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The Jonathan Dolhenty Archive |
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The Dolhenty Report A Commentary on the Human Condition by Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty March 11, 2004
I don't write much about my personal decisions regarding my life; I am now making an exception -- maybe more for my own benefit than yours -- maybe because I need to see in black and white what my reasons were in this case. If you're not interested in why I did what I did, then you're free to go elsewhere. I will understand. On Monday, March 8th, I pulled the plug on my Dish Network satellite TV system, which I have had for well over five years (before that I had the big satellite system). It was not, to be truthful, an easy decision, being the news-junkie that I am. I may be going through withdrawal tonight. Maybe that is why I am writing this; to purge the spirits of bad television, so to speak. I contacted Dish Network and told the "customer service representative" that I wished to have my account canceled ( I put his title in quotes because he was not very nice about the request). He thought I was crazy, of course, so maybe I am going through both withdrawal and guilt. Nevertheless, c'est fini, as the Chinese say. Satellite TV no more. The theater is dark now. So, why? Why would I take what many would consider such an extreme step in the twilight of my years, my years as a senior citizen where I'm supposed to laze about in front of the tube and just let the world go by? Why, you ask -- why kill the goose that's supposed to give me such golden entertainment eggs? In a word, or two or three or is that seven?, I will answer: to preserve what sanity I have left! Way back when (sometime in the 1960s, I think), a man named Newton Minow, who was then the chairman of the FCC, called television the "vast wasteland." Well, he may have been right then, but he would certainly be wrong now. Television is definitely not a "vast wasteland." It is, instead, a "vast trashland," a landfill of audiovisual garbage that is dangerous to the intellectual health of any normal person. It should come with a warning label on it similar to that that the government forces cigarette packages to display. OK, OK, I got distracted and began to editorialize instead of justify. I'll get back on topic. Why did I pull the plug? Well, there a number of reasons, accumulated over the past six months or so. Let me list some of them and maybe you will understand and, dare I say it? -- even empathize. What I did is what a financial advisor might call a "cost-benefit" analysis. Then I did what an insurance advisor might call a "risk-accessment." Then, finally, I used my own common sense and did a "personal-am-I-going-insane" analysis. Then I called Dish Network and had them cancel my account. So what led to this earthshaking decision on my part? Here are the specifics. (1) During the past few months, I have been doing a favor for some friends of mine by recording on video each week a TV drama that they and I both enjoyed watching. They had already discontinued their satellite TV network and were enjoying a non-TV life, but they still liked this particular program. I didn't mind doing them that favor since I was watching it anyway. When I began recording it for them, I was clicking my remote off and on to take out the commercials so they wouldn't have to suffer through those tidbits of absurdity. What I discovered was disturbing. When I looked at the amount of time the tape utilized for the actual drama itself, I found out something I had not been aware of. The program lasted an hour. The actual drama itself was only forty minutes. And that meant what? Well, that meant that twenty minutes of that hour was devoted to something else. Can you guess what? Yes, that's right, commercials. In my cost-benefit analysis, I was paying one-third of my fee for satellite service for that hour so that some company or the network could deliver its message to me, a message I would not otherwise be the least bit interested in, and I didn't listen to it anyway because I was fast on the remote. So, that was revelation #1 - I was actually paying a hefty subscription fee to have someone spend twenty minutes out of every hour sending me a message I did not want or need. (2) I am, as I said above, a news-junkie. The main reason I had satellite TV in the first place was so I could watch the news in the morning, at noon, and in the evening. My favorite was FOX News Channel, followed by MSNBC, and if a commercial was running on these two, I might lower myself and give a brief look at CNN. Then, over the past few months, I began to notice something. There would be two or three news reports and then commercials and then news reports again. But the amount of time devoted to news seemed to be diminishing. So I began to time the news reports and the interruptions. Lo and Behold! The news reports were getting shorter -- maybe four minutes, maybe at the most five -- and the commercials were taking up more time. Not only that, but the news kept repeating itself with the same old stuff. And not only that, they kept promising news stories that I was interested in ("right after the break") that seemed to be put off and put off, until I finally gave up and went back to work. The commercials were taking over the news like some monster that came up suddenly from the sea and devoured everything in its path. So, that was revelation #2 - I was actually paying a hefty subscription fee for less news and more advertising, and the news promised was never being delivered in a timely fashion. I was being conned to stay on-channel. (3) While I didn't watch that much TV, there were a few dramas on TV I liked to watch. I thought they were interesting, with plots and characters that kept me