Over-the-air television and the other America

If you’re an OTA viewer you’re feeding on cultural leftovers, quite literally. If you’re not, your baseline cost of living is poverty line times 1.5 or something. Sure Netflix is somethingteen dollars a month (or is it more by now? I don’t follow such things), but for all practical purposes assumes you have wired Internet access. Figure a hundred a month, or no paywalled programming, back to diet of slop. Even going to the movies once-every-few-months (not cheap, but at least not a monthly commitment) leaves you out of some loops, as parts of the feature films business is going into Netflix-exclusive distribution and the like. I rationalize it as, oh, well, I’m a grownup, I’ve made my own bed, should have known the starving artist life might not be the best way to “feed my head.” But now even children watching Sesame Street on PBS are feeding on the leftovers of the children of HBO subscribers. This may have unforeseen social impact. If you’re out of the pop culture loop, you have less to bring to the water cooler, so to speak. It could in theory even hobble some people’s career development (because networking) for example. I mean, let’s be blunt, almost all the advertising that’s commercially viable on the “simulcast” channels, really any of the OTA channels outside what’s left of the part of network prime time that’s still at least half-a__edly vying for Emmys (targeted by Target), literally shouts “hey loser” at its audence. It’s pretty much down to lawsuit bait and Medicare scams. What else you gonna sell to a penniless audence?