Quotes About Television

The tough decisions that a president has to make in the Oval Office are in no way related to the capability of a person to do well on television. On the other hand, the capability of a person to project favorably on television enhances that person's odds of being elected so he can serve in the Oval Office. So you can't ignore the talents, one, to be very effective on television, and on the other hand, to be very effective as an operating president.

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?

I've got a lot to say about television. There's a lot going on in television right now and I feel like a huge part of television.

When I first started making films 30 years ago, people would comment that I was a woman. But strangely, when I was in television, no one ever mentioned that I was a woman. Maybe it was because television and film were different. There were more women working in television than men. There was no split in terms of work - everyone was considered equal

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 must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book. ANOTHER VERSION I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. ANOTHER VERSION I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book.

It is no accident that television has been dominated by a handful of corporate powers. Neither is it accidental that television has been used to re-create human beings into a new form that matches the artificial, commercial environment. A conspiracy of technological and economic factors made this inevitable and continue to.

The thrill of doing television versus features is in television you get to focus more on the characters.

When I look at my career, the bulk of it has been television, and I love working in television. But there's a speed at which you do it. You're doing seven to ten pages a day on a series, and it's hard to feel like you're doing the detail-oriented work that I like to do.

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.

Television is a non graded curriculum and excludes no viewer for any reason, at any time. In other words, in doing away wtih the idea of sequenece and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury raised cautions against mass media, especially the television, which dumb down human sensibilities and coerce everybody's thoughts into a single uniform value, allowing human to forget the fundamental action of "having one's opinion". As a result, the society deteriorates. I decided to exhibit [Edward] Kienholz's work which features television as its subject, as well as the Big Double Cross as works that represent this warning.

You could do much more in movies than you could on TV, and even movies were heavily censored. But in television, the areas of timorousness were fairly laid out. Race relations. Sex. Politics. There was a whole conglomeration of taboo themes. And even to date, though television has become a much freer medium, it's still far less free, far less creatively untrammeled than are the movies. They're infinitely more adult in that respect.

There is some stuff on television that is shocking that it's on there, and shocking that it's not being censored. We run to that with torches and pitchforks and go after it. On Flavor Of Love, when a woman took a dump on the stairs, I mean, that's like J.R. being shot on Dallas, or like maybe the last episode of M*A*S*H. It's a milestone on television that's covered with chlamydia.

It makes sense that it's so different from film and television, because it's so in-depth. As actors, when we're in film or television, we can have transcendent moments and we get to work with really creative and incredible people, but it's such a small percentage of your time that's about your process.

Television in America is so elaborate. There are so many remote cranes, and they have all the toys to play with. The directors are really good. They really work with you. So, I'm not really on set thinking, "Oh, my God, this is television. It's very different."

I don't really watch a lot of television, and I would watch mindless, mindless television.

I think American television changed world television in its reinvention of the series.

Daytime television, you can tell who’s watching by the three kinds of commercials. Either it’s clinics for drying out drunks. Or it’s law firms who want to settle injury suits. Or it’s schools offering mail-order vocational degrees to make you a bookkeeper. A private detective. Or a locksmith. If you’re watching daytime television, this is your new demographic. You’re a drunk. Or a cripple. Or an idiot.

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.

One of the problems I see with these comics on television, particularly cable television, is, since you can say anything in terms of sex and scatological references and so on, therefore, you should do it. So they all limit themselves to these subjects and this vocabulary. My objection is that it is a lack of articulateness. Irreverence is easy, but what is hard is wit. Wit is what these comedians lack.

I'm sure in less than 10 years there will be several streaming services or whatever you want to call them that are dedicated to retro television, like rare retro television, and maybe we'll end up doing something with that. Maybe Gigi will find popularity there, because it was fun, it was kitschy and very stupid and very dirty. But it had heart. I hope people will watch it one day.

I traveled and worked with amazing actors, like Andy Garcia, Alec Baldwin, Brendan Fraser, Forest Whitaker, Lee Pace. It was this great learning experience. And then, I started watching a lot of television. I was always in these foreign countries and I would get TV shows on DVD, and I started to realize that all of the amazing roles for women were on television. I was spoiled by Buffy because I thought that was the way it was everywhere, and it's not.

When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late 40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least.

