genocide in Darfur. Does that make me a classless, shortsighted, anti-intellectual? Yep. It also makes me an American.

I'm gonna say it right now -- you're not allowed to complain about what's on television any more. I don't mean that you can't criticize it (god knows it deserves criticism -- I'm looking at you, last few episodes of Lost), I just mean that you, as an American, are no longer allowed to complain about the types of things that TV gives to you.

Mindless sitcoms? Useless news? Reality Show after Reality Show? Bill O'Reilly? All of them are evil and (probably) cause blindness and dementia, but all of them exist because people watch them. And when I say "people" I don't mean some amorphous and nameless blob -- I mean you. Reading this right now. That's right, take your finger out of your nose, I can see you.

Well, no, I can't see you (I don't work for the Department of Homeland Security). The point I'm trying to make is that when we talk about all the terrible stuff on television, we talk about "what the masses want" as if we're all Harold Bloom, splitting our time between PBS and writing literary analysis. Well, I've got bad news for you, unless you're actually, right now, living in an ivory tower and wearing a monocle, you are part of the masses. That's what the "masses" mean. It means you. And like all masses, you should down your opium and be done with it.

A quick lesson (obvious, but it stands repeating): Television is a reactive medium. Its whole goal is to GIVE US WHAT WE WANT. That's why they take ratings all the time. If something is bad and gets a lot of ratings, it gets renewed and cloned. If something is good but unwatched (hey remember how everybody loved Arrested Development except that nobody actually watched it?) it gets canceled. If, on the off chance something truly good actually gets eyeballs on it, the networks would respond. Believe me, if Masterpiece Theater all of a sudden got forty million viewers, you'd see the networks start churning out "class" just as quickly as they're currently churning out "crass."

Despite what you think about conspiracies (liberal or otherwise), television is the most neutral medium in the world. Like your bookie or your church, all it really cares about is making money. How it does that is by providing you with free entertainment that you watch and it, in turn, can charge advertisers for providing your attention to them. The more you watch, the more they can charge. It's a fairly simple equation. Jordan McDere aside, the actual CONTENT of those programs matter very little to programming executives. If you watch it, they'll put it on.

And ever since the news departments had to start making money like every other department at the network, the same goes for them. Maybe you could make the argument that Edward R. Murrow was fighting the good fight and giving America its castor oil whether she wanted it or not, but today every newsperson is, on some level, Ryan Seacrest on E! News Daily. They're just as desperate for ratings as any other show; the news, then becomes a sample of what America wants to hear about.

That's why I get so annoyed when I hear people bemoaning the state of television. They talk as if network executives are all sitting in a room somewhere twirling black mustaches and cooking up stories that no one wants to hear about despite America's THIRST for hard hitting news.

Executive: I want Anna Nicole Smith to be the lead today.

Hard Hitting Journalist: But what about the genocide in the Sudan? The third-world conditions of Walter Reed Hospital? The...

E: Whoa, whoa... let me ask you something. Do any of those things have boobs? I mean really really big boobs?

HHJ: Well, no... I suppose some of the nurses at Walter Reed...

E: Then I don't want to hear about it.

HHJ: But the American people are clamoring, CLAMORING for news about this. They can talk about nothing else. At every water cooler in the country, they're not talking about dead celebrities or sporting events, they're talking about African civil war! We need to have our show reflect that interest!

E: Do you think I care about ratings? Are you that naive? I don't care about ratings! I care about pushing my own agenda of meaningless news about big breasted celebrities! Anna Nicole! Brittany! Lindsay! Though her boobs are smaller than they used to be. I'm hoping for some re-boobage maybe after she puts some weight on in rehab!

HHJ: But why? Why would you keep the American people from hearing about what they WANT TO HEAR ABOUT?

E: Because I'm evil.

HHJ: Really? That's it?

E: Yep, I'm also uncomplicated. C'mon, let's go play squash and then after that make some sandwiches and then eat them in front of the homeless.

Yeah, that's not happening. In your heart of hearts, you don't believe it either. The big stories are ignored for the meaningless because people like you and me want it to be that way. For better or worse, TV news is a creation of our wants.

Now, you can debate whether this should be the case. You can say that perhaps TV owes its viewers an unbiased and fiscally-free news department that makes tough decisions about what we need to know about and presents those decisions without thinking about ratings.

TV COULD do that, but it won't. You know why? Because the second that unbiased and socially responsible show came on, you'd turn to My Super Sweet Sixteen.

And even if there is a plan for such a show, until then we have to live in the world that we created. Thus, Anna Nicole and not Darfur.

That's America folks. Maybe we really are Rome at the end of its empire, all bread and circuses, but I'm not going to complain. I'm just as bad as all of you. When someone on a news program starts talking about "carbon footprints" or Japanese whaling or the economics of China, I begin to glaze over and immediately flip to a show where someone gets voted off for something. Why? Because I'm an American, that's why. Being obsessed with the stupid is the luxury of the rich and powerful.

So this is for you, you Jerry Springer watchers! You American Idol voters! You Anna Nicole and Brangelina experts! You keep on keeping on. If the country (or even the world) should crumble around us, at the very least, you can claim convincingly that you had no idea that it was happening.

And I'll be right there on the couch with you.