Word: lear
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...season, Dynasty (Dallas in Denver) has hit its form, and Bob Newhart's new comedy series broke into the top ten, but the networks have not come up with a superhit since Dallas and Mork and Mindy, both of which premiered in 1978. Says former TV Producer Norman Lear (All in the Family, Mary Hartman): "A show becomes a big hit because it is dynamically different. But the networks are afraid of different. They want carbon-copy television." To the programming chiefs, says Washington Post TV Critic Tom Shales, "a new idea looks like a foreign object...
Students at the symposium generally agreed with Lear's assessment, but said that he failed to provide realistic solutions to the dilemma of television quality...
...name of the game is television is to rate better than the other two networks, to succeed too quickly for innovation. The climate has grown more severe year by year," Lear explained, adding that he does not foresee an improvement in programming quality in the near future...
...fixation on short-term, bottom line thinking across the breadth of America," Lear said. "The greatest societal disease of our time is we seem to think that if you're not a winner, you're a total loser. I despair that we won't see a change in TV until, as a nation, we deal with this short term fixation...
...Lear hates what's happening in TV, but he's being very diplomatic in saying that society must first change," Thomas D. Greenwald '84 said Carrie M. Weiner '86 was more critical of Lear, saying. "I would think that someone who made 'All in the Family would be indignant or at least somewhat dismayed at what has happened to television...