Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Pissed-Off Genius At Work

After a delicious meal and a few pints with a friend (Kitty) at our favorite neighborhood pub, Seth and I returned home for a limonchello and to watch Fox's Sunday night line-up. We began with the Simpsons, briefly described on the guide channel as "Grandpa moves in with Selma". How hilarious does that sound?! We planned to follow the Simpsons with Family Guy - "Peter helps Bill Clinton fix a flat tire . . ." and then probably American Dad. Can you imagine a better evening of viewing pleasure?

Well apparently the douche bags at Fox didn't think this line-up was enough and decided to air a NASCAR race just before prime time. For whatever reason - maybe there was a bad crash, maybe a fan was injured by a stray tire, maybe one of the drivers decided to marry his cousin at the end of the race - the broadcast went long and threw off the timing for the rest of the evening's programs. There's no point in watching the Simpsons if the last 10 minutes are cut off!

I understand that this NASCAR thing has a few fans and they should be able to watch their race on TV when they want. Personally, the idea of watching a race on TV rather than actually being there sounds about as fun as watching Jay Leno but that's my opinion. But what I don't get is why this sporting event, or the football games that push back The Amazing Race or the basketball madness about to start forcing Survivor to go on hiatus, has to be shown on one of the networks. Isn't that why we have cable? Aren't there 25 ESPN channels and entire channels dedicated to individual baseball teams?

With the potential for 1000s of channels, NASCAR should have its own channel and so should all the other sports. Let the networks and their parent studios focus on their own properties. Its time TV stops following a system created in the 1970's and gets with the current millennium.

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