You Know You Want It
30 years ago.
August 1977.
Elvis Presley dies--
and the producer of the CBS Evening
News with Walter Cronkite decides not to
lead with the story. Ratings go in the toilet.
That may not have been the beginning of the era of celebrity news, but it was certainly a big sign of what was to come. CBS put some (boring!!) Panama Canal story ahead of The King's death, and paid for it.
Fast Forward to February 8, 2007. Anna Nicole Smith dies under bizarre circumstances. I argue it should not be the lead story. What had she ever done but marry some elderly rich dude and sport huge artificial mammary glands?
I was right, but I was dead wrong. After all, she did pose naked in Playboy.
JUST KIDDING. 
The fact was people cared about that story--and judging by ratings of the cable newsers who stayed on it for weeks--they cared a lot.
So nowadays when I get these emails from some of you complaining about Britney Spears being in the newscast and aren't there more important things, blah blah blah....we chuckle. 'Cause you don't mean it. Not really. There used to be one entertainment news show, now you can't count them or the websites that feed the insatiable curiousity about J-lo or down-low or whomever. People eat this stuff up.
Face up to it. I know I've had to.
Celebrities may not be the most important people in the world, but what happens to them seems to really matter to folks. 
And the fact that the world as a whole
really doesn't miss much about Anna Nicole doesn't make much difference at all.
posted by Derek McGinty @ 6:28 PM
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1 Comments:
I know is the news news or is it just entertainment?
That's the trend you describe, catering to the masses in order to obtain the coveted ratings that mean high dollar advertising.
Bottom line it's all about $$
So eventually you may have more to fear than the battle of the local hotties, you may end up replaced by a model in a bikini that can read from a teleprompter as well as you. (aka naked news)
Yeah that's drastic and the religious right would never go for it (loss of viewership over demographic shock-waves). It's just that these experiments in broadcast news have already occurred. News that is not news, but a side show or circus carnival.
Back when television took over (radio was king for decades), radio provided the entertainment in music and story telling, while Television was more educational.
Now the next phase for me (this and last decade), for people that really want news and education, the Internet is the source. It has all three, in news education and entertainment. As bandwidth expands more will come, but the dial will have a broader (and hopefully cheaper) selection that suits all tastes and needs.
TV will always be there, as radio still is today. Just not as serious as it once was.
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