Those of us old enough to remember when the "Big Three" television networks actually voluntarily policed their own content via their various departments of standards and practices have watched with dismay the rapid decline in those very standards of decency. In my life time we've moved from an overly puritanical standard where even the word "pregnant" was taboo to a new era so profane that we're no longer shockable and the only apparent word too dirty for network censors is "God".
Responsibility seemed to be the watch word for both the entertainment and news divisions of the networks, and they actually seemed to respect and respond to their viewing public. Those days, sadly, have passed. Sure, there are business realities they've had to face with regard to competition from cable offerings not bound by broadcast content constraints. It's got to be tough holding on to that coveted 18-34 y/o male demographic when HBO and Cinemax can offer hours of nudity and sex nightly.
Still, these days it seems that the networks have completely abandoned the notion of customer service and have opted instead for agenda driven programming and news. They're in intense competition for the honor of "most irrelevant", and it's my opinion that, though the contest is close, NBC is in the lead.
Take for example the short lived show The Book of Daniel which features a drug abusing Episcopal priest with an unimaginably dysfunctional family. I personally had no problem with the premise, but it should take a genius to have foreseen the backlash they would face from offended Christians before they invested millions in a show that ran less than 6 weeks.
Then there's the issue of The Veggie Tales. For those of you who don't know, Veggie Tales is a wildly popular series of cartoons featuring an ensemble of singing vegetables with a very Christian message. Until NBC bought the broadcast rights these were only available in video and dvd. So positive was their message and such a departure were they from the likes of Bart Simpson that millions of copies were sold without the benefit of being a regularly broadcast show or intense advertising. My own children have watched them so much that even I know a lot of the songs by heart. Enter NBC. They made a deal to broadcast Veggie Tales as a Saturday AM offering, but just two weeks prior to airing announced that any reference to God or Christianity would be edited out. Brilliant! Take a popular existing show and excise the very element that made it so successful in order to pander to the PC police and/or satisfy the networks anti-Christian bias.
Their plan to air a Madonna concert which featured Madonna hanging from a cross. Naw, that wouldn't offend a major percentage of your viewership would it? Hmmmm...
Focusing on their news division we find MSNBC - the most ideologically unhinged television "news" organization extant. And their bull goose loony is Keith Olbermann who's hatred for all things Bush is only eclipsed by his tremendous ego and journalistic incompetence. Each night at 8pm Keith spews forth an hour of distorted, unchallenged, anti-Bush drivel so ridiculous that it's actually entertaining to watch. He's even inspired a popular website dedicated to exposing his work for the tripe that it is - Olbermann Watch. Other than his laser beam focus on all things Bush, the most telling element of Keith's show is his utter lack of any opposing point of view. You'll never, ever see a guest brought on to offer a dissenting opinion. You see, when lying and operating with an impaired intellect its best not to field any challenges.
This brings me to the inspiration for this blog post. It's being reported that NBC is actively seeking disgraced Rosie O'Donnell for some sort of daytime show on the regular network and possibly a night time show on MSNBC. Rosie O'Donnell is an unhinged proponent of, among other wacky notions, the 911 Truth movement. The 911 Truth movement holds that there is indisputable "evidence" that the Bush Administration planned and executed the attacks of the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon in order to rationalize war in the Mid East. This, of course, is insane, and by offering a vocal proponent of this madness two time slots on NBC one can only assume that NBC agrees with this point of view. This means that NBC has completely lost touch with reality and main stream America. If Rosie is signed, NBC will have become completely, irretrievably irrelevant.