*shrug* The other day I watched some TV programming guru’s seriously put forth the premise that we will have a lot more “serious” shows such as crime dramas and relationship shows now, and the market for fantasy and comedy will dry up because …

… in bad economic times people like to see people like themselves solving problems.

Yeeeaaaaah, sure they do. Thank god in the 30’s they didn’t succumb to escapist crap. I mean, could you imagine if the Wizard of Oz hadn’t been about serious down to earth problem solving? We could still be in a depression!

:rollseyes:

As to the Sywhatever channel … well, it wasn’t the “geeks” that made the profitable, it was the advertisers. And, since tech toy gadgets are one of the first things people quit buying when money is tight ( so the logic goes ) you need to concentrate on detergent, toilet paper, groceries all that stuff, the purchase of which is controlled by ( supposedly ) boring unimaginative housefrau. So you need to attract the people that watch dull boring TV to attract the advertisers that want to contact dull boring people.

Of course, the fact that geeks need to wipe their butts and that soccer moms watch StarTrek and Buffy doesn’t fit into the mass marketing paradigm.