Quote

You can't get so serious as to not realize that what we do is entertainment, but when you have the chance to provoke thought or advance discussion on a topic, it's just the icing on the cake.

Television provokes strong opinions, and sometimes we try a bit too hard to appeal to everyone.

We can't just have mainstream behavior on television in a free society, we have to make sure we see the whole panorama of human behavior.

People are on their computers more than watching TV, because you can only watch voyeur TV, which is basically what reality shows are, for so long.

The Internet is far more engaging as an interactive medium than broadcast. Barriers to creating content are going away; they're almost gone. People are taking control of their entertainment. People are Tweeting, posting on Facebook and YouTube.

We're living in a high-tech world. So much of our stimulus and entertainment comes from things that are quite abstract and disembodied.

The Internet now provides an immediate and very clear consensus of what it is that the audience is experiencing. It's something that you should never let lead you, and yet at the same time, you should never ignore it.

Television is the same as the telephone, and the same as the World Wide Web for that matter. People who become obsessed by the peculiarities of these communications media have simply failed to adjust to the shock of the old. People who bleat on about the 'artistic' potential of television qua television are equally deluded.

TV serves us most usefully when presenting junk-entertainment; it serves us most ill when it co-opts serious modes of discourse - news, politics, science, education, commerce, religion.

We're exposed to ideas everywhere. The world is full of ideas. I think that television is a pretty powerful medium in that regard.