Commentary : SO MANY CHANNELS, SO LITTLE TO WATCH

I keep hearing there are 500 channels in my future.

I don’t know whether to jump for joy or run for cover.

I suppose we should all be happy and proud that television is taking great strides forward in at least one area--technology.

But has anyone really thought this through? I don’t want to be the naysayer here, but I think the industry--not to mention society--is going to have some problems.

Let’s begin with the obvious: What the heck are they going to put on all those channels?

I figure at least 100 channels will be pay-per-view. Another 100 will be home shopping.

So, we’re really talking about, conservatively, 300 channels for most of us sometime around the year 2000. (They’ve already got 150 channels in parts of New York.)

What’s this going to do, for starters, to your TV guide? Turn it into a weekly phone book?

The answer is probably no.

You’ll have another couple of bulletin-board-type channels telling you everything you need to know about what’s on, though the show could be over by the time you find it.

Imagine, too, what people will come up with to fill all those available programming spaces. We’ll have cable channels for everyone: the Construction Channel, the Dental Channel, the Channel of Channels Channel.

I expect I’ll even have My Own Channel. This is not to say there will be anything new on. If it’s true that history repeats itself (and where could that be more true than on television), the future definitely looks frightening. With all the reruns, you’ll start to wonder what era you’re living in.

Every piece of programming ever committed to film will find its way to the screen, simply because there’s room for it. And because you have to assume that what we’ve been seeing all these years is considered by executives to be most of the best of what television has to offer, 500 channels is enough to make you suicidal.

Which brings me to the impact-on-society question. If you think there’s an education problem in this country now, just wait until your kid gets a load of the 21st Century.

America the beautiful will be populated by a bunch of pale, bug-eyed, droolers incapable of understanding anything that hasn’t been tube-fed to them. Unless, that is, something like a Game Show Channel catches on, in which case people may start asking you to frame your answers in the form of a question.

Sure, sure, there’s going to be a great opportunity for educators to use television to enlighten. Now just picture your child, with a channel changer in his or her hand, trying to decide what to watch.

Hmmm. Will it be one of those 200 sitcom, cartoon, sex, drugs and violence channels or the Homework Channel?

Suffering from repetitive stress syndrome from working on your computer? You won’t know the meaning of pain until you’ve channel-surfed through 500 stations. Are you one of those people who have trouble deciding what to order in those restaurants with too many items on the menu? Better line up a shrink, or throw away your TV.

Fighting over the channel changer with your husband or wife? Can’t you just see the divorce rate soaring right along with the number of programming choices? Lawyers are going to do a booming business.

Given any thought to what all those shopping channels will do to the economy? On the bright side, it could generate a lot of business.

On the other hand--and this seems a lot more likely--the possibility of thousands of personal bankruptcy cases, credit-card fraud and rise in worthless non-recyclable junk jewelry seems enormous.

But the real irony is that you still know that no matter how many channels we end up with-- 100, 500, 1,000--there always will be somebody out there, who, after scanning the dial, will conclude with a sigh, “There’s nothing on.”