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What's up now in the vast wasteland?

We've come a long way from three or four channels on the dial. But has TV programming progressed?

By FRANK KAISER, Special to the Times
Published October 31, 2006

Our generation was privileged to grow up with the most influential, most promising invention since the wheel.

We watched its humble beginnings through snow, squiggles and rolling images, on tiny monitors that took minutes to warm up, and often hours more to "tune."

In those preremote, precolor days, Dad was in charge of the "rabbit ear" antenna, continually running up to the TV set, wiggling the "V" chrome tubes oh-so-slightly, then rushing back to his chair to see if his magic jiggle had improved reception.

This, like a later generation of men clicking through 250 channels, could last all evening.

We saw fabulous live shows, experimental productions that today wouldn't be attempted even on tape. And there were good-looking women - Dagmar comes to mind - great comedy, dancing poodles, charming puppets and wrestling.

Oh, how we loved wrestling. Remember Gorgeous George?

By 1960, TV was as ubiquitous as the air itself. It was darn near un-American not to own a TV.

Our generation watched it all; from that stern Indian head behind the lettering that silently announced there was no programming, to all the TV dinners, tray-tables, and "togetherness" that TV spawned.

As kids do, we embraced it as if it had been around forever.

But in the beginning, sports teams banned the medium, fearing that fans would rather watch games from home than at the stadium. Movie studio bosses, dreading mass desertions to free TV shows, showered us with wide-screen formats, surround-sound, 3-D and the short-lived "Smell-O-Vision."

Politicians such as Ike and JFK welcomed TV, recognizing its power to shape votes. And though some folks - such as my first boss and near-genius advertising executive Leo Burnett - thought television was just a passing fancy, there was no turning back.

In 1961, as the medium settled into its awkward teens, Newton Minow, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, condemned TV as a "vast wasteland."

Forty-five years ago, in a speech before the National Association of Broadcasters, Minow challenged his audience - that era's highest-powered TV executives - to spend an entire day in front of a TV set.

"What you'll see," he charged, "is a procession of game shows, formula comedies with totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem and violence."

After his attack on programming, he assailed the folks who paid for it: "You'll see endless commercials, many screaming, cajoling and offending. Most of all, there's boredom."

Strong stuff. But those were the days of few choices. Not like today's smorgasbord of hundreds of programs running at any given moment.

Two generations ago, we had three, maybe four, shows from which to choose at any given time. The top-rated shows of 1961 were:

1. Gunsmoke

2. Wagon Train

3. Have Gun, Will Travel

4. Andy Griffith

5. The Real McCoys

6. Rawhide

7. Candid Camera

8. The Untouchables

9. The Price is Right

10 Jack Benny

Brings back memories, doesn't it?

Many of us agreed with Minow. But most held out hope that all would change for the better once a wider choice of programming was available.

Well, you decide.

Now, with cable and satellite dishes - even cell phone TV, for crying out loud - we can choose from hundreds of channels.

And what is our choice? Here were the Nielsen rankings for mid September, 45 years later:

1. Grey's Anatomy

2. Desperate Housewives

3. CSI

4. Dancing With the Stars

5. CSI: Miami

6. Without a Trace

7. CSI: New York

8. Brothers & Sisters

9. Criminal Minds

10. Dancing With the Stars Results

Do we see four decades' worth of improvement here? Let me know what you think; send e-mail to frank@suddenlysenior.com.

I look forward to hearing your verdict.

Frank Kaiser is a nationally syndicated columnist who lives in Clearwater. His Web site, www.suddenlysenior.com , includes nostalgia and links to senior-focused sites.

[Last modified October 30, 2006, 20:50:02]