The ratings game in American television is one that is extremely powerful. In the glory days of Oprah she could select what she did, when she did it and commanded a huge salary. All because of her ratings. When millions tune in/record your show day after day you can be as arrogant as you like because no producer or executive is going to challenge anything you say when revenue is rolling in by the bucket load. Of course all good things come to an end. Even Oprah has come to realise that if you do one thing well that does not mean that you do everything well or that your glory days are never ending. With time tastes change, opinions change and the next big thing comes into sight.
When I moved to the USA I spent a few years watching a few morning shows each week. CBS had the worst presenters followed by ABC and then there was Katie and Matt on NBC. Of the bunch NBC was okay, in my opinion, because Matt Lauer was at least somewhat intelligent. If one wants news one does not tune in to any morning show on the major networks. If you want snippets of human interest stories and a boat load of other supposedly interesting segments then you go to the morning shows. Light entertainment that is dressed up to look self important. Katie was annoying and fortunately decided to move on leaving Meredith Vieira to take her place. The woman was more interesting, more intelligent and improved the show which I rarely watched. Then she decided to leave, for family reasons. In her place the network gave the chair to Anne Curry.
The woman has the eyes of a beagle, the voice of someone who has been instructed to give you really, really bad news and the body language of your university guidance councilor who was about to let you know you had not, and never would, make the grade. She is, in a word, irritating. Even in the world of 'we really care for you ... please spill the beans on your own version of misery ... here is the next sad story' approach to what seems to be deemed news in this country she stood out as the most annoying of all presenters. The fact that she was made a more prominent member of the show makes me wonder if someone upstairs was trying to make the show so syrupy that even an American audience would refuse to accept it as other than schmaltzy rubbish.
It is a sad day for the world of news that the morning shows have nothing to do with anything approximating news. Of course given the fact that most Americans go to work by car one would hope that they are tuning tin to the news stations such as NPR or the BBC but I think that might be expecting a little to much. There are thousands of radio stations that are as close to the TV morning shows as one can get without being on the couch next to the Currys of the networks. Stupid jokes, ricidiculous stories about nothing of importance and analysis from experts on subjects that range from ... yawn to fell asleep whilst listening topics.
Journalism has not been made stronger by the changes in technology. We, the listeners, viewers, have taken the path of least resistance. We have asked for the yellow journalism which we now have on every channel, in almost every paper and in the dozen upon dozens of magazines that fill the news stands.
When I was sent on my first journalist assignment at university I sat in the office of a senior lecturer in the Drama Department asking him my list of questions. I was uncomfortable. He was slightly annoyed but at least polite. By the end of the interview I had come to realise that asking personal questions to strangers was not my forte. The lecturer who had sent me on the assignment read my piece and asked me why I had not asked the interviewee about his sexual orientation. Because, I clearly remember saying, it had nothing to do with anything. The response was that it was the very reason for the interview and I had clearly failed as a journalist because I had not asked about it. I sat staring at the lecturer wondering if I was mishearing his words. Surely who one slept with was unimportant unless one was the Pope? It was between the people involved, I stated, and had nothing to do with his job. The lecturer sighed and told me that I might not want to reconsider my choice of career. I did.
Three decades (okay almost four) later I would still not want to know who any slept with. I don't care. I want to know why the Syrian government continues to murder its people without anyone stopping them. I want to know why we can't find an alternative clean source of energy that will stop us destroying our planet. I want to know why we don't have information about genetically engineered food on our labels but I don't want to know what Emma Stone thinks about her last movie, nor do I want to know about the small and stupid acts of people who make the news for 15 seconds each day. Yet the morning shows seem to think that is their role. So Anne Curry, with her tear filled eyes, ridiculously sentimental tone, her caring body language, fitted the bill. Or so one would think.
Today she left the Today show after being unceremoniously shuffled off due to falling ratings. I am sure that financially we don't need to start a charity in her name. I am certain that over the next few years she will be pop up in odd places to annoy or please, depending on your preferences. The saddest thing about her leaving is that nothing will change on the show other than the removal of the most annoying member of the cast. It would be wonderful if the fall of the ratings could drive the network to changing the overall format and going back to news in the morning. But as with Oprah I think they will just try to redo what they have done before with a degree of success. So there will be a new version of a modified Meredith/Katie to begin the upward swing of the ratings with short skirts and long legs no doubt.
If we have learned nothing else from the financial collapse of the past years it should be that we are all residents of a much wider world than the one we drive through each day. I grew up in a household were listening to the news on the BBC was the first task of the day. I never went to school without knowing what was happening in the world. It was important to my father that his offspring knew that they lived in one very small country in a very big world. I hope that my grandchildren grow up knowing that they live in a very big country in a much wider world. If they do not listen to the news, don't read newspapers, don't learn to think about important issues then their world will be made much smaller than it should be.
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