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The decline — and decline — of public access television

by Mike on Tue 06 Mar 2007 11:41 PM EST | Permanent Link | Cosmos

If you're old enough to remember the late 1980's/early 1990's (and you were in the U.S. at the time), then you probably remember the public access television explosion. Local public access channels were jammed with amateur producers and "talent" of all sorts, covering subject matter from the obscure to the mundane. The public access sensation was more or less the basis for the film "Wayne's World" and because of the success of the film, public access cable gained a shred of credibility for a very short period of time. Hell, I even joined a friend in taking the "Community Producer" course at the local cable access channel back in 1992 or so in hopes of launching a comedy show of sorts. Thankfully, the show never made it out of the "concept" phase which was probably a good thing because most of our "concepts" were pretty bad. But somewhere there is an awful, awful public access show from 1992 that features my name in the credits as a camera operator. It was my final project for the "Community Producer" course. Don't bother looking for it.

Miss Mia and Ratso
from Chic-a-go-go

There's still a bit of bad programming on the local public access channels where we live. I suppose this is also true in bigger cities as well, but I am sure that it is not at the level that it was 15 years ago. As far as our current selection of public access shows in Dayton goes, you can choose from a terrible show on wine-tasting or incredibly bad, boring shows on local politics. Occasionally, there is a 1970's "documentary" on the Illuminati or some other kind of conspiracy theory. These shows are always fun in a creepy sort of way. The local access channels also feature dreadfully boring shows about local city attractions and history, most of which feature embarrassingly bad "talent" and poor audio and video. I could provide the names of the shows I am thinking of, but I don't really want to give them any press. Most of these studio shows are pretty formulaic, featuring the same desk, chairs, curtain and scenery ("scenery" typically refers to 1 plastic plant). And really...it's like death to try and watch more than 5 minutes of them. The call-in shows are really the most entertaining of the bad shows, because there's a least a little suspense in waiting for a crank caller to curse on air or say something really disgusting. It becomes annoying when the on-air "talent" try to stay ahead of the callers and hit them with one-liners before hanging up on them. The absolute power of controlling a telephone (with real, live callers) becomes just too much for these guys to handle.

There are some good things to have come from public access television in the U.S. I suppose my favorites are probably pretty obscure. I have previously mentioned my affection for the show Chic-a-go-go, which I think has something of a cult following in the Midwest. There's also Pirate TV which I think is produced out of Dayton' s MVCC. This is really one of my favorite shows on television. Each episode is about an hour's worth of oddities which include music videos, cult film movie trailers, commercials and clips from long-forgotten shows of the 1980's, toy commercials, clips from Japanese game shows and all kinds of other weird stuff. I am completely serious when I say that I think that Pirate TV is one of the only shows on television worth watching. I wish they had a web site or that there was some kind of info somewhere on the web to share, but all I can offer are my rave reviews.

Nikos Konstantinidis: Protector of the good,
arch-nemesis of demonic stray pets

In the U.S., I think interest in public access television is definitely waning due to the rise of blogging and YouTube. But my friend Panos has shared that Greece is fortunate to boast a bumper crop of vintage public access-like craziness. Consider the work of Anestis Keramidas, who believes that the DNA of Greeks is different from the DNA of other humans. He also believes that in 2012 the Greeks and their ancient culture will dominate the world, giving peace to all the living creatures with the help of something called the Epsilon Team. Awesome. Then there's the work of religious oddballs like Anastasis Theodoridis and far-right wingers like the Georgiades Brothers. Demosthenis Liakopoulos seems to be a bit nutty as well. But it seems that Nikos Konstantinidis takes the cake. Apparently he was bitten by a stray dog in 2006 and he used his television show to declare that the attack was orchestrated by the Antichrist. Now who wouldn't be fascinated by this guy? And he's got the backing of the Church — or at least a representative of the Church — in the esteemed Father Modestos. Christos kai Panagia!

It's good to know that Greece has picked up where the U.S. left off when it comes to televised insanity!

Thanks to Panos for sharing his Wikipedia articles.

Recommended viewing from YouTube
Dimosthenis Liakopoulos video 1 video 2
Anestis Keramidas video

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Comments

Re: The decline — and decline — of public access television

by dadbob on Fri 09 Mar 2007 09:08 PM EST | Profile | Permanent Link

I do not like PA TV.
It stifles creativity.
I will not watch it in a plane.
I will not watch it on a train.
O! Hear me crying plaintively,
"I will not watch PA TV!"

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