Category: Television

In July the Spanish-language Univision was No.1 among all networks for 18 to 34 year olds, a critical demographic for advertisers.  The station averaged 1.2 million nightly viewers from this age group; Fox was second.

That is from Entertainment Weekly, August 5 issue; it is lovely to be back home, pawing through one ‘s magazines.

I am referring to the Jos Whedon science fiction show that went off the air after eight (?) episodes.  I now have watched the available corpus of eleven episodes available on DVD.  Many call it libertarian, I see the implicit politics as suggesting the following:

1. Don’t expect much from armed rebellion, the bad guys often win.

2. A galaxy devoid of the rule of law is not such a fun place.

3. Smuggler heroes are noble, but most smugglers are not heroes.

4. Economies of scale matter, and secession is a hard life.

In other words, it is actually Burkean conservative.

One of the heroines is a "companion", so I wonder if the series endorses legalized prostitution.  We are told repeatedly that she is "registered" (legally, in the form of a cartel?), and she seems to look down on garden-variety you-know-whats, who presumably also engage in price shading.

Alina Stefanescu offers Firefly commentary; see Rod Long as well.  Dan Drezner describes his conversion to the series, plus offers his usual excellent links.  Jacqueline Passey is another avid fan.

An adaptation of Jared Diamond’s renowned Guns, Germs, and Steel will be shown on PBS tonight, I believe at 10 p.m. but check it may depend upon your area.  Thanks to Ed Lopez for the pointer.  I must now run to give a talk (yes, it is intimidating to have both Jane Galt and Daniel Drezner in the audience), but I’ve opened comments for those of you who know more about this, and perhaps know about future showings as well.

Have you ever noticed that Japanese TV shows start at odd times?  One show starts at 6:58, another at 7:00, and another at 7:05.  Why is that?

A.  Until several years ago, most Japanese TV shows did start exactly on the hour, but because of the TV ratings war, some stations decided to get the jump on their competitors and start their programs a little earlier. The networks realised that because most programs ended a little before the hour, people would often start channel surfing, but they would be more likely to start watching a station that wasn’t airing commercials at that time. Similarly, if a program runs until a little past the hour, viewers are more likely to watch the next program because they have missed the beginning of programs that have already started on other stations. Now that every station (except NHK) does it, there is nothing to be gained from starting programs earlier or later, and the stations have become trapped in a vicious circle where starting times are getting earlier and earlier.  Thanks to all the people (too numerous to list here) who sent in answers to this question.

Here is the link, which contains a lengthy list of fascinating questions (and answers) about Japan. You could spend half an hour there.  Many Japanese think green is a shade of blue, and they often take off their shoes before committing suicide.

I was pleased to see Auletta describe the 1971 McDonald’s jingle, "You deserve a break today," as a "classic of manipulation," because I was the person who sang the jingle.  Auletta rightly chalks up that ad’s success to Keith Reinhard’s copywriting talent, but credit should also go to the late composer Sidney E. Woloshin, who helped to make its music so memorable.  Woloshin was one of the many gifted composers who made jingles a part of our lives.  I had a thirty-year career singing amazing little songs like that one, and I think that advertising lost something when the industry started to deemphasize creative and original music in favor of pre-recorded pop songs [TC: que lastima, how artificial!] that bear no relation to the product.

That is a letter from Arlene Martell, to The New Yorker, issue of 9 May 2005.

For young adults at least, often it is Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster.  And yes I mean in the United States.  On nineteen different nights (since September), Univision has ranked number one among 18 to 34 year olds.  Two-thirds of the time Univision has made it into the "big four" (the three networks plus Fox) with this age group.

My previous post on television forgot to mention Spanish-language shows, which are a superior form of bad TV.  I’ve long been a fan of Primer Impacto, despite the departure of Maria Celeste Arras.

The information is from The Wall Street Journal, 2 May 2005.

Brad DeLong’s advice for being on television is excellent:

The world will be ruled by those who can give 30 second answers and are
insane enough to really believe that the camera really is a sentient,
intelligent being…

In the green room before my appearance on Kudlow and Co. I was with an older gentleman who looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t place him.  I introduced myself, he was pleasant and we talked a little but he didn’t give his name.  Oh hell, I thought, he expects me to know it.

Do I insult his vanity by asking or do I remain quiet?   My instincts were to remain quiet but by failing to introduce himself he was clearly intending to signal his superiority and that annoyed me – thus at the price of revealing my ignorance I pricked his vanity and subtly indicated that I didn’t know who he was.  He responded, "Well, I was President twice…briefly".

