I hope you want to see Mexican soap operas for their cultural significance, @Heinrich, and not because they are primarily known for featuring very attractive actors.
If you guys think Brit's programs are boring, then what do you see Germany. How about our cousins Canadian and Australia,
If only they spent their money on something constructive...
Ted Faraone
4/24/2012 2:49:44 PM
Marvin,
If only people like the Koch Bros. spent their money on something constructive, the way the Warner Bros. did, PBS and NPR would not have to go cap in hand to "underwriters" and broadcast endless pledge drives.
Instead the Koch Bros. spend their money attacking anybody who has a brain. At least they're consistent. PBS still has a brain. And PBS president Paula Kerger is no fool.
I like Joan Krock. She was the widow of Ray Kroc, the guy who founded the now publicly traded McDonald's fast food chain. She left NPR $200,000,000 in her will.
If the Koch Bros. gave the kind of money that they put into super PACs to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I'd bet that the need for PBS seek out "underwriting" would vanish. If only congress would set up a steady revenue stream for public broadcasting, instead of trying to abolish it every year, we could also be spared "underwriting". Heck, if President Obama had given the $600 million he raised in 2008 to the CPB, there would be no need for congress to kick in a dime.
Instead, the president, congress, and the Koch Bros. come off more like the Marx Bros. than the Warner Bros. The major difference between the Koch Bros. and the Marx Bros. is that the Marxes were acting.
Cheers,
Ted.
Comedian Ricky Gervais said the biggest difference between the U.S. version and the U.K. version of The Office was that the US "had to make Michael Scott a slightly nicer guy, with a rosier outlook to life."
He could still be childish, and insecure, and even a bore, but he couldn't be too mean. ...Brits almost expect doom and gloom so to start off that way but then have a happy ending is an unexpected joy. Network America has to give people a reason to like you not just a reason to watch you. In Britain we stop watching things like Big Brother when the villain is evicted. We don't want to watch a bunch of idiots having a good time. We want them to be as miserable as us.
Re: BBC
AskAsa
4/24/2012 11:14:29 AM
I totally agree. Both the content and business model are unsettling. When they take a show like the Brits version of "The Office"
And bring it here it is much more palatable to American tastes.
I always want to like the BBC, but tyhen I actually put it on...and, well, the Brits just tend to be boring.
Though I like the BBC, I've never really understood the European model of publicly-funded media. The last source I want for my information is the government!
It's a bit reminiscent of when the governments typically owned the telephone companies (many still do). The government-run telephone company always had the small of Soveit-style bureaucracy.
BBC
AskAsa
4/23/2012 5:59:14 PM
The BBC is facing a similar crisis in both funding and content.
"At its best, public television would help make our Nation a replica of the old Greek marketplace, where public affairs took place in view of all the citizens."
Uh-oh -- we're emulating the Greeks? That makes me nervous.
Re: PBS
AskAsa
4/23/2012 3:26:46 PM
Back when LBJ signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, he remarked
"At its best, public television would help make our Nation a replica of the old Greek marketplace, where public affairs took place in view of all the citizens.
But in weak or even in irresponsible hands, it could generate controversy without understanding; it could mislead as well as teach; it could appeal to passions rather than to reason.
If public television is to fulfill our hopes, then the Corporation must be representative, it must be responsible--and it must be long on enlightened leadership."
I don't think it has lived up to its potential, and that if we continue to fund it, then it needs to revert to the original mission.
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