In the previous "Confessions of an Animation Nerd", a complaint was made about the three hours of "educational programming" being set aside each week. The Nerd is upset, but I believe for the wrong reasons. If TV animation goes down the tube, it will be for other causes. Let me explain from the viewpoint of a person who's worked in broadcast TV since 1975, someone whose hobby is watching the twists and turns of the peculiar business in which he works.
First of all, understand that television is a business - these days, it's big business, with conglomerates gobbling up local stations and networks alike. Businesses are just like people. They only take an action if:
At the same time, there was enough money to make kid shows at least break even. As the Baby Boom progressed, and the percentage of children in the population grew, kid programming became a profit center. So much commercial money was available, pioneers like Hanna-Barbara could make brand new (albeit limited-motion) animation for TV stations. Remember, H-B started out small; their first cartoon, Ruff 'n' Reddy, was sold to stations outright; they really took off when Kellogg's sponsored Huckleberry Hound .
Although there are more animated shows now than before, not all of them are doing well. NBC dropped animation completely. So has the station for which I work, an ABC affiliate. It isn't the "three hour" rule. The reason comes back to the two factors that run Life and Television: you can't make money doing kid shows, and the Government no longer requires them.
Besides gutting the economy and ending environmental protection, the presidency of Ronald Reagan largely eliminated the need for stations to perform public service to continue their use of the public airwaves. If you have a broadcast license, you can pretty much keep it, unless you do something stupid like airing outright pornography. Remember the outrage when some station claimed GI Joe Extreme was "educational" on their license renewal? Under the new rules, it counts. I suspect even Preparation H commercials count as "educational!"
More important (to TV stations) is the matter of money. In a belated case of conscience, Congress and the FCC instigated rules to limit commercial advertising time in children's programming. Stations who deliberately run kid cartoons accepted his loss of income as the cost of business. But to a general purpose broadcaster, who does not specialize in kid shows, it was an excuse to eliminate cartoons and children's programming altogether.
NBC took the first step, by eliminating their cartoon shows entirely. They had nothing to lose; they had atrocious shows like The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley and Rick Moranis in Gravesdale High . By putting on live-action shows aimed at teenagers, they avoided the ad limitations; Saved by the Belland its decendents aren't "kid shows" by the strict FCC definition.
My own station has taken a similar route; we simply pre-empt all of ABC's cartoons and run a three-hour newscast on Saturday morning. It's a fair programming choice, I guess...some adults who lack a sense of wonder can't tolerate cartoons, and love our news show. (We also make more money with news than with cartoons.) [Webkeeper's note...I'd rather watch the news, J-school alum and news junkie that I am, than a lot of the atrocities which pass for cartoons nowadays, and everyone knows I love cartoons!] But I regret that in all of Central Florida, only I will be able to see Gargoyles: The Goliath Chroniclesand The Mighty Ducks - and I'll only catch glimpses from a tiny monitor as I run commercial breaks in our newscast marathon. (Satellite dish owners are still out of luck; ABC's feed is super-scrambled.)
The Animation Nerd guessed right, by the way. The three hours of "education" that TV stations will include some atrocious stuff. Many shows will be put together cheaply, by inexperienced production companies, with great speed and with little entertainment value. (Last week we ran a pilot of a proposed "educational" show, starring a once-famous kid host. I'll simply say that I have never seen anything more pathetic on any video screen - and I once worked for PBS!)
But at least, even if it's the result of a draconian order from the FCC, my station will once again carry programs for children. Chances are, some of them will be both enjoyable and educational for children. And I, as a commercial broadcasting employee, will have the satisfaction of contributing to my community at the same time I earn apaycheck.
And that is where I disagree with the Animation Nerd, who would prefer to "ghettoize" such programs on PBS. Providing PBS with sufficient funds to do their work is important and should be continued. But every TV station, especially the commercial ones, should contribute to the community whose airwaves we use. Dumping this responsibility on PBS is wrong. It belongs to all of broadcasting, and we should all shoulder a part of it. At the very least, we commercial guys know how to avoid sounding like Miss Grundy, a knack the Corporation for Pubescent Bondage has never been able to acquire.
Thomas Reed is an engineer for a Florida television station. He is also publicity chairman for SunQuest Partners, Inc., which hosts gaming conventions and tournaments. He accepts death threats and screeds of irrationality at his E-mail address, tomreed@sundial.net.
Of course, he would also like you to see the SunQuest web page to learn more aboutgaming; it's at http://www.sundial.net/~sunquest< /A>.
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