Or: why the current state of television really doesn't portend the decline and fall of civilization as we know it.

Human beings as a species have very short memories. Just listen to some of the recent complaints about TV: The game show explosion indicates the decay of American culture. There are too many commercials. There's too much violence. New technology, like HDTV, will never get off the ground...

But pick any one of those arguments, it's still old news. Game show glut? In 1958, game shows made up eighteen per cent of NBC's programming. An hour a day of Millionaire doesn't even come close. Too many commercials? In the 1950's, shows were named for their corporate sugar-daddies (The Texaco Star Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre), and sponsor names were built into the sets like proto-Internet banners. In a typical week in 1957, a viewer would see more than five hours of commercials. Violence? The National Association of Broadcasters was fretting over TV violence back in 1968. Finally, while color TV was first demonstrated in mid-1929 and approved by the FCC in late 1953, it wasn't until November 7, 1966 that one of the networks, NBC, finally made the full transition to broadcasting all of its shows in living color. Development of the technology, and then endless arguments over format, standards and implementation (not to mention high priced consumer equipment) stalled its appearance for years. Significantly, although it took twelve years for broadcasters to catch up, advertisers had the first color commercial on the air in two hundred and thirty two days. Do you own an HDTV set yet?

It all sounds familiar, and if you extrapolated the story backward into radio days or forward into the Internet's future, you'd end up repeating yourself. In fact, the Internet is already echoing television of the late 1940's, as advertisers are (were) just discovering that the medium is worth exploiting, but haven't quite figured out how to do it. The early days of TV were almost quaint, with show hosts suddenly picking up that bottle of aspirin and delivering a plug for the sponsor as part of the program, a huge sign reading "Ache-Away Presents -- the Nightly News" hovering above it all. There was no pretense to hide advertiser involvement. Compare that, as mentioned above, with Internet banners now. At least they proclaim their sponsorship, a much less sticky situation than not knowing that your favorite Internet appliance-shopping site is actually owned by that Big Name appliance manufacturer. Or that NBC was owned by RCA... when RCA was one of two competitors rushing to develop a color television standard. The other competitor? CBS. Who says corporate sharking in their own best interest is anything new?

Here's a quote from a New York Times Magazine article, published in 1966: "TV is not an art form or a cultural channel; it is an advertising medium... (the programs) are not supposed to be any good. They are supposed to make money." The first TV station was licensed by the FCC's predecessor in February 1928, and it went on the air in July of that year, but it took more than two decades for TV to finally become a mass medium. Significantly, this didn't happen until after advertisers had studied how to use TV -- and after CBS created the first audience research facility. In 1948, there were only nine hundred and thirty three sponsors, total. Four years later, advertisers spent two hundred and eighty eight million dollars for commercial airtime.

That's right, the basic function of television is to deliver your asses in chairs to the companies that pay the bills. This may be one of those, "Well, duh" statements, but it's something people seem to choose to ignore. So, they bitch and whine about the crap on the tube, but that's the crap that's putting those asses in the chairs for the advertisers to exploit. Sure, everyone you know may think Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? really sucks, but it sucks to the tune of seventeen million viewers a shot, and that's the kind of sucking sponsors adore. That quirky little half hour show you love so much may be the best thing on television, but unless you can quadruple the two million other people who agree, it'll vanish pretty damn fast. Is that the fault of the network or the sponsor? Nope. That's just the way the system works. Television programming exists for one reason only -- to keep the commercials from knocking into each other. Sometimes, we get works of genius that catch on and do well. Most of the time... well, Newton Minow didn't make his famous "vast wasteland" comments (in 1961) for nothing.

CBS, 1958: "Free television as we know it cannot survive alongside pay television..." They made this comment in a two page TV Guide ad, railing against the incursion of cable TV. Of course, in those days, "cable" was how you got broadcast TV when you lived behind a mountain and couldn't catch the signal out of thin air. In retrospect, CBS was obviously wrong. Although network market share has been cut in half by the prevalence of cable, the end result is an improvement of programming, as more and more outlets compete for their share of viewers. If anything, lower-rated shows are getting a better chance nowadays. A venue like UPN or Comedy Central are very happy with a four or five share. In the days of three networks, such a number would have meant instant death.

Perhaps CBS's worry was that pay TV wouldn't require advertisers for support and the lure of commercial-free broadcasting would suck all the viewers away. Not only has that not happened, but even "commercial-free" TV is full of, well, commercials. That's what those PBS pledge drive whine-a-thons are, after all -- the ones that pop up right after the plug for "Mobil Oil, proud sponsor of..." But you get the point. Getting into the brains of viewers is so important that advertisers won't let go of the medium. They have no incentive, with one very weird exception. In what seems like a glaring paradox, advertisers run away from controversy faster than the proverbial shit through a goose -- but controversy, historically, always brings the biggest ratings. Time and again, the episode that gets banned in certain conservative markets, the program that deals with taboo subjects, the "dangerous" talk show guest, scares away corporate money even as it lures in viewers. Yes, there's no such thing as bad publicity, and television is the prime example of that dictum. Produce a special featuring O.J. Simpson and Timothy McVeigh clubbing baby seals with five irons while smoking unfiltered cigarettes in the middle of a rain forest, and the outcry would get you a fifty share, easy. People love train wrecks.

A perfect case in point is 1983's The Day After, a drama about nuclear holocaust and its survivors. Advertiser distaste for the subject was so strong that, when it first aired, there were absolutely no commercials for the entire second half of the program -- a development that was much appreciated by viewers. Yet, nearly thirty-nine million people tuned in, making it the third highest rated prime time entertainment show as of that date. That's a typical Super Bowl number, and I don't need to mention the ridiculous premium price that ads go for on that annual testosterofest. And yet, because a program might be a little disturbing, advertisers will just walk away from it...

Hm. The possibilities are mind boggling, aren't they? Gross out the advertisers, then you'll have maximum audience with minimum interruption. And nobody likes commercials, do they? That's what a 1967 survey showed, with sixty-seven per cent of the respondents saying they would prefer TV with no commercials... contradicted by a 1973 Variety survey, in which eighty-three per cent said commercials were a small price to pay for free television.

Who should you believe? That's the question you should ask yourself when you're watching TV, and the answer should always be, "no one." It's the same answer you should give whenever some pundit tries to take television too seriously. It's the nature of the beast to aim for the lowest-common-denominator, to take the easy way out, to be slapdash and safe; to be wallpaper. Remember, a movie is only a couple of hours, put together by hundreds of people laboring for six or more months, not including the time it took someone to write it. Television? It's twenty-four, seven -- a hundred and sixty eight hours a week -- times every channel on the air. That's a hell of a lot of time to fill, and volume does not mean quality. After all: "Theatre is life. Movies are art. Television is furniture."

Jon Bastian, a native and resident of Los Angeles, is a playwright and screenwriter who works in the TV trade to keep his dog rolling in kibble.

Got a problem? Email Jon at filmmonthly@hotmail.com