Fall TV: Old Boys and Redneck Yuppies

Let me get this straight. The new fall lineup on all the major networks “just happens” to be 99.9% white and the most the network execs can come up with is a kind of corporate-sounding “Oops, whoopsie”? A day or so after the news of this debacle was released, an article said there seems to be a recent large drop in viewership among the major networks.

Oops, sorry! Didn’t mean to do that to all you major networks but there is nothing on that I, and a lot of folk like me, are interested in watching anymore, actually for quite some time now. As NBC West Coast President Scott Sassa said, “People like to see people like themselves on the air”. Thanks, Scott. Makes perfect sense to me.

Here’s my favorite: If a place like L.A. is supposed to be one of the most diverse places on Earth, then will someone please tell me why almost all the TV commercials and print ads have nothing but white people in them?

The general population isn’t as stupid as the network execs, ad execs, corporate execs and entertainment industry folk believe them to be. It has been common knowledge that the aforementioned people and their subordinates have had and still do have a real hard time “dealing” with minorities in any capacity in “their” industry.

Basically, the old-boy network hasn’t really gone anywhere. Its writers, directors, producers and execs have just gotten younger and still carry the torch, believing that anything ethnic is a novelty and therefore expendable. The best term I’ve heard for that is redneck yuppies.