Category: Television

Cyberchase is a PBS show for kids that teaches math. It’s designed for children 8-12 but my 5 year old loves it. I’m impressed too. My son picked up on the concept of negative numbers from one episode involving an elevator traveling from above ground to below ground. In another episode, the cyber-kids use backwards induction to save the world! The cyber-kids even figure out the value of having a medium of exchange. If you have kids, check it out.

I also recommend, Between the Lions, the hippest kids tv show I have ever seen. One episode featured the music of Charlie Parker, recurring bits are Dr. Ruth playing Dr. Wordheimer (she counsels words on how to blend together), Martha Reader and the Vowelles, Gawain’s Word and more.

Eli Noam is the pessimist, Richard Epstein is the optimist. I agree with Epstein, who notes:

…the use of internet technology also reduces the costs of various forms of global co-operation. The best path for content-savvy foreign producers is to enter into deals whereby they combine their content with the technical expertise that is more cheaply available from the high-tech American platforms. The distribution channels cannot tell American from Hungarian electrons, and if content from other nations has sufficient appeal, then no evident cost disadvantage should keep it from reaching the marketplace, so long as technical services can be freely bought and sold.

Noam is worried that the Internet might make it easier for American content to take over markets, thus limiting the scope for local programming. But American television programs are losing ground internationally. Increasingly American TV shows and movies are part of a broader menu of satellite programming, offering viewers a truly global choice. A 2001 Nielsen survey found that 71 percent of the top 10 programs in 60 countries were locally produced.

Here is the full exchange, my only complaint is that we don’t hear enough from Richard.

Analog television is dead in Berlin. The German capital became the world’s first jurisdiction to go all-digital on the TV dial in August, when the last of its analog stations–along with viewers’ analog TV receivers–went dark. Contrary to the fears of regulators elsewhere, there have been no shrieks of outrage. The lessons for American policymakers: The paralysis that grips the digital TV transition in the United States can be overcome, and taking away analog TV is not political suicide.

Why is this a good thing?

Given a digital configuration, broadcasters could beam many times the number of analog stations currently on the dial.

And by taking a step beyond the “Berlin switch,” new wireless networks could be unleashed. The United States long ago set aside some 67 TV channels nationwide, but the great majority of them are unused. In fact, just seven TV stations broadcast in the average market. Going digital could open up this mother lode of leftover spectrum in the TV band to productive use.

Berlin just did the switch the drastic way, and families on welfare were given vouchers to purchase the new boxes. Regulators fear “stranding” 13 million TV sets in America, but a similar voucher plan would cost about $50 million in the United States, we are told.

For the full story, read Tom Hazlett on Slate.com.

Eric Alterman’s What Liberal Media? attempted to rebut charges that American mass media have a left-leaning bias. Conservative pundits dominate talk radio, many liberal outlets carry conservative commentators, market-oriented ideas are ascendant in the think tank world, and, I might add, many bloggers have a libertarian orientation. So Alterman’s response has some punch. Anna Schwarz offers a good review of the book, in Jeffrey Friedman’s on-line The Dissident, you might know Jeff from his editorship of and writings in Critical Review, he is an impressive intellectual polyglot.

Schwarz concedes many of Alterman’s points, but does not believe that Alterman has dismissed the charge of liberal media bias. She writes:

Alterman never comes to grips with the fact that the people who cover the news are overwhelmingly liberal. In 1992, an astonishing 89 percent of Washington correspondents and editors voted for Bill Clinton…Alterman acknowledges midway through the book that there might be some merit to his opponents’ arguments: “the overall flavor of the elite media reporting favors gun control, campaign finance reform, gay rights and the environmental movement,” he writes…These are distinctly liberal stances and this admission, by itself, pokes a gaping hole into Alterman’s argument…

My (partial) take: TV broadcasters need a good story, which leads to an emphasis on visible victims who can be interviewed. Media will neglect unseen opportunity costs. This bias often supports a “left-wing” perspective, but not always out of design. The bias also gives extra attention to crime victims. Members of the public often think crime is worse than it truly is, arguably a “right-wing” bias, crime victims get on the news because they make for good stories. We should not forget that media output is demand-driven, and people do not always want their media to reflect their politics.

My question: It is not obvious that reporters have been especially left-wing throughout the history of the American republic. When and how did this start to change?

See also an excellent earlier post by co-blogger Alex.

What does advertising time cost for various TV shows? Read Daniel Davies who offers the relevant link. For the data at hand, Friends sells ad time at the highest rate. The Simpsons is more expensive than Monday Night Football.