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Education
or Entertainment? Imagine the uprising if television executives decided to remove all educational children’s programs from their weekly lineup? “No more Sesame Street,” execs would say. The parent organizations would rise up in anger. They would rally, “We love Sesame Street. Our children love Sesame Street. Why are you removing it?” The answer would follow: It’s all about good business. What if it was suggested that although Sesame Street has a wide viewing audience, four- to eight-year-olds who watch the program are not as susceptible to the advertising that aneight- to 10-year-old who watches Mighty Morphin Power Rangers might be. It would be a disappointing deduction as Sesame Street goes off the air. Fortunately, the Sesame Street gang is still around. A similar looming situation carries its own set of similarities. It deals with the possibility of kicking Ted Koppel’s “Nightline” off ABC in place of CBS’ talk show host David Letterman. The reason ABC is trying to make this change deals with advertisement revenue. Although, Letterman’s show pulls a similar number of people as Koppel’s “Nightline” pulls, the age range of Letterman viewers is significantly younger. Younger viewers of course, mean that CBS can request more money to run ads on its nightly variety show. Granted, Letterman is probably not a bad guy, but it would be disappointing to see Koppel kicked off the air and replaced with Letterman. Koppel brings network television a unique news package. “Nightline” delivers new angles to hot, new events for a more intellectual and in-depth look at the state of world news. If Letterman joined the ABC team, there have been talks of similar variety programming on CBS. The primary name that seems to appear as a CBS possibility has been Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart. The three major networks then will give us three very similar choices: Leno, Letterman or Stewart. What a stressful decision that would be? Maybe if I cannot decide, I will just go to bed or do something. It’s not all fun and games though. The possibility of this network-programming switch is becoming big news. Particularly after Ted Koppel published his own Op-Ed in The New York Times. The battle of intelligent news versus star-filled variety shows has now become personal. Koppel’s passionate letter brought out strong points talking about how “Over the past 22 years we have been, and continue to be, a consistent competitive second. In times of crisis, we often have the largest late-night audience in broadcasting. I like to believe that this is because we provide a genuine public service.” It is not often that anchors defend their shows in the newspaper. Koppel’s main point of anger was the suggestion by corporate executives that “Nightline” has lost it relevance. His anger is justified. Real news has not lost it relevance. International news stories that go beyond 30-second clips are of value. In-depth coverage of our world is more important than a human-interest story presented during local news. And if we look at the big picture, anything that Koppel would air seems a little more important than stupid pet tricks.
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TCU Daily Skiff © 2002 |
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