Some television programs are made very attractive to young children by presenting short, rapidly moving sequences and ever-changing episodes.... Some experts now argue that slower- paced television fare that allows children time to think about the material is more valuable than the faster-paced programs that merely capture their attention.

I'm one of those pathetic actors who will say yes to every play reading just because I do miss the stage so much. What I really miss about the theater is that in the end, it's yours to give. In television and film, it's yours to do and someone else's to take and someone else's to give. As much as I love television - the biggest luxury of all is to know that you have a job to go to - I do miss that connection and having that power over my own performance on stage.

There's so much good television now, and there's a lot of things on television that would have been a movie or maybe wouldn't have been made at all if it wasn't for cable and streaming. It's a really exciting part of the future and I really want to be a part of it.

I should watch network television, or daytime television, because I'm not sure who all these people are who keep getting referred to in blogs and newspapers. I better get myself culturally attuned.

Radio was, in a way, a very philosophical medium. You could make an argument on the radio, and people listened to it. Television is already harder because people's attention span becomes shorter with television. Cut to a commercial and all that.

The reality of television production now is that all the development money and pilot money now goes to the Internet so they can try to get pilots cheaper, than if they were producing them for television. I understand, it's a business, but what's great about doing it on the web, and one thing that attracted me is the amount of creative freedom that you do get with the web. That's the only advantage of there not being a lot of money involved, is that you're really able to write and do what you want... because there's not a lot of money involved and not money at risk.

One of the great things about the old days of television, 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, was that it was water cooler television. People would communally watch the same hour. People used to tell us all the time, we turn off the phones, we put the kids to bed and that one hour is uninterrupted. Then, the next day at the water cooler, they all talk about it.

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.

And then I went into television; and then television moved from the East Coast to Hollywood.

Now, all America sits in front of television sets and those television sets exude, I am sorry to say, a considerable amount of radioactive material. It's not huge, you know, but it's enough so that people who have made a habit of watching TV ... get the TV radiation.

We're enlarging in every single area of the ministry at In Touch. We're on radio and television. We're in over 110 million homes in America plus radio on satellites. We just acquired the NAMB FamilyNet television network, and with that expanding possibilities of the gospel.

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.

I don't watch much television. My old TV agent used to always get mad at me because he'd send me out on auditions and I'd be like, 'What's this show?' and he'd be like, 'It's literally the top show on television.' I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a kid.

The Bush campaign for re-election has officially begun. They're actually running television commercials. Have you seen any of the television commercials? In one of the commercials, you see George Bush for thirty seconds. In another commercial, you get to see George Bush for sixty seconds - kind of like his stint in the National Guard.

I knew I wanted to be used by God in big ways. I always prayed He would trust me enough to use me to make a difference in His Kingdom, but I never dreamed it would be through a cable television show, the number one cable television show in A&E network history, as of this writing! Ephesians 3:20–21 best describes how I feel. It is not because of any power or wisdom we possess that this happened. It is all because of His power, His power working through us. What a dream come true!

You used to have to make a choice. Is it a serialized television show, or is it a stand-alone or procedural? We were wildly influenced by The X-Files. Even when we created Fringe, it was the same thing. It's the gold standard of all gold standards, in genre television, and it was so wonderful because you felt so much for those characters.

When the doors to television were opened to me, that was quite a surprise. It's been such a gift that there was so much TV and independent film happening in New York that I could be a part of. There was something to satiate my desire to be artistic and creative, especially when it wasn't in the way I originally thought it was going to be.

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

Television showrunners are a foolishly optimistic bunch.

There really is no foolproof or even optimal way of dealing with White House emissaries who tell whoppers on live television. On the one hand, there's value in hearing what our government has to say about its actions and vision for the future. On the other, news organizations are responsible for the factual hygiene of their product. In some cases, those two imperatives just aren't compatible.

Television turned out to be exactly as bad as the most irritating and pedantic intellectuals of the '50s said it was going to be.

I think the reason the Golden Age of television is so golden is because a lot of folks are willing to let creators do their thing and live or die by their own muse. They certainly allow us to do that.

I love to perform and I love to perform characters, and sometimes when I'm doing television and film, I just feel like I'm making a living. I'm good at it, but I'm not really being artistically challenged.