The Off Topic Topic

[CountDeMoney]

Interesting New Year's column from the Sun's TV critic.   Does anybody even watch CNN's coverage of Times Square on New Year's Eve?

Anderson Cooper, Kathy Griffin double down debasing CNN brand two nights straight
New Year's Eve one thing, New Year's night show worse

By David Zurawik
The Baltimore Sun

Kathy Griffin's desperate efforts to get some shock buzz New Year's Eve on CNN were so obvious that I vowed I wouldn't write about her - wouldn't write about her kissing Anderson's Cooper's crotch and trying to make sure every viewer knew what she was doing.

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/kathy-griffin-kisses-anderson-coopers-crotch-national-television

You can see the video above. (And don't write to me about using the video from the right-wing Newsbusters website. It's the best edited of the lot, and most of the YouTube cuts have such bad video you don't know what's being said unless you're a lip reader.)

This isn't about politics. It's about a cable channel letting one of its highest visibility show hosts and its brand be debased -- not once but twice. First on New Year's Eve, and then again on Cooper's Tuesday night show. To me, the Tuesday night performance was even worse.

When I saw Griffin first kiss Cooper's crotch and listened to all her shock-jock double entendre crap surrounding it New Year's Eve, I had two thoughts.

First, Jeff Zucker can't take over fast enough at CNN, which seems to have utterly lost its grip with stuff like this.

And second, maybe Cooper's image is bulletproof, but how much of this silliness can he keep indulging before people start to say, "Hey, maybe this is who this guy really is a giggling clown, not a newsman"?

So, why am writing about it now if I made that vow on New Year's Eve not to?

Because Tuesday night, Cooper had Griffin back on his show, and the two acted like a couple of adolescents celebrating how naughty they had been the night before. And this went on a long, long time, with video highlights and Cooper letting Griffin plug her next junky special.

Meanwhile, on Fox News, first-string anchors, reporters and analysts were going all out on a holiday night trying to cover the fiscal cliff manueverings in Washington.

Bret Baier, Charles Krauthammer, Ed Henry -- they were all there covering a major news story on Fox News, while CNN brought us Anderson and Kathy up in a tree.

And here's Zurawik, the guy who has been calling CNN "our last, best hope for a real news and information channel on cable TV," thinking how impressed I am by Fox's commitment to covering the story and how disgusted I am by CNN.

Cooper and Griffin did discuss the fiscal cliff. She joked about having a Maserati, and wondered how fiscal cliff legislation might affect her.

Ha ha, you ignorant, trashy fool. People were in danger of losing their unemployment benefits. You think there is anything funny about how they feel?

And her pal Cooper laughed at all her stupid jokes Tuesday night. Maybe he thinks people losing benefits their families depend on is funny, too.

I guess he's so cool he doesn't have to cover the news any more. He's living large in D-List Celebrity Land these days with a failed daytime talk show and a weeknight program on CNN that never wins its time period.

[Syt]

That's nice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JddNDtC-Yrs

[lustindarkness]

On the way to work this morning, on the radio traffic report:
Traffic flowing nicely, no accidents reported, some on lookers delay before exit X because of a man cutting the head of a deer on the side of the expressway. 

[frunk]

A&E is going to have reality show on Southies.

Yuk.

Shame, A&E used to be one of the finest cable channels 20 years ago.  Used to show Shakespeare performances, for fuck's sake.  It was like PBS with commercials and Law & Order.

What has fallen further, A&E or TLC?

History and SyFy (ugh) are also contenders.  Thay may not have started as high but they certainly dropped precipitously.

[Ed Anger]

History seems to be reorienting itself a bit back towards history. Still have the pawn shop shows, but the are showing more historical stuff.

Now H2 has turned into the wacky ancient aliens crap. I'm also amused they dropped the 'international' part.

[Josquius]

The history channel has gone weird lately. Lots of episodes of a show called pawn stars and other utterly non-history shows.
Which my dad likes....

[Barrister]

YOu have to feel for the execs at places like A&E, History, and the like.

I imagine they want to run more programming true to their original purpose, but the reality crap is so cheap to produce, and does so well in the ratings...

[Ed Anger]

About every cable channel's programming drifts eventually. About the only one that hasn't is RFD, which is a hoot sometimes.

[lustindarkness]

I am not proud to accept this, but there are a few reality/crappy shows I sometimes watch on History, Discovery, Animal Planet:
Finding Bigfoot, Tanked, Turtleman, Pawn Stars, Mythbusters, Fast and Loud, American Chopper, Ancient Aliens.

[Barrister]

About every cable channel's programming drifts eventually. About the only one that hasn't is RFD, which is a hoot sometimes.

Meh.  Thinking of channels that had a tight identity to begin with...

TSN has kept to a tight sports focus (and therefore I must assume, so has ESPN).  The Weather Network hasn't changed a bit.  Speed is still nothing but autos all the time.  News channels like CNN have stuck with news (though Headline News has gone off the rails).  Kids channels have remained focused on kids, cartoon channels on cartoons.

But I'm not sure what the lesson here is.  You'd have thought that the music channels (MTV and the like) had a rock-solid programming base, yet they've totally switched formats.  But on the other hand plenty of channels have remained true to their original goal.

[Barrister]

I am not proud to accept this, but there are a few reality/crappy shows I sometimes watch on History, Discovery, Animal Planet:
Finding Bigfoot, Tanked, Turtleman, Pawn Stars, Mythbusters, Fast and Loud, American Chopper, Ancient Aliens.

I very rarely plan to sit down and watch a specific show.  If I have that kind of time and focus I play a computer game instead.

But the TV is often on anyways.  It provides a momentary distraction when running after a toddler.  As such a lot of the pseudo-reality shows serve as a fine background noise to have on.

Pawn Stars, Storage Wars and the like are no strangers to my tv as a result.

I must admit that Gold Rush is a bit of a secret indulgence of mine, but knowing just a little bit about placer mining and the overall region I can tell just how torqued up the show's plots are.

[Ed Anger]

I am not proud to accept this, but there are a few reality/crappy shows I sometimes watch on History, Discovery, Animal Planet:
Finding Bigfoot, Tanked, Turtleman, Pawn Stars, Mythbusters, Fast and Loud, American Chopper, Ancient Aliens.

You just watch ancient aliens for the guy with the hair, right?

[Ed Anger]

About every cable channel's programming drifts eventually. About the only one that hasn't is RFD, which is a hoot sometimes.

Meh.  Thinking of channels that had a tight identity to begin with...

TSN has kept to a tight sports focus (and therefore I must assume, so has ESPN).  The Weather Network hasn't changed a bit.  Speed is still nothing but autos all the time.  News channels like CNN have stuck with news (though Headline News has gone off the rails).  Kids channels have remained focused on kids, cartoon channels on cartoons.

But I'm not sure what the lesson here is.  You'd have thought that the music channels (MTV and the like) had a rock-solid programming base, yet they've totally switched formats.  But on the other hand plenty of channels have remained true to their original goal.

CNN itself is going to change in a month or so. Cartoon Network tried to switch to some live action shows, but they mostly seemed to have abandoned most of it. Now they play cartoons with cussing animals.

[lustindarkness]

I am not proud to accept this, but there are a few reality/crappy shows I sometimes watch on History, Discovery, Animal Planet:
Finding Bigfoot, Tanked, Turtleman, Pawn Stars, Mythbusters, Fast and Loud, American Chopper, Ancient Aliens.

You just watch ancient aliens for the guy with the hair, right?

Yes. 

[lustindarkness]

I have to add lately Mankind, The Universe, How the States Got their Shapes and the new America Unearthed have been pretty good.