I have to say it is not a struggle for me to reconcile my support for the banged up investment banking industry, which many would say is greedy if not corrupt, and my disgust for how low television has stooped to capture an audience.
Both are practicing free enterprise within regulatory frameworks. Both have a goal of enriching shareholders. However, innovative banking produces direct economic benefit to borrowers by keeping interest rates low, which helps to create jobs and stimulate economic growth.
Television programming is something else altogether. Reality shows on MTV (a Viacom network) and other cable channels tap into the fly-on-the-wall prurient interests in us to see how ‘they’ live. I am sure at least some of the shows return a profit, but beyond that I cannot imagine one iota of value to the public.
Consider the now cancelled Buckwild, the star of which asphyxiated himself and his uncle after closing a bar at three in the morning. According to the news reports, the theme of this show was college-aged youth who were presumably lazy or not motivated enough to do anything with their lives.
Wow, what role models.
Justifiably, the governor of West Virginia, in whose state the filming took place, tried to have it thrown off the air. And then there is ABC which has a reality program called Wife Swap. Even if nothing salacious happens in these episodes, the suggestion of sexual misconduct is in your face.
This stuff is entertainment all right, but the networks are taking the easy way out. Instead of finding an innovative and constructive way to capture the attention of an audience, they buy up low-brow programming and match it with sponsors to reach a target market.
I am confident television has abandoned any pretense of providing the public an art form except on rare occasions.
Television is at its best when performing a public service to viewers such as the coverage of the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing. However, that tragic event has taken on a life of its own, and you can bet cable will exploit it to exhaustion.
Reality TV fare influences our youth by promoting a destructive way of life and contributes nothing directly to society or to the economy. This programming is banal, inane and vacuous. Sponsors and their agents have to share the guilt.
Furthermore, it is a travesty that the entertainment industry assumes the role of self-appointed arbiter of our national cultural values, ever pushing the envelope of taste so far that it desensitizes our kids to violence and obscenity and social norms well beyond the tolerance of the majority of our citizens.
Belatedly, the Motion Picture Association of America has just announced a feeble effort to more clearly define the content of PG-13 movies. No doubt the group felt obliged to accept their influence on young people after Newtown and the Colorado massacre.
I think I understand well enough that the market for TV and movie entertainment has changed dramatically over the last generation, and they are in survival mode.
I also understand that I am a curmudgeon. I also realize that griping about this age-old problem of declining cultural standards has been lamented by untold generations before me.
But, today I am concerned about flagrant permissiveness and the callous endorsement of destructive behavior in the name of profit by an out-of-control industry.
Interestingly, in 2011 the entertainment industry output was $218 billion, only 1.45 percent of gross domestic product, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. However, its impact on society is enormously outsized for its meager contribution to our economy.
Our first amendment clearly protects the rights of the producers of this programming, so much in the public’s face. I wonder if and when self-policing will take hold. I wonder where lie the personal moral codes, the courage and the backbone of the leaders of studios and networks, sponsors and advertising agencies.
We need a new Walt Disney.
Russ Wigh is a professor of business. Email him at rdwigh@bellsouth.net.