Quotes About Television

Modern politics today requires a mastery of television. I've never really warmed up to television and, in fairness to television, it's never warmed up to me.

I abhor television. Notice how i said ‘television’ and not ‘TV’ because TV is a nickname and nicknames are for friends and television is no friend of mine.

There used to be a huge snobbism between the film industry and the television industry. I produced and acted in my first - well way back - but the first thing that I produced and acted in was Sarah, Plan and Tall. And the only place to go at the time for really quality television was Hallmark Hall of Fame. And think how much television has changed since then.

I would really like to focus on directing features, and then eventually take that skill set back to television. On features, you have more control. On television, the producers are the creative forces behind it. Directors come and go on television.

Television is the same as the telephone, and the same as the World Wide Web for that matter. People who become obsessed by the peculiarities of these communications media have simply failed to adjust to the shock of the old. People who bleat on about the 'artistic' potential of television qua television are equally deluded.

I have now become so infatuated with television. I think television has become elegant.

Television thrives on unreason, and unreason thrives on television. It strikes at the emotions rather than the intellect.

When I first started acting, I had all these ideals about the kinds of roles I wanted to play, but the reality is that when you do television - and I do a lot of television - you get cast for qualities that you have as a person. So I look for qualities that I like to portray.

We didn't have television until I was about eight years old, so it was either the movies or radio. A lot of radio drama. That was our television, you know. We had to use our imagination. So it was really those two things, and the comics, that I immersed myself in as a child.

Often times people complain about the lack of time in television, but I have to say, you don't have any more time to film in feature films then you do in television. It's just a question of how many scenes you'll be doing in the course of a day.

I certainly don't feel there's a distinction to be made between a television and a film actor. I think there's a distinction between great actors and not so great actors. But I really think if you watch a person working in television give a wonderful performance, that person is f - ing great, because there is no time.

It's the digital era. What makes it exciting is that it's both the Golden Age of television and the Wild West of television. Something is happening now that's unprecedented, and we know that we're a part of it. What could be more exciting or better than that? You can't lose because you're on the pony and you're staking the claim.

I am guided by the vision of what I believe this show can be. Originally our goal was to uplift, enlighten, encourage and entertain through the medium of television. Now, our mission statement for The Oprah Winfrey Show is to use television to transform people's lives, to make viewers see themselves differently and to bring happiness and a sense of fulfillment into every home.

My son has been known to throw a book at the television set when he called for me to come play and I was obviously busy in the box. But I'm told that children of television performers grow up thinking that all mommies or daddies work on TV and that it's no big deal.

Everything you look at now, the scripts that come in that you look at, the television scripts are way better than the movie script. The talent is going to television.

Are we on the tail-end of a generation that is enamored with the novelty of these devices and will younger people coming of age be more blasé about them in a healthy way? You look back at the history of any medium and the people who were there when it was developing, whether it was the telegraph or cable television or radio, thought, This is amazing, it's going change everything, or, The human community will finally be able to recognize each other and speak and be one - I mean, some people thought the telegraph or television would usher in world peace.

Most of the time people are aiming so low on television. They're trying to reach that common denominator, especially on network television.

Television was first conceived to be used as some kind of telescope, not for broadcasting. Originally, Sworkin, the inventor of television, wanted to settle cameras on rockets so that it would be possible to watch the sky.

With a play, you do it and it's gone. Films always date. Television drama always dates. Television comedy, for some reason, seems to go on.

I like television. I still believe that television is the most powerful form of communication on Earth - I just hate what is being done with it.

I really like working in television and I like exploring a character over a longer period of time, and I like the consistency of television.

But I never, never thought of the ministry nor did - of course, television when I was growing up, there was no television. So I didn't know anything about it.

As far as the difference for me between television and movies, I really thrill to the pace of television. As exhausting as it can be - there was actually one day when we never went to bed.

It's not even that finding laundry pleasurable or delightful should be our goal rather than finding television delightful. It's that both laundry and television can be delightful.

I don't have a television, and I'm just not too up on television.

People get on a show and they fought tooth and nail. Almost 95% of the actors out there want to be on a television series. Then as soon as they get onto one, no, no, I want to be a movie star. This television series stuff, no, no no.

You always have to give back to the fans. I remember being a fan of television and film when I was growing up and if I would've had the opportunity to meet somebody that I watched on television, it would've made my day, it would've made my life.

Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath.

Hopefully I'll fit the television in there. Maybe it'll be like music and television and movies. I mean, who knows? But hopefully I can be successful at everything I do.

You don't really have time to do other than what's written. It's very rigid. Shows have a certain rhythm that nobody wants disturbed. So a lot of that doesn't take place on television, at least the television I was doing at the time when I first started.

I love television. I think we're in a renaissance of epic proportion in television now.

You can always spot a 'television personality', even when they aren't actually on television, because they carry their 'made-up' persona in front of them, like some sort of baffler, or Ready Brek force field. Their reach for notoriety predicated on that fulsome mediocrity of talent detailed above has become frozen in their faces.

When I started out, I was a television writer, and we wrote a television show that was on live every week. And you didn't have the luxury of coming in and waiting to be inspired. You came in and you had to write. And you wrote, because it was going to be live on the air. So I can do that.

People have said that I said I hate television. I never did say that. What I said was that I hated a lot of stuff that was on television. It's nothing about the medium itself.

Disparagement of television is second only to watching television as an American pastime.

My favorite television show of all time is 'Hill Street Blues.' I think it's the show that is to television what Pele was to football or Muhammad Ali was to boxing.

In France, it is television that pays for films to be made and I received all of my funding from TV: two television channels, government funding and distributor contribution (Wild Bunch). My films are low-budget, and not expensive [to make].

It was a very excellent day over there at HBO/Cinemax when they bought 'Powers' . I felt like I graduated television college, because they make amazing television. The person who said yes to Veep said yes to us, which made me feel very good about myself for five seconds. Which my self-loathing doesn't usually allow me to feel. Even I could not say that that wasn't a fun day.

I don't think people come to television for spectacle. And I don't really have a lot of fun writing spectacle for television, I'll do that in features.

There's a lot of great stuff on television and that's very appealing to actors who want to work, who do good quality and high quality work. But you're always concerned that the time demands on television will interrupt or interfere with your film work.

I think anybody who has been in the theater, prefers it. Television is a... factory. You turn out things on a revolving assembly line. You don't have time to perfect anything in television.

Postman is a media analyst and his theory is that television doesn't influence our culture, but that it is our culture and the presidency and anything that relies on television.

The crazy thing about television is that you are rarely allowed to grow. You are molded into a character based on some of your strongest traits, and you are forced to stay that way for your entire television life.

The television business is actually going through a tremendous transition, but I think at the end of the day, television is still paramount.

Now, you always know there's going to be some compromise when you're doing something for television, and especially network television.

When you're a doctor and you spend most of your life in a hospital, you honestly don't get to watch as much television as you think you might, and the power of television is enormous.

Ratings to me are a little like the Chinese Government. I don't fully understand what makes a rating go. I don't know what makes the American television audience respond to one person and not t another. There very seldom are great differences between many television personalities.

Once in a while a good opportunity would come along, like the first 'Playhouse 90 ever to air - working in television afforded me my best opportunities. The (film) industry was going through such turmoil at the time - studios didn't know where to go anymore, they were falling apart, television was there. They didn't know what kind of films people wanted. The European films were making a huge impact because those films wanted real people in real situations.