Viewers don't care how big media companies are. They care whether they can dump those they don't like, whether because of lousy service or because of crummy shows.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
And the consumer doesn't care. They don't watch networks, they watch TV shows.
The corporate media is there to push the agenda of the sponsors, and many of those sponsors are weapons manufacturers. So it stands to reason that you won't get a diversity of opinions on television.
To be honest with you, I worry about concentration of ownership in media, where you have a handful of media conglomerates largely controlling what we see, hear and read.
In day-to-day commerce, television is not so much interested in the business of communications as in the business of delivering audiences to advertisers. People are the merchandise, not the shows. The shows are merely the bait.
Big media companies have lots of money and content, but they have no way to tap into a good base of users.
I think that the problem with network television is that they cling to the whole business model like they are clinging to the side of a cliff.
When you're with a big TV channel, there's a sense of having to behave in a certain way in order to get audience figures.
For the broadcast business to be successful, viewers need to be not merely interested in our political melodramas, they have to be in an absolute state about them - emotionally invested in the outcome and frightened not to watch what happens next.
I don't think people realize the extent to which TV networks are hurt when they carry public broadcasting. I think the estimate is that they lose a half-million dollars for a half day's programming.
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.
No opposing quotes found.