THE VAST TELEVISION WASTELAND

"ANY CHANGE, EVEN A CHANGE FOR

THE BETTER, IS ALWAYS ACCOMPANIED

BY DRAWBACKS AND DISCOMFORTS."

Arnold Bennett

     One of the great frustrations of the volumes of television programing available today is the lack of quality.  The amount of programing that is on the edge of embarrassing or way beyond, is staggering.

     From the three channels that I grew up with there was excitement when we got the new Public Broadcasting channel.  If it was not for the lop sidedness of the politics behind the control of television I would think we would be better off going back to that original number.

      Originally the airwaves were the property of the public.  In order to sell your product, whether the show or your commodity, you had to provide quality.  After the government decided that the airwaves no longer belonged to the people then it could be parceled out and sold to the public.  The requirement for quality became the best spin and winning the favor of who ever ruled the head office and who made the money.

      Quality went out the window.  Having over 500 channels to watch and many times having nothing to watch is frustrating.  Especially when you get the monthly bill.  Behind it all is an overriding set of standards and many times those standards are not ours.

     The culture behind programing has taken a definite change in 2014.  If you noticed it I applaud you.  If you didn't, I am here to tell you.

     In the past the event of holidays such as Veteran's day, Memorial Day, D-Day June 6, and Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, there has been a norm in many television networks that they would run a long litany of movies that reflect the purpose of the special days.  It would be in recognition of the millions who died and the sacrifices of those who survived.

     You could count on changing the channels from the special reports, commemorative events, and the marathon of movies.  Movies like THE LONGEST DAY, TORA, TORA, TORA, SANDS OF IWO JIMA, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, and on and on.

     I found less than a handful running the movies reflecting the day during Memorial weekend this year.  And on the 70th anniversary of D-Day I found one station running WE WERE SOLDIERS, which is a great movie but is about Vietnam, and one other that had nothing to do with D-Day. 

     Maybe it is not the politically correct thing to do to be enjoying the movies of that genre' yet the young generation is fighting worlds of wars everyday that are not real on their electronic devices.  And at the same time there are those who refuse to learn the lessons of the past who ignore the dangerous world we live in today.

      Is it so smug in the corporate offices that the fact that the D-Day soldier is almost past that they can stop showing the rest of the world what almost happened in the past?  How close we came to speaking German, Japanese, and Russian in the world needs to be a continuing lesson for those who were not there.