Lightning Joe - a piece of work
Cold Turkey! (if only)
posted Friday, 28 September 2007
Ready for the scariest thing since Dead Fred ? No, it's not George Bush's voice on your answering machine, it's the (wait for it...) End Of Television!
Not really, more's the pity. But the networks are starting to get a bit nervous, at the prospect of losing an estimated 70 million television viewers in the US market, and the corresponding ad revenues. I mean really, what drug pusher would want to lose a third of his junkies?
Some are not alarmed, of course, but they are people like me, who think TV is actually quite bad for people. It's the programmers and advertisers who can't get their heads around this.
Poetic, I say. It was the networks and television manufacturers who insisted on deadlining the roll-out of the new digital TV standard, making the public buy all new sets, even though the old box is still working fine. I suppose landfill operators will make out on this too.
One could wish that the sudden derth of propaganda boxes on 17 February, 2009 would cause a wave of sanity to sweep the country, but don't hold your breath. Internet TV is progressing, though it certainly won't be ready for prime time (get it?) by then, given the US's current definition of "broadband" (240 kbps, according to the FCC). More likely the result will be a rush on Target stores, when the tubes go dark. Indeed, half the the FCC's concern seems to be the "outrage" of a bunch of addicts suddenly off their meds. Good thing it will be winter. A summer roll-out would see overweight potatoes having heart attacks in line at the Big-Box.
Good luck with that.
Not really, more's the pity. But the networks are starting to get a bit nervous, at the prospect of losing an estimated 70 million television viewers in the US market, and the corresponding ad revenues. I mean really, what drug pusher would want to lose a third of his junkies?
Some are not alarmed, of course, but they are people like me, who think TV is actually quite bad for people. It's the programmers and advertisers who can't get their heads around this.
Poetic, I say. It was the networks and television manufacturers who insisted on deadlining the roll-out of the new digital TV standard, making the public buy all new sets, even though the old box is still working fine. I suppose landfill operators will make out on this too.
One could wish that the sudden derth of propaganda boxes on 17 February, 2009 would cause a wave of sanity to sweep the country, but don't hold your breath. Internet TV is progressing, though it certainly won't be ready for prime time (get it?) by then, given the US's current definition of "broadband" (240 kbps, according to the FCC). More likely the result will be a rush on Target stores, when the tubes go dark. Indeed, half the the FCC's concern seems to be the "outrage" of a bunch of addicts suddenly off their meds. Good thing it will be winter. A summer roll-out would see overweight potatoes having heart attacks in line at the Big-Box.
Good luck with that.
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