These guys were obviously part of the PR team whose job it was to kiss up to anyone connected to Maxim, and I had been beatified by the coincidental association of lunch with the Creative Director. The broadcasting of a successful TV show's final episode was about to become national news. The people at home were going to be watching news of a special group of viewers who got to watch a special episode of television's most trivial show. And Plato was worried about Art because it was already two degrees away from the Real. Here, on 108th Street and Broadway, I was witnessing first hand the incestuous nature of the media beast.
Television is a medium whose existence serves the sole purpose of delivering viewers to advertisers.
The show is the reward you get for watching the commercials. If the arrangement weren't so, you'd have to pay to turn on your set and watch Seinfeld . The commercials, and of course all advertising, exist solely as a function of a surplus economy in which there are more goods than needs, so advertising exists to persuade people not only to buy things they don't actually need, but to also buy particular brands of things they might need. If you need soap, you buy it. An ad for soap can only serve to get you to switch the brand of soap you're currently buying, or to persuade you to buy enough soap to last into the 23rd Century.