CBS Encouraging Bad Behavior? Or Desperate?

Another blog item at EW.com caught my eye today. It seems that a doofus jumped over a fence today during the CBS "Early Show" and did a shout out to Coney Island while putting his arm around co-host Harry Smith. Why is this interesting?

During football and baseball games, if an idiot runs onto the field, usually the TV cameras cut away, not showing the intruder because they don't want to encourage others to try and get their moment in the spotlight the same way. Unfortunately, that leaves only poor-quality video when something special occurs. CBS has, according to the blog, put the video of today's interruption on their website and YouTube.

You think, "Okay, CBS desperately wants people to watch their morning show. The ratings have always been terrible during the morning. So even if other dimwits now hop the fence and manhandle the hosts, at least people will watch."

But then the blog mentions an "Early Show" overhaul that begins next week -- which means even if someone sees that clip and thinks, "Wow, I like how those hosts handled that! I think I'll start watching this show!" -- as improbable as that is -- on Monday there will be all new hosts! So why bother putting the clip online?

(The image above, by the way, is apparently how the CBS logo looked in 1966. I kinda like it.)

Adam Lambert and TV Network Lunacy

So let's sum this up: on Sunday ABC televised the American Music Awards. The show ended with a performance by Adam Lambert. It was wildly over-the-top in his sexual acting-out, including simulated oral sex, among other things. The mildest part of the whole thing was probably when he kissed his keyboardist, another man.

Then the morons took over. ABC canceled Lambert's scheduled Wednesday performance on "Good Morning America" because they were afraid of more of the same. CBS eagerly snapped him up to perform on "The Early Show" the same day, and interviewed him about the controversy. While doing so, they showed a clip from the AMAs, and CBS blurred out the kiss between Lambert and his keyboardist. Moments later, they showed footage of Madonna kissing Britney Spears from the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards -- unedited.

What we have here are two networks so afraid to alienate part of their dwindling audience that they made utterly stupid decisions that end up alienating another part of the audience -- the part with working brains. The broadcast networks are a shell of their former selves anyway. Where there were once only three networks and some independent stations, there are now hundreds of cable networks, the Internet, DVDs, iTunes, cell phones that play video, and so on. The audience is fractured, probably forever. So it behooves a network to not give in to foolishness, to not be conservative and boring. To stand out in the crowd it takes boldness.

ABC struck out by canceling Adam Lambert's GMA appearance without, oh, contacting him on Monday or Tuesday and saying, "Hey, Adam, we loved what you did on our awards show. The ratings were up, which we're grateful for. But that type of performance wouldn't really go over at 7 a.m., you know? You probably know that, so you'll tone things down, right?"

CBS struck out by displaying hypocrisy. It's okay to show two women kissing, but not two men? Double standard much, CBS? Let's refine the question. It's okay to show two straight women kissing each other, but it's not okay to show two men, at least one of whom is gay, kissing?

Two network dinosaurs, slowly dying. With decisions like these, they won't be missed.