Chris Bonds wrote:

>But their stars will fade on PBS eventually, which is
>a shame.  It's a medium that chews you up and spits you out.

What do you expect?  TV, yes, even PBS, is the medium of pop culture.

Television discourages reflection, tells us what we already know, relies
on instant accessibility and is governed by images.  This poses problems
for CM.  As our culture becomes more and more dominated by images, it is
inevitable that the shallow aesthetics of pop culture would eclipse the
more reflective, deliberate aesthetic of CM.  The complexities of CM just
do not play well on TV.

"Serious television" is an oxymoron.  Television promotes incoherence and
triviality.  Rather than encourage a literate culture, it actually attacks
it.  The single most important fact about TV is that people WATCH it.
What they watch and like to watch is moving pictures or images -- of short
duration and frequent variety.  That is not conducive to CM.  Consider the
Yo Yo Ma program on Bach's Cello Suites as an example.

Mark