
FX chief: Even peak TV can be a 'sideshow' to internet - lnguyen
http://www.apnewsarchive.com/2018/FX-Networks-CEO-John-Landgraf-says-television-keeps-churning-out-record-numbers-of-original-series-but-is-being-overshadowed-by-the-internet-s-dubious-distractions/id-0f79dba660824aceb10b967318695f29
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tritium
Yeah, and there are reasons for that. Focus groups kill creativity with group-
think, and TV reeks of it. Standards and practices and other varieties of self
censorship mean TV shall fight forever with one hand tied behind its back.

The internet is frequently better than TV, because merit is free to boil to
the surface without being stifled. It’s not that the internet is free of bland
tripe. But merely that it’s costly to force bland tripe to the front, and when
the state-sponsored tripe gets upstaged by something better, it’s harder to
bury the higher quality content.

The problem with the internet is the firehose of The Long Tail ultimately does
bury absolutlely everything (good and bad), so once again, over time
everything is obscured by default, leading to micro-generation gaps (maybe
spanning as little as two years) and reasonably large subcultures that never
see the light of day.

On some level though, the movie industry has proven that profits don’t matter,
since we see that for the last decade, profitable movies are mostly
unwatchable garbage.

So, even if TV manages to be profitable, it can surely deserve the same
sideshow status as movies. The only thing the internet paradoxically lacks
right now (despite massive unicorn companies with nigh unlimited resources) is
the unrestrained budget movies enjoy. And this is because the most captivating
things on the internet are authentic in real time, and cannot be “budgeted” in
a traditional sense.

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Thriptic
> Yeah, and there are reasons for that. Focus groups kill creativity with
> group-think, and TV reeks of it. Standards and practices and other varieties
> of self censorship mean TV shall fight forever with one hand tied behind its
> back.

I would actually argue that FX has produced a lot of notable content which has
been novel and high quality. Examples would include The Shield, Fargo, Louie,
The Americans, Sons of Anarchy, and Atlanta. HBO and AMC have also made
outstanding content.

Where you tend to see groupthink yielding safe, predictable crap is the major
networks like CBS, FOX, and NBC.

~~~
tritium
Not all of TV sucks, and FX isn’t terrible. But given the commercials, TV
feels like willful brainwashing in practice.

Consider the idea of paying for cable, and _still_ watching commercials. It’s
sort of like paying for the internet connection and _still_ paying for the
content. No thanks.

~~~
jhatax
Most Internet content providers have advertising, sometimes invasive based on
my browsing history — YouTube, I am looking at you — to offset costs or rack
up profits. Therefore, your beef with broadcast networks based on advertising
is on shaky ground. There are many reasons to dislike broadcast TV vs.
Internet content, but advertising cannot be one of them because both mediums
have it.

~~~
Fifer82
I don't see Adverts online anywhere, I have no control of that with TV?

