GENRE TV
Years ago, probably in the late '40's or early 50's, we in TV and radio when through a brief phase of a term designating news stories of a certain type as being “Actualities”.
The term was used mainly by radio school students and their teachers. It covered any out-of-of studio activity, and was used primarily by those whotlughtof themslves as being the "creative" side of radio. Engineer-types continued to call them ”remotes” for they were simply news stories done from the site of the event. The term “Actualities” seemed to lend and academic dimension to the not-unusual job a broadcaster was expected to do on occasion . In some ways, by using the term it lent a feeling of intense reality to the doing thereof. The new name did not catch on and faded quickly into the ozone.
It was, for a short time, an “in” word.
We are now in a phase of television programming which reminds me of that term and of the people who favored it. "Reality" is the theme now and, if possible, the word ”virtual” must be used in conjunction with it. It came to the forefront when we borrowed the idea from the British and CBS did the thing called “Survivor”. The have been a score of imitators and copiers using a variety of names which have strayed pretty far afield of the concept of realism per se.
The false note in it all has been the fact that much of the realism was faked from day-One. Such far-out shows run through all of the scary routines quickly and new and more alluring excesses are required to keep them alive. One-by-one each show of this type has degenerated to steadily passing through being tiresome, disgusting, repulsive, and shocking. Few subjects have been avoided entirely and viewers were asked to believe it IS happening before their eyes and squeeky-clean honest all the way. They have been a continuing insult to the intelligence of the viewers and that has allready been judged to be about as low as it can get anyway by critics and survey makers.
I am among those who have not keep track of what the average home viewer's “age” is supposed to be at the moment, but I am assuming it has remained in the general area of twelve as it was said to be many years ago. Twelve - and falling. When we think about it, of course, we – most of us - are well above such such an average. The surveys, we feel, are all skewed because of the number of kids watching.
Don't take that too seriously, however. There are a host of TV watchers out there, who have never noticed how convenient it was to Gilligan and his friends to get marooned on an isolated island with a complete TV production crew, props studio and food for all and in direct communication with anywhere to keep the episodes coming in for years. They are the same people who are waiting for the networks and the Federal authorities to reveal that the “Six Million Dollar Man” was real but they had to keep it a secret that he had been built with all those tubes and circuits inside, so other nations could not find out we were so far ahead.
We, more elite in intellect, do not seem to understand how anyone could take these virtual reality shows, to be anything other than are. I can appreciate that much, but the producers also expect people to expect to believe them for what the pretend to be.
A.L.M. January 7, 2003 [c571wds]
