Inside Television 525
Publication date: 10-29-10
By: Hubert O'Hearn
As anyone who has ever followed these columns for any length of time might guess, I'll definitely be tuning in to watch the twin rallies Saturday afternoon featuring Jon Stewart's 'Rally to Restore Sanity' with Stephen Colbert's 'March to Keep Fear Alive.' Bizarrely, I'm not going to be able to watch shows hosted by two men whose regular shows are carried five nights a week in Canada by both CTV and The Comedy Network on television. In Canada what I suspect will be the largest live comedy event in history can only be seen via live streaming video on thecomedynetwork.ca
Not that one really needed much more evidence, but this is one of the smoking guns indicating the demise of broadcast and cable networks as we knew them. They most definitely will continue to exist, after a period of mergers and acquisitions that will leave a baker's dozen or so large content providers amidst a sea of independently producing media buskers. All that truly remains for the takeover to be complete is for the boxes connecting internet content to your Big Boy flat screen TV to be a whole lot less greedy.
Apple is or has rapidly become everything it ever accused Microsoft of being – an Evil Empire setting the rules the rest of us must follow – Achtung baby! The Apple TV2 is sleeker and easier to use than the original Apple TV, but Apple is still a manipulative parent that only favours some of its children. Apple TV 2 rejects the AVI and DiVX files and charges its now usual 99 cents for a TV show. At that rate, assuming four hours of viewing a day, that would run up a pretty nifty bill of $120 a month. My satellite is safe for now.
Getting back to the shows in question, I do keep saying this but had he lived Paddy Chayefsky might well have been fascinated if not horrified at the world he imagined in 'Network.' Why? Name me any other 'liberal' figure in American life who could draw six figures worth of people to a live event and seven or eight figures worth of U.S. TV and on-line viewers?The only other events – political or otherwise – that could pull that off would be a music star at the absolute white hot peak of fame, or Jennifer Aniston v. Angelina Jolie in a Steel Cage shoot fight at Wrestlemania XXVII.
The Stewart and Colbert twin events are of course responses to the Glenn Beck and Tea Party rallies. All have been criticized for being non-serious responses to grave and complicated issues. To which I can only respond that we have had generations of politicians deluding the public with bread and circuses – I believe the public has the right to reverse the flow. Be seeing you.
Publication date: 10-29-10
By: Hubert O'Hearn
As anyone who has ever followed these columns for any length of time might guess, I'll definitely be tuning in to watch the twin rallies Saturday afternoon featuring Jon Stewart's 'Rally to Restore Sanity' with Stephen Colbert's 'March to Keep Fear Alive.' Bizarrely, I'm not going to be able to watch shows hosted by two men whose regular shows are carried five nights a week in Canada by both CTV and The Comedy Network on television. In Canada what I suspect will be the largest live comedy event in history can only be seen via live streaming video on thecomedynetwork.ca
Not that one really needed much more evidence, but this is one of the smoking guns indicating the demise of broadcast and cable networks as we knew them. They most definitely will continue to exist, after a period of mergers and acquisitions that will leave a baker's dozen or so large content providers amidst a sea of independently producing media buskers. All that truly remains for the takeover to be complete is for the boxes connecting internet content to your Big Boy flat screen TV to be a whole lot less greedy.
Apple is or has rapidly become everything it ever accused Microsoft of being – an Evil Empire setting the rules the rest of us must follow – Achtung baby! The Apple TV2 is sleeker and easier to use than the original Apple TV, but Apple is still a manipulative parent that only favours some of its children. Apple TV 2 rejects the AVI and DiVX files and charges its now usual 99 cents for a TV show. At that rate, assuming four hours of viewing a day, that would run up a pretty nifty bill of $120 a month. My satellite is safe for now.
Getting back to the shows in question, I do keep saying this but had he lived Paddy Chayefsky might well have been fascinated if not horrified at the world he imagined in 'Network.' Why? Name me any other 'liberal' figure in American life who could draw six figures worth of people to a live event and seven or eight figures worth of U.S. TV and on-line viewers?The only other events – political or otherwise – that could pull that off would be a music star at the absolute white hot peak of fame, or Jennifer Aniston v. Angelina Jolie in a Steel Cage shoot fight at Wrestlemania XXVII.
The Stewart and Colbert twin events are of course responses to the Glenn Beck and Tea Party rallies. All have been criticized for being non-serious responses to grave and complicated issues. To which I can only respond that we have had generations of politicians deluding the public with bread and circuses – I believe the public has the right to reverse the flow. Be seeing you.
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