“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moment’s notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-17 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of October 8, 2017
This Week’s Podcast
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Game Shows
The death recently of veteran TV game show host Monty Hall, got me thinking about game shows in general. Hall was co-creator and longtime host of “Let’s Make A Deal”. The show has been on the air, with only a few short breaks, since 1963. We love our game shows in America.
But today, game shows have changed. The traditional shows, like “Let’s Make A Deal”, or “The Price Is Right” have been largely relegated to daytime TV or syndication. The genre has changed in the last decade or so. But first, let’s remember when the game show was king.
To a younger (or even middle-aged) audience that may sound unlikely. But in the early days of television, traditional game shows were huge hits. The first one on commercial television was “Truth or Consequences” in 1941. These traditional game shows, ones that involved teams or individuals answering questions or solving puzzles, grew in popularity as television moved into the cultural center in the ‘50s. From 1956 to ‘59, shows like “Twenty-One” and “The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Question” were enormous hits in primetime. They offered very large, for the time, prizes and made stars of the winners. In 1959, Congress began investigating charges that some of the most popular games were being rigged. Evidence revealed that the charges were true. Laws were changed to make such actions illegal, careers were ruined and the scale of game show prizes was much reduced. Because of the lack of laws covering the activity, no one ever faced criminal charges.
From that point on, game shows continued to be immensely popular as daytime TV. CBS decided to drop them at the end of the ‘60s, only to reverse that decision a few years later as their audience enthusiasm continued.
So where does that leave us today? There are more than a few traditional game shows hanging around. I watched Steve Harvey recently on “The Family Feud” and it stills hangs in there four decades after it’s debut.
The game show has returned to primetime in our time. All of the “reality show contests” are the current vogue. “Survivor”, “The Amazing Race”, “The Biggest Loser” and more have held onto serious ratings for a very long time. Today’s shows emphasize physical or talent competitions rather than simple question and answer formats, but these are our game shows. What does it say that the motto on one of the most successful is “Outwit, Outplay, Outlast”?
They are a long way from the days of Dr. Joyce Brothers racking up wins with her knowledge of boxing. But then Simon Cowell is a long way from the easy-going style of Monty Hall.
Change Is Gonna Come
In any aspect of life, change is inevitable. Everything has a shelf life, a lifespan, a Productive age that doesn’t last forever. Once that time is done, then the world moves on. All that is left behind will be nostalgia for anything that was once good and enjoyable.
The last month has seen the announcement that two things that were once mainstays of our media world are moving to the next phase of their lives. One will disappear, the final fate of the other is still to be determined.
Fifty years ago, a 21-year-old kid launched a magazine that was a central part of the media life for those of us in the Baby Boomer generation. “Rolling Stone” magazine was both countercultural and mainstream. It was the magazine for the culture of rock and roll. And in very short order it became a touchstone for millions of fans. What other publication can claim its own song for those who graced the cover? At the same time, the quality of the writing and reporting could be brilliant. It remained the unique creation of its creator and owner, Jann Wenner. But the reality of modern media and the harsh environment for traditional print media has pushed “Rolling Stone” over the edge. The magazine that brought us the photography of Annie Leibovitz, and the writing of luminaries like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe among so many others, is going on the sale block. The magazine has lost some of its allure, as the culture changed and stumbles like the botched University of Virginia rape story have damaged the brand’s value. The future is very much in limbo for Rolling Stone.
There is no question about the future of AIM, AOL’s Instant Messenger service. It will be closed down in December. My bet is that your reaction was the same as mine when you first heard the news, “AIM is still around?” For most of us, I’ll wager that AIM was our first foray into messaging services. AIM was there before texting or Twitter or MySpace. It was THE cool computer application back at the end of the 20th Century. But it never managed to make the shift to the mobile world and so drifted quickly to irrelevance. My favorite tribute on Twitter about the coming end of the road for AIM was the person who said it was like discovering a favorite band from years ago that you don’t really listen to anymore had broken up.
In the end, both AIM and Rolling Stone are remnant of a day gone by.
As Sam Cooke sang, a change is gonna come.
Media And Crisis
Let’s face it. It has been a tough month to watch the media. Primarily because the news has been filled with one disaster after another. Hurricanes devastated Texas, Florida, multiple islands in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, plus Nate who came ashore just this weekend. There was a disastrous earthquake in Mexico. And finally, there was the horrific shooting in Las Vegas. It has been one emotional body blow after another. And folks are showing the effects. Stress levels among viewers of all this calamity goes up before a certain kind of numbness sets in.
So I think it’s important that we take a look at how to deal with the media surrounding major crises like these.
First, let’s understand that you can suffer serious issues from watching these stories endlessly. Studies have been done around the world, including several by our own Department of Veterans Affairs, in Israel, Australia and Kuwait show that increased viewing of media coverage leads to increased stress and increased cases of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD). This can be especially noticeable in children. Surveys showed that people who suffered the greatest negative impact were watching as much as six or eight hours of coverage per day. Children show negative effects after only a couple hours of daily viewing.
Now the media can also play an important role in providing necessary news and support in times of crisis. And the rules for media consumption are different if you are in the area of the actual crisis, rather than observing from afar. With that in mind what signs may indicate that you need to step away from the media? First, do you feel levels of stress increasing as you watch? Are you feeling that you can’t turn the media off, or go to recreational activities because of what you’re seeing or hearing? Finally, is the stress related to watching the media disturbing your sleep?
It’s important to remember that you are always in control of your media consumption. Watching hour after hour, when most of the coverage will be either repetitious in nature or speculative isn’t helpful. After the first hour or two, return to more normal daily activities and just check in. With each succeeding day, keep your consumption to regular short checks. If something major develops, get the best facts available and then return to your life. If there is already stress in your life, it’s probably best to limit your consumption even more.
Staying informed in a time of disaster or crisis is important. Allowing ourselves to be consumed by the coverage of the events will only make it worse. When in doubt, return to your regularly scheduled life, as much as possible.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2017
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
Stories Are My Life 
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