Well, it kills me, Dennis, but it's the Ricki Lake-type shows that get the high ratings. For make no mistake about it, TV station managers and the heads of TV production companies are doing some bad things. I am certain my show would succeed, given time and a decent time-slot. Enough people would enjoy an entertaining half-hour of television that made them think. But such a show needs time.
TV permits no such chance.
Stations give a show a few months, sometimes a year, to garner good ratings. If advertisers sponsored programs based on their quality, or at least if they didn't sponsor garbage, ratings would cease to be the only decisive concern. Today, however, so many advertisers sponsor any given show that no one company is associated with the bad ones. When company names were associated with shows, the shows' quality was high. Despite all of TV's problems, I also learned that a show that reaches more than a million people can make quite a positive impact.