Lisa and I have been on vacation since Christmas.
We’re in the Turks and Caicos, doing nothing (much), but this has given me a chance to catch up on my reading.. and to think about video and where it goes now.
I am reading three great books: Â The Last Lion by William Manchester – the third and final volume of his biography of Winston Churchill; Mao, The Real Story – which is ostensibly about Mao, but focuses on the massive starvation (30 million people starved to death) during the Great Leap Forward; and The Iron Curtain by Anne Applebaum – a shocking history of how the West abandoned Eastern Europe to Stalin and 50 years of oppression. Â All great reads (and really interesting to do together).
Reading these reminded me of just how powerful books are… and how pitiful television content is (for the most part).
Why should that be?
Why can’t televison programming be as powerful and intelligent (and important… and educational, and compelling – fill in your own adjectives here) as books?
A cursory look at the offerings of The History Channel (The HISTORY Channel, for crying out loud – Ax Men, Bamazon, Swamp People…) What is the matter with you? Â At any rate, a cursory look at their offerings gives us some great insite into why we are turning into such an idiot culture. Â And don’t get me started on The Learning Channel – two headed girls, fat people, people with tumors on their faces….
The average American watches 4.5 hours of TV a day (or is it up to 5 by now). Â The average American buys one book a year.
If you want to know why our populary elected Congress is filled with incompetent idiots, you might start here.
It’s tragic.
It’s tragic because television could do so much more.
It is an incredibly plastic medium. It is about manipulating pictures and sound and writing and music and grapics. It can take you anywhere. Â It can do anything – and what have we chosen to do with it: Â The Kardashians.
We deserve to be what we are and what we will become.
In any event…
Reading these books, I could not help but wonder why they could not be turned into television programming that was as compelling as the topics and the writing. After all, all the hard work has already been done. The scripts are here – bound and printed. Â The content is all historical – at least for these three topics. Â The photos and film are all already shot. I bet a good deal of it is available in the National Archives for free.
For the first time we have the power to create content as well as watch it. Â It no longer costs millions of dollars to make TV shows. Â You can do it on your Macbook.
Is there an audience for this?
I bet there is.
I bet there are millions of people who, like me, flip through the program guide on cable and can’t find anything to watch except old refuns of Law and Order. (yeah, I know.. Breaking Bad… Downton Abbey… Homeland… Â These are all scripted dramas. I am talking about non-fiction which is a pretty big category in the book world.
Why can’t it be in the televison world as well.
And they would be a lot less expensive to make than scripted dramas – and I think even a lot less expensive to make than Reality Shows.
Who want’s to give it a shot?
Winston Churchill, it turns out, has a pretty compelling story, even if he never caught a catfish with his bare hands or got into a hot tub with his wife’s best friend.
Copyright Michael Rosenblum 2013
