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One reason I used to enjoy watching MTV was that it was the only network which admitted that we existed.
But lately, even once-daring MTV marches to the same
ignorant drummer as the rest of the national media, wherein
promotional announcements for programs always go along the
lines of 11 Eastern, 10 Central, 8 Pacific.
What happened to 9 Mountain,
which is about
850,000 square miles, or 27 percent of the area of the
lower 48 states? Is it really that much work for the
announcer to say two more words, or for the network's
graphics department to add another number to the time
listing on the program promo?
Granted, the entire Mountain Time Zone holds only 13 million people -- less than the population of either greater New York or Los Angeles -- but in some respects, the networks must think we're important. After all, they still put ads on the programs they beam into the Nowhere Zone, and the Nielsen ratings do include viewers here. They're glad to have us as part of the audience they can charge for, even if they don't admit that we exist.
Living in the Nowhere Zone causes problems. In my
business, I often deal with editors in Manhattan or the
Silicon Valley. They sometimes call at bizarre hours, and
when you explain what time it is here, it confuses them.
Really? There's a time zone between Central and Pacific?
Why haven't I ever heard of it?
You learn just to shrug off questions like that, because, in my experience at least, you get very little work from an editor after you've called him an ignoramus, even when you're quite justified.
Since children these days spend more time in front of TV sets than they do studying geography, this problem is only going to get worse in the future.
Unless we do something about it, of course:
1. Write letters to the FCC and demand that Mountain
Time get equal treatment. Not only is it the American way,
but our educational systems are such that many of our
citizens have difficulty adding 1 to Pacific or subtracting
2 from Eastern, and then figuring out where the big hand
and the little hand will be when Geraldo
comes
on.
2. Get our own people to work with us. There are major
performers who grew up in the Nowhere Zone, and many more
who vacation in and near Aspen, Taos, Livingston, Jackson,
etc. If a few of them demanded that All promotional
spots for my mini-series or sitcom must mention Mountain
Time,
then perhaps the networks would pay heed.
3. If that doesn't work, we could put pressure on the
networks by complaining loudly. There aren't many of us,
but networks run real scared, so it doesn't take much --
after all, one Minnesota housewife was able to change the
content of Married ... with Children.
These days,
we'd need some kind of moral argument, but perhaps we could
complain that people are needlessly missing church services
on account of temporal confusion occasioned by the
networks' deliberate chronological omissions.
4. Since we're only 5 percent of the U.S. population, we certainly qualify as a minority group, and we can use techniques that have worked for other minority groups. Years ago, black Americans noticed that there weren't many black faces on TV, and threatened boycotts. When you turn on the TV now, you're certainly aware that America is a multiracial society; blacks are no longer invisible. Perhaps if we threaten to boycott all products advertised on any network which persists in treating us as though we're invisible and don't matter, the networks will come to their senses.
5. Make the best of it. If America doesn't want us, we could try getting by on our own. It might be tough to live without self-employment taxes, presidential campaigns, Central American invasions, flag-burning laws, zero tolerance and the other blessings of being part of the USA, but I'm game if you are.
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