| Mediocrity of Mass Media
and the Jerks Responsible A considered analysis by MassMedia'd |
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| I wouldn't care if it cost 10 bucks. Or 15 bucks. I'd even sell my autographed Steve Garvey baseball and happily pay $20 bucks a ticket. I'd be there watching Star Wars: Special Edition the very day it opened at my local "Cinema 1-2-many." Ditto for Empire. Mega-Dittoes for Jedi. |
 Rush Limbaugh Still respected in Appalachia |
| (By the way, since RUSH LIMBAUGH rose to prominence as America's least-qualified radio talk show host and political pundit, I don't usually use the word "ditto" anymore but I think it's okay to use it in writing. I just can't say it aloud.) | |
| By the way -- did you know Rush is a college dropout, prepped for his career as a political commentator by working as a rock 'n roll disk jockey, and has been married more times that Bob Dole or Newt Gingrich? Talk about qualifications. I can certainly understand why so many Americans trust him to give them "the straight talk" about Washington. In a 1993 poll by the Times Mirror Center for People and the Press, 44% of Americans named talk radio as their "chief source" of political information. I hope it's not the same 44% who are responsible for the education, Medicare and school lunch budget allocations next year. | |
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| But I digress. As I said, I'd pay a bundle to go see Star Wars. On the other hand, if they were giving away tickets for HOWARD STERN'S film Private Parts, and threw in a free trip to anywhere in the continental U.S., plus an autographed copy of his book of the same name, I still wouldn't be caught dead there. It's no wonder movies cost so much -- just paying Howard's FCC fines probably drives the movie ticket prices up. (If you're wondering why Howard Stern keeps racking up FCC fines, do not -- I repeat, DO NOT -- tune in to his syndicated radio show to listen in. Anything you do to support Stern, or raise his Arbitron ratings in any way, so that more advertisers pay more money to run more commercials on his show, will be dealt with severely. Stern's shameless self-promotion, lack of any modicum of taste, or even the merest inkling of talent, creativity, or intelligence on the radio is matched only by...; | |
| ...the man we hate even more. That's right -- Rupert (buy it today and trash it tomorrow) Murdoch. Let's see now... just how much of the world's media does ol' Rupe actually own? (Rupe -- that's what we close friends call him. I think it's a code for Rupee, based on Murdoch's years as a young man in India.) Okay -- he owns the News Corp, which owns 20th Century Fox Studios, the FX Cable Network, Fox Sports, newspapers in Boston and San Antonio, 60% of Australia's newspaper circulation, TV Guide magazine, the Fox TV station in New York City, SkyTel Satellite broadcasting, more newspapers in England than anyone else, and -- well, suffice to say, more than 100 media properties in the U.S., Great Britain and Australia. The guy is a true media mogul. We should all aspire to be as rich and powerful and as morally, culturally, and aesthetically bereft as ol' Rupe. | |
| And speaking of morally and aesthetically bereft, it may be that ol' Rupe took lessons from that American media mogul and pop icon, Ted Turner. Rupert used to be an Australian citizen but he had to get American citizenship so he could buy about half the media in this country. I think he got help on his citizenship exam from TED TURNER. You know Ted. Ted's the guy |
 Ted Turner "Whatever you're watching, I probably own it." (Color by TBS) |
| who bought up the MGM film library and proceeded to systematically colorize the classic black and white films so they'd be more appealing to that prime target audience group known as the lowest common denominator. The guy's a ratings genius. Ted's also the guy who owns the Atlanta Braves baseball team -- home of that PC chant known fondly as "The Tomahawk Chop." And in case you missed it, Ted is in the news again, having commented that the mass suicide in California last week was a good thing because it "got rid of a lot of nuts." (Wonder if CNN, Ted's cable news outlet, ran that soundbite.... | |
| Back to sports, and Rupert Murdoch. If you didn't see FX TV's special on the re-making of Star Wars -- well, you missed an opportunity to experience one of the all-time great examples of shameless self promotion. Let's just take a look, shall we? The special aired on Fox - Fox TV's new cable network. It was hosted by Howie Long -- a Fox TV Sports analyst during the football season. Okay, so Fox is supporting its own. But wait, there's more. Who do you think is the studio behind the Star Wars movies -- and thus one of the big beneficiaries of some of those megamillions the trilogy's re-release is grossing? You guessed it: 20th Century Fox. Gosh that Rupert Murdoch is a sly guy, huh? Wonder what he'll do to cross-promote the X-Files? | |
Aren't we cute? |
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 But it ain't just Rupert and Ted who are on this media money train. Greed.
I love it. Gimme more. SHOW ME THE MONEY! The fact that Bryant Gumbel is
hopping to CBS for a quadrillion bucks, the "Friends" cast is whining about
salary increases because $100,000 per person per episode just isn't enough,
and Tom Brokaw and  Dan Rather are in a hissy fight about being "news-lite"
-- well, for my money, you just can't pay people enough for this kind of
entertainment. Not to mention the sheer joy of living in a country
where a Jean Claude Van Damme movie can open to millions and millions of
dollars on its first weekend. And who said you can't buy taste? |
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| (I'll tell you who: Aaron Spelling, the creative force behind Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, Charlie's Angels, etc.; anybody remotely connected with Baywatch and/or Baywatch Nights; the programming geniuses who actually collect salaries for airing Hard Copy, First Edition, or the Jerry Springer, Rolanda Watts, Jenny Jones or Sally Jesse Raphael shows; anyone who is on the payroll or knows anyone who is on the payroll of Men Behaving Badly, The New Newlywed Game, or Power Rangers; and almost anyone responsible for even one of the hundreds of hours of mindless drivel that advertisers are paying for each week. Paying to the tune of $12 billion per year in TV advertising and $8 billion for radio...) | |
| Here's my personal antidote to supporting those money-hungry, ratings-obsessed, valueless slobs responsible for the Culture-starved American mass media: forget going for my Ph.D. (sorry, Mom). I have a new life's goal. I am striving to never again watch even one minute of first-run network television. Not watching network TV also means never again watching one of their commercials, either. That'll show those ratings Zen-masters on Madison Avenue, huh? And, if there's something I really want to see on a network, (the three-part episode of Law and Order, for instance), I'll tape it and zap the commercials. That'll show 'em. Quite frankly, now that I'm hooked on Miami Vice re-runs twice a night, my life has a new and deeper meaning anyway. | |
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| Wait a minute here. No commercials? It'll be like watching Public TV! Well, except for those pesky "underwriting acknowledgments" at the beginning and ending of each show that sound strangely like commercials. But hey -- if Congress would loosen up and just give Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts the money they need, they wouldn't have to resort to corporate underwriting and those annoying pledge drives. But that's another column, for another day. Gotta run. Miami Vice is coming on, and it's the second of a three-parter. It's the one where Sonny falls in love with a hot babe and doesn't know she's actually the daughter of a major drug kingpin. Yes, I know Miami Vice is on Rupert Murdoch's FX Network, but I'm only human... | |
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MassMedia'd is a writer, film editor, and perpetual student, who became Mass Media Correspondent for Spite Magazine by giving us this article.  
Copyright 1997 Will Hines |
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