Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge Oink Oink, You Banks, Oink Oink

Well, in fairness, that's the way it's always been. ALL broadcast television is filler between commercials (with the arguable exception of PBS, which is filler between fundraising drives). That's the entire economic model of TV. It's expensive to run a television station, and income from commercials is the only thing that makes it possible.

TV news programs have always competed with one another for viewers and thereby for advertising revenue. It used to be that news shows believed that what viewers wanted was unbiased, in-depth news reporting, so they competed with one another to be as evenhanded, in-depth, and informative as they could be.

But it turns out that isn't actually what people want. It's what people SAY they want, but it's not what people really want. People want information that caters to their pre-existing biases, prejudices, and bigotry. They want news that validates their already existing ideas. News programs that cater to people's existing prejudices are more popular than news programs that don't. When Rupert Murdoch realized that, he changed the face of television reporting forever.