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Editor:

Herschel S. Krustofski

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When considering this question, we need to break the history of television up into (so far) two distinct eras or Acts. This play was developed and written in the first half of the 20th century. The moving-picture-in-a-box was being established as the mass communication pipeline of the future. After the Prologue, Act One began with the explosion of television into homes after WWII and continued until the onset of widely available commercial cable TV in the 1980s. Act Two brought the choice of ten, twenty, thirty, or more channels beyond the original big three or four. This has continued through to the present where for a significant fee (which most of us now justify as one more utility, as necessary as gas and electricity), we can now choose from hundreds of channels of crappy shows (I'm half-kidding). First let's tune in to Act One.

When there were only three television channels (plus farm reports and kids guitar lessons on the snowy, fuzzy public station on UHF), clearly television influenced culture more than the reverse. Sure, some will say that Ozzie and Harriet and Leave it to Beaver represented our family culture in the 1950s and '60s, but it was only one slice of that culture served from a very large pie. So the full variety of cultural flavors didn't have a chance to influence TV--only the networks' favorite flavor did.

As time went on, the three (yes, Sonny, only three in those days) commercial networks increasingly realized how powerful this new tool (weapon?) could be. Not only could they present to the masses their idea of how American life should be--wives and husbands in twin beds and WASPy moms always home to make after-school snacks--they could tell Mom which brand of cookie batter to buy to make those after-school snacks because all the other "good moms" were buying the same brand. Once advertising got into full swing, which was early on, the ability to promote their limited view of normalcy was increasingly strengthened.

So what the networks had (have) going on was an insidious family business: one child promoting their

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righteous values and the other child selling us their chosen products--an incestuous relationship. In my mind as soon as corporate profits are involved, they don't have the credibility (or the right) to promote one set of values over any other. Furthermore, though I am not the Ted Kaczynski of advertising and television technology, I am a music and arts lover. When I hear a Beatles song used to sell diapers or a Stevie Wonder song used to sell a shipping service, I want to vomit. I'm not sure if Stevie or Paul (or Michael) or Yoko consented or if these incidents were out of their hands. It doesn't matter. I'm sickened when they play All You Need Is Love, show a cute baby, then imply that if you really loved your baby you would buy their brand of diapers. They give love a bad name (gee, somebody ought to write a song), which is how they continue to (negatively) influence our culture. They water down and trivialize human emotions to sell products and in the process, we become further desensitized to the watering down. The more commercials (and bad shows) we see, the more crippled our judgment of quality becomes--Zen and the Art of the Sale Through the Lowest Common Denominator. And the quality floor continues to drop.

OK, quickly (I know I'm wearing out my welcome), Act Two: Because of cable, the networks' influence is lessened somewhat since they've had to divide their influence between so many new playmates. We're almost to the point where every cultural group, sub-group, and sub-sub-group has their own cable station or at least a few shows on one. Up with cable. Down with the expansion of commercial time. Maybe Ted Kaczynski was right: " . . . everybody knows he was good at the beginning, but he just went too far." (No apologies to Marge Schott.)

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