View From the Phlipside - Vast Wasteland

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

It’s one of the most famous and quoted comments about television ever made.  This past month it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary so maybe it’s time to reconsider “Television is a vast wasteland”.

The comment was made by Federal Communications

Commission chairman Newton Minnow.  Let’s pause for a moment to note that yes, he has a cool name.  Commentaries on the subject always are very serious and never therefore get the opportunity to state the obvious.  Newton Minnow is a cool name.  Moving on.

Minnow made the comment in his very first speech and he did it before no less a group than the National Association of Broadcasters.  Of course the funny thing is that Minnow also said that when TV is good nothing is better but few remember that.

Fifty years later is it any better?  Newton says yes and I’m inclined to agree with him.  Don’t forget in 1961 most places had only two or three channels at best.  Even without cable or satellite most cities have at least 4-6 stations available for free.  With a subscription the number jumps to a minimum of a couple dozen to literally hundreds.  That choice alone makes the world of TV better than it was.  

The question remains are we now living in the world of, to steal blatantly from Bruce Springsteen, 57 channels and nothing on?  Yes, there’s still plenty of mindless game shows, inane talk shows, idiotic comedies, screaming commercials and violence as the former FCC chair noted in 1961.  Some of its worse.  But a lot of it is better.  Channels dedicated to great movies, to programming from around the world, educational TV offered in many different and interesting forms, TV that takes us inside the functioning of government.

In that speech to the NAB Minnow claimed that TV at its best was better than anything that the screen or stage can offer.  I’m not sure that I’d go that far.  But I’ve seen things that have astounded, compelled and delighted me.  There are still vast areas of entertainment and intellectual wasteland and there probably always will be.  Yet just a click or two away are channels that will make your life richer, challenge your mind and inspire your soul.

Seems like maybe the wasteland might just be beginning to bloom after all these years.

Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011