glued to the tube, so to speak. I would get really interested in the series and...then...and...then...gone! All of a sudden the program would disappear! Or there would be a rerun of an episode from a few months ago or a year ago, something which really turns me off since I don't like watching something over unless I decide it's worth watching, which is unusual for me. I presume the "season" for that program was suddenly shortened to three months instead of the traditional six or seven. What a way for the networks to build an audience! What was worse, however, was when I found out that the drama I had come to like was being replaced by...oh, my, horror of horrors!...a "Reality" show. In my humble opinion, the "Reality" show craze has now brought television to its lowest point ever. First, because the programs do not depict reality; they depict some producer's view of what ought to be reality. Second, because the more "earthy" (read insulting to anyone of average intelligence and sensibilities) they are, the better ratings they get. Show human beings at their worst and you'll get a big audience. If that is true, and I believe it is, let me ask a question. Isn't it time to consider death penalty executions on live TV? What a reality show that would be! I'd guarantee top ratings and half-a-million dollars for a 30-second commercial. Wait! We could even have a Super-Bowl once a year -- twenty or twenty-five prisoners hanged or electrocuted at once! Think of that! And at half-time -- Janet Jackson baring her breast on national TV just as the trap is tripped. The ratings would go through the roof! Now, that's Reality! So, that was revelation #3 - I was paying a hefty subscription fee for someone else's Reality, a "reality" I didn't believe in and didn't want to see. I was paying, in my opinion, to have my intellect insulted and assaulted. (4) A few years ago, I noticed that the networks were placing their logo at the bottom right (usually) of the TV screen. That bothered me at first because it was a distraction. But I got used to it. I did consider it to be sort of over-the-top in a way because, after all, I already knew I was watching CBS or ABC or NBC; why was I being reminded of it? But, like I said, I got used it and tuned it out. But then!! Horror of horrors! -- the networks and channels began to put explosions and blasts with moving text on the bottom left of the screen to tell me about upcoming programs. My eyes would immediately leave what I was watching on the "big" screen and focus on this important information (in the eyes, I guess, of the network executives) and it would truly distract my attention from the drama I was tuned to and I would usually lose the sense of what was occurring in the program I was watching. Have they no respect for the viewer? Evidently not. The network executives are apparently so desperate that we watch what is coming on next week that they don't care what we're watching this week. So that was revelation #4 - I was paying a hefty subscription fee to have my favorite programs interfered with distractions regarding future programs I could care less about. (5) Then, I began to realize that a lot of the channels on my satellite system were going to paid programing, that is, to put it kindly, "Infomercials." I was paying to listen to someone try to sell me something I neither needed nor wanted. After all, how may frying pans or breadmakers or roaster ovens does a man need? So that was revelation #5. I was paying a hefty subscription fee to have someone pitch a product or service I didn't need or want? I was paying for it and they were making all the moolah. Those are my general reasons for doing what I did. I could get more specific. For instance, I could tell you how I think the Bill O'Reilly show on FOX, one of my former favorites, has deteriorated over the past seven years and slumped into nothing more than tabloid television and confrontational idiocy. I could tell you how CNN has become so disappointing because Judy Woodruff is more predictable than ever and, above all -- boring. Or how MSNBC has gone through so many changes to attract an audience that it's like watching a magic show -- now you see it, now you don't. And the broadcast networks? Forget it. Peter Jennings, go back to Canada, you're irrelevant and no one takes you seriously. Tom Brokaw, you're out of touch with what's really going on in America. Dan Rather, it's time for you to leave and sit on the porch with Walter Cronkite, musing over a world neither of you really understood. I think my general reasons above will, however, suffice for now. Now I don't want you to get the idea that I am totally without access to TV. Truth be told, I have a little 9-inch B&W television in the kitchen that gets three stations direct, through the atmosphere, free!, so if a national disaster similar to 9/11 should occur (God forbid!), I would see it on one of those broadcast stations I get and I'll probably also be able to follow the 2004 presidential election-night returns. Other than that, I guess I'll just have to depend on newspapers and magazines (remember them?) and, of course, I always have live stuff on the good old Internet. TV? Who needs it? I have a stereo radio and a tape deck in every room in my little cottage. I have news up-to-the-minute and wonderful classic music playing anytime I want. Am I really going through withdrawal? No way. I have found freedom at last. I don't have to pay that hefty subscription fee this month for satellite TV trashland! Besides, I have more time to read books and listen to educational tapes. Not to mention a few more dollars to spend on stuff I really need and want. Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book... Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Magazine...
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