Who Is Watching?

Tonight was the 63rd Annual Emmy Awards, but if anyone asks, I was totally watching the Eagles game.  Anyways, tonight I'd like to talk about television.  More specifically I'd like to talk about television that I am not sure why it is still on the air.  I'm talking about the shows that when they are brought up or when you see a commercial for them you are puzzled that they weren't cancelled 2-3 years ago.

The Bachelor/The Bachelorette

This show is sort of the great-aunt of dating shows.  This is probably the last one still on the air that doesn't have a washed up rapper in it.  I remember this show being very popular a few years ago.  People were invested in it and seemed to care if the bachelor and whoever got the final rose actually got married.  I NEVER hear anyone talking about this show anymore.  Yet here we are and this show is still on TV easily two years after everyone stopped watching it. 

Big Brother

When this show was stolen from European television and brought to the United States, it was HUGE.  CBS aired it six nights a week.  They had the Big Brother: After Dark show on Showtime.  Julie Chen had to be plugged in and recharged several times a day due to over use.  Then America got wise and realized that if they wanted to watch boring, unattractive people sit on the couch, they would just put a mirror in the living room.  So why is this show still on TV?  If you host a show and are married to the president of the network it airs on, you're boring show doesn't get cancelled.  As a matter of fact, you will probably get to host a few more terrible shows as well.

American Idol/America's Next Top Model/America's Got Talent

There hasn't been one since Kelly Clarkson.  There has never been one.  And no, no we don't.

Every Basic Cable Reality Show

It all started with The Deadliest Catch and now 15,000 different reality shows later, here we are. Due to the sheer number of shows there are, there cannot possibly a large enough audience to keep any of them on the air. Plus they crank these shows out so quickly, the content is just God awful. Maybe that is part of the allure and I can dig that. But I will say that even if you can't take your eyes off of a horrific car accident, you wouldn't camp out at the same intersection every week looking for another one.

CSI/NCIS/Law & Order/Homicide/JAG/Burn Notice/Cold Case

To answer the question put forth in the title of this blog: apparently everyone. The police procedural shows are ratings juggernauts. My only problem with these shows besides the overkill in the amount of them is that for shows that are numbers one through ten in the ratings week to week I don't watch any of them and don't know anyone who does.

So for the amount of time I spend flipping channels and the amount of crap on TV I have to endure, one might think it would be better to shut it off and crack open a book.  But, whether you are a casual reader of this blog or have read every single one, I think we all know that just isn't going to happen.