Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Place your ad here!
I must say I am amazed at the replies to some of my posts, but glad to see so many opinions out there. But regards the media and what is aired, lets make one thing perfectly clear: The audience ALWAYS decides what is broadcast. What is aired has nothing to do with decisions made by editors, producers or authors. Why are there Paris Hilton stories all over the place? Because we will watch. How is that known? Because just 3 months earlier, we watched the Anna Nicole Smith story every waking moment. Television stations are run by advertisers, no one else. In order to get an advertiser to buy time, a station needs ratings. To get ratings, they will use whatever tried and true means necessary. The ones that try something new are either called geniuses or are fired, depending on the outcome. What makes the steroid issue so interesting is that it DOES NOT PULL IN RATINGS. ESPN in the past has aired more than one 30 minute special on the topic; NOBODY WATCHED. News organizations can air Hilton and Lohan clips endlessly because it is well known they will get ratings. To say someone cares about a topic denotes that it moves them to a particular action. In the case of these no-talent tabloid stars, people are moved to watch, as indicated by the increase in ratings. With the steroids issue, no one is moved to watch, no one has stopped watching baseball, no one has stopped buying tickets. When the subject is broached on a radio talk show, it lasts for about a minute because no calls come in on the topic. Steroids in one of the few issues I can recall that is forced fed to us, slipped in between items we do care about (sports scores or Hilton stories), and provides the perfect time to get that second cup of coffee in the morning. While a normal reply to “I am sick of_________” is to turn the channel, steroids is the exception to that response. Show me the advertiser that wants his commercial to run during the “performance enhancing drugs” special, and I’ll change my opinion.
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4 comments:
Hey, Mark, I know this is your own webpage and I look forward to posting an opinion or two of my own, but you have a bunch of typos on here that are distracting. If you wanted, I could proofread things before you posted them. I realize you may not care about such things and that's your right, obviously. But I think your site would look better with some proofing.
Let me know.
"Place your as here!" ??
Place your ads here? Place your ass here?
"Place your as here" doesn't make any sense.
I must disagree with your assesment of performance enhancing drugs not selling air time. I beleive the opposite is true. We watch in horrific awe as Barry Bond's head grows yet another hat size, and gape in disbelief as we see the transition from Mark McGwire's rookie card, as he goes from a gangly 22 year old, to 2 seasons later when he has a neck the size of my thigh. These are 2 of the more famous cases, but indicates even more how much of this cheating is going on, or has went on in the past. As these drugs become more sophisticated, and beleive me they are, they will be more impossible to detect. It changes the face of our nations pastime, and sickens me to the point I want to send Hank Aaron a dozen roses. To say that this voyeuristic impulse to watch Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan self destruct is of greater significance to the American public is probably true, but as this doping thing progresses, we can look for a great deal more sensationalism in the media on this topic. I mean we have to face the fact that this changes ALL sports as we know it. To think that even on the high school level, a pill can make sure you go to the college of your choice, or professionally, get you a signing bonus of 20 mil. Where do I get mine?
I must say that I disagree with your idea of the media. Yes, the media will air these things because we have shown we will watch them, but it is our fault in the first place. The media airs what it will, saying, "We're just giving the people what they want! That is the point of business, is it not?" Really, they are just using that as a guise. There are many people out there who cannot stand Paris Hilton and her ill-behaved cohorts in crime, they do not have a say. The media aren't airing these things because they know we'll watch them—we're watching these things because we know the media will air them.
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