I'm Back and so are Reality TV shows

Sorry for the absence - I've been celebrating the end of my 3rd year at USC and needed some R&R. However, I am back and ready to continue providing cool articles on what is happening in the future of entertainment.

I will make this next blog short and sweet - TV networks are rapidly switching places for 1st.

Back in the hey day of my youth (10 years ago I think will do it), NBC was king of the sitcoms and had it all - Friends, Fraiser, Seinfeld... Nothing could compete. More recently, CBS has had their CSI spinoffs and have been number one for years. ABC has enjoyed success with Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives. However, a distant 4th was always FOX. Not any more - guess whose number one - FOX.

HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? A network that came out of no where 20 years ago is now the number one network? This is simply because people no longer watched sitcoms or tv shows live. They wait for when they are available and simply play it on their DVR. Fox however has EVENTS and not shows. You don't watch the American Idol Finale 2 weeks later and still get the same excitement - everyone around the water cooler has already spoiled the ending. You have to watch it then and there. That is was Fox does right - event television. They got the Emmy's this past go around, they have American Ido and Top Chef and with Fox Reality creating a slew of new television shows on the cheap, Fox will remain number one for years to come.

NBC, the perennial favorite from youth does have the Olympics coming up and those will be a huge help to the struggling network, but I think it is fair to say that FOX, once touted as a joke of network without any quality programming, is now the network to beat. What is ironic is that the same quality of programming is being pumped into FOX, it just turns out that people's tastes are evolving and now FOX provides mostly content that must be viewed then and there - it cannot wait a couple weeks.

With this, I want to write a dirge for all network programming. Days will go away when quality shows like Lost, 24 and others were free. They are simply too expensive for the ratings they deliver. Soon, everything we watch for free will be reality and the only sit-coms, serials or dramas that we can get are on pay cable. I'm sad, but not surprise - it is the nature of the beast - technology makes everyone able to produce shows and with that unlimited ocean of choices, not enough eyes hit the good stuff.

DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE RATINGS SYSTEM PROVIDED MY NIELSEN - (a show like ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT gets cancelled, when millions probably watched but just weren't a 'Nielsen Family').

Until next time - God Speed.

C-Wickity