Of course!  I still didn’t recognize him but I immediately knew.  After all, he is famous for claiming he was President, Al Haig!

To be fair, Haig is a major figure in twentieth century U.S. politics and he is still sharp.  We had a very interesting conversation about Truman’s firing of Douglas MacArthur and about Donald Rumsfeld’s mistakes in Iraq.

Funny thing is, however, he never did tell me his name.

It is likely that Alex will be on the Larry Kudlow show today (CNBC), on the blogger’s segment, at roughly the 5:40-6 time range, EST.  I hope you catch him…

Addendum: The discussion focused on social security, and Alex was great!  (I am told a transcript will appear on radioblogger.com).  We thank Larry for plugging our blog….and here is the video.  And here is the transcript.

That is Steve Levitt, both on CNN and Comedy Central (!), here are the details.  Now my TV snobbery must end for sure, but when will Eugene Fama make The Sopranos?

I’ve long been a TV snob, and I can recall going twenty years without watching a program.  But now I like — and sometimes love — several contemporary shows: Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Sopranos, and Ali G.   (The Simpsons I appreciate but do not love viscerally; my favorite few South Parks are excellent but the median SP bores me.)  After viewing but a single episode, I believe Firefly must be added to my list.

No economics, but this apparently true story from the Globe and Mail just made me laugh and laugh.

    An indignant Israeli is suing a pet shop that he says sold him a dying parrot, reports the Ma’ariv newspaper. Itzik Simowitz of the southern city of Beersheba contends the shop cheated him because the Galerita-type cockatoo not only failed to utter a word when he got it home, but was also extremely ill. Mr. Simowitz adds that the shop owner assured him the parrot was not ill but merely needed time to adjust to its new environment.

Thanks to the Eclectic Econoclast for the link.

If enough people start getting their TV online, it will drastically change the nature of the medium. Normally, the buzz for a show builds gradually; it takes a few weeks or even a whole season for a loyal viewership to lock in. But in a BitTorrented broadcast world, things are more volatile. Once a show becomes slightly popular – or once it has a handful of well-connected proselytizers – multiplier effects will take over, and it could become insanely popular overnight. The pass-around effect of blogs, email, and RSS creates a roving, instant audience for a hot show or segment. The whole concept of must-see TV changes from being something you stop and watch every Thursday to something you gotta check out right now, dude. Just click here.

What exactly would a next-generation broadcaster look like? The VCs at Union Square Ventures don’t know, though they’d love to invest in one. They suspect the network of the future will resemble Yahoo! or Amazon.com – an aggregator that finds shows, distributes them in P2P video torrents, and sells ads or subscriptions to its portal. The real value of the so-called BitTorrent broadcaster would be in highlighting the good stuff, much as the collaborative filtering of Amazon and TiVo helps people pick good material. Eric Garland, CEO of the P2P analysis firm BigChampagne, says, "the real work isn’t acquisition. It’s good, reliable filtering. We’ll have more video than we’ll know what to do with. A next-gen broadcaster will say, ‘Look, there are 2,500 shows out there, but here are the few that you’re really going to like.’ We’ll be willing to pay someone to hold back the tide."

And how is this for an application of the Alchian and Allen theorem?

"Blogs reduced the newspaper to the post. In TV, it’ll go from the network to the show," says Jeff Jarvis, president of the Internet strategy company Advance.net and founder of Entertainment Weekly. (Advance.net is owned by Advance Magazine Group, which also owns Wired‘s parent company, Condé Nast.) Burnham goes one step further. He thinks TV-viewing habits are becoming even more atomized. People won’t watch entire shows; they’ll just watch the parts they care about.

Read the whole thing, which focuses on how BitTorrent is revolutionizing the delivery of media and the enforceability of copyright.  Of course we are still waiting to hear where the revenue will come from…

I am on holiday in Canada.  Never having known anything different, the children are terribly confused and distraught to find that at Nana’s house their shows are not on whenever they want them to be on.

I use the opportunity to tell them about progress – when Daddy was little he had to get off the couch just to change the channel! – I refrain from further explaining that the CPI does not adequately account for improvements in the quality of life.  Tivo is great.    

Check out Dog the Bounty Hunter, the latest reality-tv show on, believe it or not, A&E (Thursdays at 10/9C is the regular time-slot but it repeats often). As you know, I have a special interest in bounty hunters but the show is good entertainment. Surprisingly, it’s not just the chase that’s interesting but also the life-story of the arrestees and Dog and his family.