"This was already understood by the onset of the 1970s, prompting countless network executives to kill themselves in the hope of creating something impeccably suited for sitting in front of an electromagnetic box and remaining there for as long as possible. This typically entailed thoughtful consideration over the content of TV: what a program was about, how it was written, and what personalities were involved."
"But what's even more critical, and far harder to manufacture, is the form of the program: the pacing, the visual construction, and the way the watcher experiences whatever they happen to be watching. How a person thinks about television is a manifestation of its content; how a person feels about television is a manifestation of its form. And there's simply never been a TV product more formally successful than televised football."
"I realize I'm making an aesthetic argument many will not accept, particularly if they start from the position that football games are boring, meaningless, or both. The merits of televised football as a formal spectacle are immaterial to someone who hates the thing being televised, in the same way the harmonic simplicity of Miles Davis is immaterial to someone who hates jazz."
Television dominated mass media in the latter twentieth century, driving networks to design programming that held viewers in front of screens. Executives focused on content elements—subject, writing, personalities—but form proved more crucial and harder to manufacture: pacing, visual construction, and viewer experience. Television elicits thought through content and feeling through form. Televised football emerged as the most formally successful television product, largely by accident, and its organic broadcast dynamics cannot be fully replicated by deliberate design. The televised presentation transforms casual interest into deep satisfaction, erases gaps between casual viewers and superfans, and routinely makes football more compelling on TV than live.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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