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Official Press Release: Candidacy Announcement
TODAY I HAVE some good news. I have decided to run for network president. After all of these years as a critic of TV - I have been in power since 1969 - I can now admit I'd rather be president than write.
To keep my options open, I am throwing my remote control into the ring in the race for head of all four leading commercial networks. If elected, I will replace Jamie Tarses and Stu Bloomberg of ABC, Leslie Moonves of CBS, Scott Sassa of NBC and / or Doug Herzog of Fox. Dean Valentine of UPN is safe, since I wouldn't even jog, no less run, for his lowly office.
Which network would I rather be president of than write? They are all just as bad, and in need of help.
It will only be a matter of time until a suitable position opens, the way the networks have started dumping their chief executives. Once a seemingly life term, commercial networks now change presidents as frequently as post-war Italian governments.
Historically, network presidents have come from ad sales (Gene Jankowski), producers (Grant Tinker), up from the ranks (Tarses and Bloomberg), heads of studios (Moonves). Now they are reduced to giving the plums to lowly cable executives (Sassa, Herzog), men who have proven track records of being unable to pick anything more popular than wrestling.
Why not a critic heading a network? For years I have been telling them what is wrong, and how to fix it, and for years they have not listened.
The existing system of closed elections for network presidency doesn't work anymore. We keep getting tired young fogeys with the same ideas.
It may be a mid-life crisis, but I think I can do a better job. Let's look at the record. The gang of six in power now picked 38 failures out of 38 new shows last fall. I can match that.
It's time to make the process more democratic. After all, where would commercial networks be without public airwaves? It's time for more direct suffrage. We have a vote of sorts, by watching shows, but too often our interests are ignored. Is there a person who doesn't have a favorite show that was canceled?
As my first campaign act, I am asking the FCC to start impeachment proceedings against the current network presidents. I will not be charging them with perjury, which they commit every season with their promos for new shows, or obstructing justice in sex harassment cases. There is a long history of suppressed obstructions featuring executives chasing underlings around conference tables.
No, my charges will be abuse of power and trust. Having been given the public airwaves to use in the public interest, they have consistently failed to give the public what it wants. As evidence, there is the erosion of audience share. People are voting "no" with their fingers.
Our presidents have committed high crimes and misdemeanors such as boring people, presenting sitcoms that aren't funny, airing dramas that are not taut or gripping, and generally treating the public like dirt.
I will be making a special recommendation that the FCC appoint Ken Starr to make a case against one or all of the networks. I'm sure in four years and with a budget of $50 million, he will come up with something.
At this point in the campaign, it is premature to discuss details of my programs. The network presidents will only steal my ideas. But a few general guidelines:
- My basic program is to stop promising people everything and giving them the same old nothing.
- My first official act would be to eliminate participation in sweeps, like the sham going on now. No more saving Stephen King for February to fool advertisers with exaggerated ratings. I would run my best all the time, when people are least expecting it.
More specifically, I propose a bill of rights for viewers. A few planks from my platform:
- No sex in sitcoms. This is revolutionary enough to get a statue built
in my honor on broadcast row.
- No cancellation of quality shows before people have seen them. How would I do this? My network would be a Statue of Liberty for all the oppressed minority viewership programs. I would establish an Ellis Island of programing, a ratings-free zone where all the quality shows could huddle.
- Another hour or more would be set aside for the shows that focus groups hated, the ones that break the mold. These are the shows the public doesn't know it wants because it has not seen them yet.
- More shows like "Providence," which try to show the better side of human beings, only better.
- No more cop and law shows, until "Law & Order," "The Practice," "Homicide" and "NYPD Blue" turn senile.
Also on my viewer's bill of rights:
- No more laugh tracks. If a comedy isn't funny, unaided by canned laughs, it shouldn't be on the air .
- Reduction of the number of commercials from obscene to merely gross levels.
- No more "Datelines." I would freeze the number of editions of the news magazine to eight or whatever number they are up to.
- No shows about young women working in a New York media office.
- No more paying $1 million per episode to actors for dying shows like "Mad About You" and "Home Improvement." If $750,000 an episode isn't enough, let them eat cake.
- No more secret deals requiring networks to run lousy shows so they can get an extra year or two of an existing show. So much of the bad programing today stems from this evil.
If elected, I will go to L.A. But only to close it down. As an environmentalist, I believe L.A. causes TV. Anyway, the best shows today are being made out of town. The further away you get from L.A., the better TV becomes.
I will be writing position papers on the basic issues in the coming days. Meanwhile, I am so confident of prevailing at election time, I am in the process of appointing a shadow cabinet to advise me in the coming transition, a shadow vice president for drama & mini-series, for comedy, news, soaps, variety, game shows, daytime, late night. Who knows as much about what the public wants as the public? If you'd like to join me in the coming noble effort to clean up the mess in L.A., explain in 25 words or less why you are qualified to serve in the first Kitman administration. |
