Daytime Television
Have you ever noticed what is being aired on daytime television? If you thought what the networks offered on prime-time was bad, the daytime shows as a whole are far worse. I remember as a child when I was sick and stayed home from school, daytime television was a mix of game shows, cartoons, and soap operas. Okay, not exactly must see TV, but it was relatively mild and somewhat entertaining enough to occupy a sick child. The cartoons are now gone and there are only a few game shows and a handful of soap operas remaining.
I was looking at the current daytime guide and there seems to be a fascination with courts. There’s Celebrity Justice and The People’s Court, and a slew of judges with their own shows including Judge Joe Brown, Judge Hatchett, Judge Mathis, and the queen of Judge-TV, Judge Judy. I’m unsure what viewers get from these shows, but it’s certainly not lessons in the judicial process. Celebrity Justice appears to be more of a gossip show, while the other court shows seem to offer a lot of arguing, name-calling, and pettiness.
There’s also a lot of talking going on in daytime television. Of course there’s Oprah, Regis and Kelly, Ellen, and Dr. Phil. And then you have Montel, Maury, and some guy named Larry Elder. There’s also The View, which consists of Barbara Walters and a group of attention starved women taking turns interrupting each other. Jane Pauley has a talk show, as does Tony Danza. The bigger shows have the bigger guests, thus more self-promotion and ego stroking going on. The smaller shows don’t have the big guests, but what they lack in star power they make up for in exploiting individual grief and suffering.
And then there’s the endless preoccupation with all things celebrity. There’s Inside Edition, Entertainment Studios, Extra, The Insider, Access Hollywood, and Entertainment Tonight. I’m unsure what viewers get from these shows, but if you’re hanging on the edge of your seat for the next tidbit about Brad and Jen, then these are the shows to watch.
This is just a look a daytime television on the networks, but surely what cable offers is little better, if not worse. The state of television programming as a whole often makes me wonder about the inventors and creators of television. What were the dreams and visions of the makers of television? With all of it’s potential to educate and entertain, how did we veer so far from that potential? Granted, there are some quality television programs, but they are the exception rather than the rule. Maybe television is just part of a larger pattern where we often see the brightest inventions used in the worst of ways. Sometimes when I look at how computers and the web are used negatively, I wonder if these inventions will suffer the same fate as television.