Professor of TV and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, Robert Thompson, interview

Are the changes in people streaming more content compared to watching TV a bad thing? Let's get Rob's opinion on the most memorable TV theme songs!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
To quote Ferris Buehler, life comes at you fest and
sometimes we don't stop to realize the major changes, Like streaming.
Streaming was a huge, not only cultural change, but it
changed the media landscape. It changed Hollywood, it changed all
of the networks. Everybody had to react to that when

(00:20):
we just decided, Okay, I'm going to stream now and
it just changed our lives. Let's talk about that with
Robert Thompson, who is Professor of TV and Popular Culture
at Syracuse University. Good morning to you, Sarah, Thanks for
being with Good morning. Yeah, streaming really has had a
profound effect on our culture, hasn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
It has, and you know it hasn't been that long.
I mean Netflix didn't start doing its original programs House
of Cards and Oranges of New Black and Litla Hammer
until twenty thirteen. That wasn't that long ago. YouTube launches
in April of two thousand and five, so it's not

(01:01):
that recently, but it is of course completely and totally
changed the way we do. What when I was a
kid was what we thought was the primary activity of
humankind was to watch TV whenever possible.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Now, when you look at like the TV ratings, everything
is down the top one hundred shows are all either
sporting events or live events like the Oscars and the Emmys.
You know, you get down under fifty when you see
top shows. Used to be the shows like mash were
at the top of that list. And the movie theaters
are suffering. Hollywood's change the way they've made movies. It

(01:39):
has changed us across the media landscape, has it not?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
It has? And we blame COVID for the crisis in
movie theater attendance, and it's certainly COVID certainly accelerated things,
but it was streaming that it really started that whole process.
You know, you talk about the ratings, it is it's
fascinating to look at those ratings. You're right, everything down
in the ratings. You know, TV series ratings are down

(02:04):
from when there used to be. Award shows are down.
Everything but the Super Bowl that's actually gone up since
twenty years ago and thirty years ago. But what it
constitutes a hit now? You know, when when we were
back in the network era, when I was a kid,
and by the way, let's not get too nostalgic. When
I was a kid, the shows I had to watch

(02:24):
were about flying nuns and talking horses, So not like
everything was perfect back then.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
I love the Flying Nun in the Talking Horse. I
love Mister Ed.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know. Yeah, And they did what they did really well,
but they were there was limits to what TV could do,
but those shows were getting The Beverly Hillbillies would get
thirty thirty five million people a week watching it. There
was a great show in nineteen sixty four called East
Side West Side star George Scott, who would go on
to win an Oscar for Patton and Cecily Tyson, the

(03:00):
first black actor in a starring role in a drama.
Great show, wonderful innovations in it. It got canceled after
a single season because it only had twenty two million viewers.
That was not enough to keep it on the air.
Twenty two million viewers now, if it wasn't Super Bowl
Sunday would make you the most watched show streaming, broadcast, cable,

(03:23):
anything of the entire week. So what we used to
think of TV is the thing that we were all
watching at the same time. That's not the case anymore.
I can't find in my class of one hundred people
there are only two or three things that every single
one of them have seen and they're all old. There
are episodes of Friends, episodes of the Office, and the

(03:46):
original Lion King. Those are the only three that everybody
has seen. When when I was a kid, everybody saw,
you know, the Brady Bunch. Whether you liked it or not,
you couldn't help it.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Well, let's sake, let's three channels, right, there was three networks,
and then there was PBS, so you had four stations,
and then if you had UAHJF, you might have another
three stations. But they were showing reruns and children's shows of.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
The stuff that used to be on the three networks,
right exacts.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Yeah, and so there was it was so limited. But
look look at now. You're absolutely right. I hear about
a new streaming series every single day that I'm not
going to have time to watch.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yoh yeah. Netflix has probably introduced three new streaming series
since we started this conversation. That's a little bit of
an exaggeration, but not much. And it is, let's face it,
there is a lot more good television out there today
than there ever was when we were kids. I mean,
we had there were some fine shows and we did
I Dream a Genie and Bewitch. They were fun for

(04:49):
what they did. They're still fun to watch. But you know,
since the turn of the century, with the Sopranos and
the wire on cable and then streaming, with all of
the stuff that's come out, we've got more people, more voices,
better shows, But we've also got a lot more worse.
We've just got a lot more of everything. And since

(05:10):
we've got all these choices, nobody is sharing any of
it together. I mean, we used to watch what we
watched because there weren't any other choices.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
That's so true, because you know what, everyone in my
household has different you know, tastes and media. And now
we don't have to watch TV together.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Because that's right, we have all choices.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Said that thing, It isn't a way because I don't
really usually want to watch what my husband wants to watch, honestly,
and my son is up in his room, you know,
with his phone, watching what he wants to watch. My
daughter's on YouTube watching what she wants to watch. So
streaming is tearing apart families, is what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Well, you're right, though it's both good and bad. The
good part is you're right, You're you're getting what we
used to depend on what three old executives from ABC,
NBC and CBS told us we were going to watch,
and it was very, very limited, and only a few
kinds of people could get had had a voice and

(06:12):
could get their own shows. Now, so many different kinds
of shows, so many different people who didn't have access.
That's all a good thing. The bad thing, I guess,
is that because we don't have any shared culture anymore,
the tendency to completely fragment has been exacerbated. There's nothing
that brings us back together. Walter Cronkite actually had the

(06:35):
nerve with no sense of irony to end his shows
with and that's the way it is his news program,
and that kind of was what brought everybody into some
kind of center, as artificial as it might be. That's
gone away, and without that incredible power, I'm not sure
the American experiment will ultimately survive the fact that we

(06:59):
don't share anything, even though it's glorious that we have
all those choices.

Speaker 1 (07:03):
It's funny you made me think of something because I've
been bemoaning the fact that there's no no ideas out
of Hollywood that all the movies are just remakes of
old movies. But they don't always have the money they
used to have because the money is going to streaming,
and that's where some of the great new shows are.
You can watch a limited streaming series that's wonderful, that

(07:26):
has huge a list actors on streaming, and they have
become the place to go for new movies. They have
become the place to go for new TV shows. That's
where all the creativity seems to be going these days.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, no, I agree, because of the whole business model
of Hollywood, you really need to do these big box
office marvel types of things. All the excitement artistically is
in the test kitchens of streaming. I agree, and I
think some of the most exciting storytelling is going on
in streaming, not only more exciting than in the movies,

(08:02):
more exciting than in the novel and other fancy ways
of telling stories that we used to have. As far
as that though, running out of ideas, you know, that's
been the case. Sequels and spin offs and all that
kind of thing. It's not necessarily a bad thing, it's
just bad when they're done badly. We've been doing. Most
of television in its first decade was reboots of stuff

(08:25):
that had played on radio, Shakespeare was doing sequels. Yes,
there was Henry the Six. There was also Henry the
Six Part two and Henry the Six Part three. The
Odyssey was a sequel to the Iliad millennia ago. True
the idea that we kind of latch onto a body
of characters and stories and then keep retelling them for

(08:48):
new generations. It's not necessarily a bad thing. It's only
bad when it's not done well.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
But in the past you had new stuff too, And
it seems like the movies and right now in the
theaters are all remakes. So let's talk about this more later.
Robert Thompson, Professor of TV and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.
Love to have you on, Robert, thanks a lot, Professor,
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
Thank you. That was fun.