Commercialisation

"The ‘first duty [of the media] is to shun the temptations of monopoly. Its primary office is the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Comment is free, but facts are sacred."  - C.P.Scott

Somewhere off in the distance Channel 9 is screaming “YOU CAN TRUST US,” Channel 7 is insistent that we are some sort of creepy digital family, and  all  I can muster up in the face of these  ploys is a big and extremely eloquent, “Righto.”

These painfully corny slogans come off as a little patronizing, because while they are reassuring us that they are a sure source of the truth, somewhere deep down we already know they are consumer-driven pigs, much more interested in “the bacon” than the truth. These companies have infiltrated just about every medium you can think of, whether it is television, movies, radio magazines, or the web; with this comes a certain degree of social responsibility – a responsibility that’s been neglected.

The form of commercial media means it is either funded through subsidising, subscription or sponsorship.  Of these three, government subsidising, is the most concerning.  If you own, or contribute to a cooperation, you hold weight of opinion and oversee the direction or content of the company. Now, imagine our programs being run by the government, all the “questionable content” taken out.  It’s pretty bleak.  There would be nothing left, because everything is questionable- thus, there is no truth left but the governments (cough).  No trust can be developed between the channels and the audience in this instance.

The truth is not only being edited by government bodies, it is also suffering at the hands of tabloidization. The truth is being ‘dumbed-down’ for the general public, shows like A Current Affair, that once were the epicentres of truth, are stooping to new lows, headlines  like “Lindsay Lohan’s Dad’s Cousin’s Drug Battle,” is sadly prevailing over hard-hitting news. This blatant attempt to widen their audience increases advertising, and probably makes us all a bit dumber.

This translates to more general entertainment too, if cooperation’s don’t make things more accessible to a wider audience, there is a loss of revenue, which in turn means less investment and less income for quality products. Subsequently, channels source bought-in content, this perhaps explaining channel 11’s shrine to wildly-unrealistic shows like MacGyver and The Brady Bunch.

In all fairness, us as consumers are just as bad as the big companies. We are the ones who buy into all this ‘reality’ TV and entertainment news crap – we are more or less shallow when it comes to programming.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel, news outlets like The Global Mail are attempting to combat commercialisation, brave claims like “our audience is our only agenda” gives me hope for a world where money does not outweigh quality, and for that matter, trust.

In all honesty, greedy companies should spend less time sticking their trotters in absolutely everything, and should instead stop fix the real problems like consumer ethics, and why Sunday programming is absolute crap. 

-Shannen