Thursday, July 29, 2010

We are devo, D-E-V-O


In television today, there's still money in public service.

Just like there was a half-century ago in 1960.

If, of course, you think of
ABC' television's Wipeout as public-service broadcasting in the sense that people watch it and learn not to do that at home. Or anywhere.

Or perhaps the ongoing
E! and Entertainment Tonight coverage of the travails of Lindsay Lohan (and the fashion faux pas that is the orange jumpsuit) is the type of public-service programming making advertisers go gaga. Message: It's glamorous being a 20-something addict . . . until it's not.

In radio today, "public service" is a functioning Emergency Alert System to interrupt the automation when there's a tornado warning.

If you ask me, the whole concept of "progress" died a horrible and tawdry death about the time Don Draper started dressing like Herb Tarlek.


"Jocko Homo," y'all.

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