Once upon a time (always wanted to start a post with that 😁), hollyweird had this thing called central casting. Each major studio kept a running list of people to act quietly in the background.
Nowadays, they get folk from there and put them into ‘leading’ roles on game shows and ‘reality’ tv. [I’ll include crime reenactment shows too.]
My insignificant rant addresses the insufferable commercials for these shows, and the wannabes who overact (sometimes) in them. TV was once forecasted as a ‘wasteland’, unsuitable for people who wanted to remain intelligent. Plenty of disagreers and a decent assortment of examples to disprove the theory.
Yet, percentage-wise, (I admit to guessing here) it started (c. 1940) out as 80/20. Eighty-odd years later, it has become 20/80. Market demand or demands bestowed on the market?
There’s hundreds of channels on cable/satellite (don’t get me started on streaming services – Sam Clemens addressed subscription sales quite well in the late nineteenth century.)
Aaaaand, there’s almost nothing worthwhile. How many repetitive shopping channels are needed (wanted)? News channels parroting the same ‘bleeds it leads’ action drama. Programs for a sixty minute slot with twenty minutes of commercials (thirty minute shows might have up to twelve minutes). I’d check the FCC website, but they’re more industry pimps than regulators.
Sheeple choices: change channel, off switch, radio, read book, nature walk (not for city folk, partly suburban folk, mostly safe for rural folk) – safety issues and all.
But, money talks. All the way down to central casting. And a lot of them are looking up the advancement ladder.
Rants Unto the Ether 