Quotes About Television

The defining problem of contemporary television is trust: Can you believe what you see on television, does television treat people fairly, is it healthy for society?

Television is competitive now, and the great stories live on television right now. I'm finding that I'm enjoying television more than film, these days. That was my motivation to take a TV show.

I think television has become such an interesting place for characters and for incredible storytelling. Half of what I watch are television shows that I've become obsessed with. I just think that it's opened up so much, to be such an interesting and creative medium, and so many wonderful directors and actors are moving to television because it is a great medium for telling stories and for creating a character over a long period of time.

There is danger in the concentration of control in the television and radio networks, especially in the large television and radio stations; danger in the concentration of ownership in the press...and danger in the increasing concentration of selection by book publishers and reviewers and by the producers of radio and television programs.

I actually think the band doesn't need the television show. And I actually think the television show holds it back. No one at radio wants to play a band that's on a television show.

No one wanted to hire me. No newspaper, television station, television network that I worked for ever wanted to hire me.

Television has accustomed us to brief, intimate, telegraphic, visual, narrative messages. Candidates are learning to act, speak, and think in television's terms. In the process they are transforming speeches, debates, and their appearances in news into ads.

Unless you're a directing producer of a television show, for the most part, the director comes in one week to direct and episode, and then leaves. I'd much rather produce television and occasionally direct an episode of a show I'm producing, then just come in as an outside director.

Children from the age of five to ten should watch more television. Television depicts adults as rotten SOB's given to fistfights, gunplay, and other mayhem. Kids who believe this about grownups aren't likely to argue about bedtime.

Get up now and go and find Robert Kilroy-Silk. Smile in a warm, friendly sort of way, then punch him on the nose. Now go and find Robert on television, despite my best endeavours, this is still relatively easy to do. Wait for a close-up, same smile, and punch him on the nose. If you followed the instructions carefully, you will have noticed a distinct difference. On the one hand, you were suffused with a sense of public-spirited righteousness; on the other, you're probably dribbling blood. That's the difference between reality in life and reality on television.

Al Bernstein has seen cable television sports grow up. In 30 Years/30 Undeniable Truths he looks at his time in the industry through a prism that is unique to him. This book gives the reader an insight into the sometimes absurd world of television sports. There is a 31st undeniable truth: Al Bernstein is a truly funny man.

The threat to free television. The reason television is free is because it is a life support system for commercials. That fundamental aspect is about to change.

Television is in a different time because of reality television, so it's not as exciting.

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'm an actor and I am looking for roles where I can continue to evolve, and things that are challenging. I gravitate to the roles, not necessarily television or film. It's just the fact that, for me, the most interesting roles have been in television.

There's a little bit more of a freedom when you're doing radio play-by-play as opposed to television. I prefer the television side of it.

Democracy means free television, not good television, but free.

I never say I work in television, I say I get to work in television.

I absolutely love television, and I don't mean to be vulgar, but as I keep having to explain to people from the movie industry, I get more power and more money doing television, so why on earth would I do a film?

We just have to go at 100 miles an hour in all our businesses, be they television broadcasting, be they magazine publishing, be they subscription television, be they online, be they gaming. We just have to go at one hundred miles an hour.

I am of the opinion that there is more high-quality television being produced than at any time in the history of television.

It is naive to believe that a steady diet of blatant immorality, played out nightly in our living rooms, has no effect on people. I am always curious when individuals insist that what they watch on television or in movie theaters doesn't affect them. ... Are we really to believe that hours, leading to years, of television viewing will not affect attitudes about everything from family life to appropriate sexual relations?

I find with television, you have to play personality, whereas onstage, everyone talks about "the character," and what you do. It's a very different thing, because stage is much bigger, but on television, for things to come across to the public, I think you have to play a bit of your personality.

The first time I watched television I felt exactly as if something important had taken an elevator ride up to my head and gotten off and turned on the light in my mind. I knew that I was going to do something in television. It was in my cards. I remember feeling the warm relief of knowing where my future was.

Every film is a remake of a previous film, or a remake of a television series that everyone loved in the 1960s, or a remake of a television series that everyone hated in the 1960s. Or it's a theme park ride; it will soon come to breakfast cereal mascots.

I think television is doing a better job than films in terms of representing people, but television is still not diverse.

In Halberstram's fun house, television elected John F. Kennedy in 1960 (presumably Richard J. Daley and his precinct captains were at home on election night watching the Cook County ballots being counted on television).

I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision, we shall discover a new and unbearable disturbance of the modern peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television - of that I am quite sure.

I just really like writing and making television shows. There are ego rewards in doing battle with other television programs in prime time in the main season. I suppose there are times when I might look at that and think that's the major league. But when you look at it, ultimately would I really want to gamble my livelihood and my ability to connect with my fan base or write a show that I really like writing, or in some cases direct a show that I really like directing, for the sake of winning an ego battle? It's totally not worth it. That stuff is so ephemeral.

Television exposes the world to the accident. The world is exposed to accidents through television.

Television is a very highly constructed, and edited, and censored, and tailored, and marketed reality. But I'm not judgemental about it. I don't have anything against television. I just personally don't feel curious.

I've always felt that improv looks and feels more clever when you're there to experience it live than when you have the degree of separation that television creates. Television raises expectations.

The thing is, that great actors are everywhere. They're everywhere. They're doing good parts on television. They're doing television commercials. They're doing local theater. There are so few opportunities.

As the age of television progresses the Reagans will be the rule, not the exception. To be perfect for television is all a President has to be these days.

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.

If your working television sits on top of your non-working television, you might be a redneck.

Local television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written.

It concerns me when I see a small child watching the hero shoot the villain on television. It is teaching the small child to believe that shooting people is heroic. The hero just did it and it was effective. It was acceptable and the hero was well thought of afterward. If enough of us find inner peace to affect the institution of television, the little child will see the hero transform the villain and bring him to a good life. He'll see the hero do something significant to serve fellow human beings. So little children will get the idea that if you want to be a hero you must help people.

We were on the island of Hawaii. I think I was there three months. It was fantastic. It is not much different than films. It depends on the television show but much of television today is as good or better than most films.

Choosing how you vote should not be a snap verdict based on a few minutes of television.

I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was very young. I guess I was about 6 years old at the time, and I was fascinated by television. I started having waking fantasies where I was in a movie and there were crane shots of me during a scene.

The hope for me going back into television - after doing what will have been two years of radio - is to bring that authenticity with me. And, to not have the visual be overpowering the content.

Soul Train' was developed as a radio show on television. It was the radio show that I always wanted and never had.

I've always been a fan of advertising, I've always been a fan of television, I've loved commercials, I've loved all the jingles, I loved all the stuff

The fans always ask me, 'Is Si that crazy in real life?' and I said, 'No, hey, he tones it down for television.'

What the British seem to like are television historians and naturalists, not public intellectuals. You can't help feeling that's because one supplies narrative and the other supplies facts, and the British are traditionally empiricists so they/we have a resistance to theory and to theoreticians playing too prominent a role in public life.

Television is where you earn regular money so you can plan a little bit but even then only when you have a regular gig. If you're just doing the odd appearance, you don't know if it will carry on.