say the least. If Hart, Schaffner & Marx happened to own a piece of a show, Mr. Kerr would twitch in his seat so violently that he would wear out his critical judgment before the first-act curtain. The TV industry should realize that being in possession of a customer’s ear is a responsibility unlike that of being in possession of his eye. The eye can reject an image, but the ear cannot escape from sound. TV from the start has seized this advantage and exploited it to the hilt, and from the start the audience has resented it. The exploitation mounts, the resentment mounts, and I think the resentment will continue to grow until something gives way and busts. Ideally, if TV is not to preëmpt the attention of the viewer and is to permit him a free choice of material, such as he enjoys with newspapers and magazines, a TV set should have two screens, one right next to the other—a delightful, if chaotic, situation. One screen would be the showcase for advertising, the other the showcase for editorial matter. The revenue from Screen 1 would support the material on Screen 2—the debates, the panels, the drama, the weather, and the news. Stations and networks would be in the same boat with publications; the editors would put the whole show together, without one single assist from advertising genius. Ronald Reagan, instead of appearing for General Electric, would appear for Ronald Reagan. Advertising would be regularly scheduled and would have its separate listing in the guide. A master switch would be at the viewer's hand. If he desired utter confusion, he could watch both screens at once. If something occurring on one screen seemed more diverting than the thing occurring on the other, he could flip. The viewer would enter his living room and find both screens going full blast—bedlam. On the advertising screen Zsa Zsa Gabor would be giving the news of underarm security
on the editorial screen the Secretary of State would be giving the news of national security. The viewer could decide which presentation, which person, seemed the more attractive or instructive. No program would have a patron, every program would enjoy the support of the entire field of advertising, and Dinah Shore could see the U.S.A. in a moving van if she wanted to. I do not sketch the outlines of this dizzying structure to show the solution to the problem of TV, merely to show what the
Comments
Post a Comment