Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

ABC:RIP

This has been a long time in coming but it must be said. From this albiet occasional viewer's perspective, ABC has turned the corner and gotten a long ways down the road into insignificance. My apologies to those who occasionally stumble across this site who either work for or enjoy watching what used to be America's greatest network but the truth must be told.

This admission comes at a great price for me. I used to love ABC. I remember when ABC was the best of the networks. Good ratings were OK but the network was defined by it's exceptional news service and groundbreaking sports coverage. Shows like NYPD Blue and before that Hill Street Blues and the like were great but the departments that reported on life, as it was happening, eclipsed today's vapid reality-TV.

I remember when ABC's news department had all the greats. Jennings as anchor fresh off his assignemnts in the Europe and the Middle East. Ted "The Smartest Man Alive and He Knows It" Koppel showing that PBS' idea of a long news segment deveted to a single topic could appeal to Americans. Sam Donalson's dogging President Reagan's every step, striking fear into press secretaries all around Washington. And the icing on the cake was David Brinkley bringing Sam, George Will and various guests to grill the living hell out of anyone brave, smart or stupid enough to step into the ring with them. I can remember getting an a good deal of my world information from ABCNews and not being the worse for it.

Then there was the sports. Wide World of Sports may not have always done the best job of covering a sport but it was always covered. Cycling, Skiing, Sailing, Motorsports, you name it. Football on Monday Nights that was actually entertaining and at a time when most of America could watch it. Great announcers like Keith Jackson were the norm and then there was Howard. Even if you hated him, you had to listen to him because what he said was relevant.

Now, all of that is gone. The great sports presence has moved to ABC's subsidiary, ESPN. The cutting edge news team has stayed together but slowly grown dimmer in many ways. That ABC would even consider getting rid of Nightline was a travesty that showed how far the network has sunk. And who is to blame? The mouse. Or actually the people behind the mouse. Disney is the virus that infected the network and now the network has no soul. It's almost as if they've made Roy Disney the head of ABC programming, news and sports.

So, ABC, thanks for the great memories. Thanks for changing how the Olympics was done. I wish someone (probably not ABC though) had the courage to do it that way again. Thanks, even if only for a short time, for thinking that some of us viewers had brains and would rather use them during late night television than watching Johnny or Jay blather on about some stupid movie with some B-rated actor/hack. As a once loyal viewer, I'll not be tuning in any longer. Your lust for the lowest common denominator has sunk to sub-Fox levels and that's just too low.

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