CamNet, episode 1202

Two hour cable program produced by Nancy Cain and friends in L.A. in the mid-90s.

02:20Copy video clip URL CamNet title card followed by video inside Howard Rosenberg’s LA home. He’s talking about high crimes and misdemeanors on the phone. Items around his house, like TVs and framed documents, are shown while audio of him typing and conducting the phone interview continues.

05:02Copy video clip URL He hangs up the phone and explains his interest in high crimes and misdemeanors as it related to Nixon and, now, Bush.

07:32Copy video clip URL He discusses his day-to-day watching TV to write about it as a TV critic for the LA Times. He remarks that it’s “dull,” but “television is so eclectic you get to write about everything…you have to know a little bit about a lot of things.” He flips through the channels, guessing which program is playing and talking about his favorites.

13:19Copy video clip URL Program break and ads.

15:18Copy video clip URL Interview with children in Malibu, CA about watching TV. They loosely agree with their parents that they shouldn’t watch a lot of TV as they sit in the fort they built. One girl says that “TV is just junk.”

16:49Copy video clip URL They talk about their favorite shows and movies. The girl says “there’s more commercial than show…I wish you could fast-forward.”

19:29Copy video clip URL Peter Stranger, LA ad executive, talks about running the West Coast office of a Eurocom company. He talks about their biggest clients–“about 50 or 60% of our clients dollars are spent on television advertising.” He talks about loving commercials to see the competition.

22:38Copy video clip URL Peter talks about the power of television and using demographics to target their advertisements to specific audiences.

26:08Copy video clip URL Program break and ads.

28:09Copy video clip URL Back with Howard Rosenberg, he’s on the phone again. 

29:03Copy video clip URL They discuss how TV “is a media not to sell ideas, but products.” Howard argues that TV shows are just there to keep you sitting long enough to see the ads.

30:27Copy video clip URL Peter Stranger talks about Isuzu the car salesman and why he became so popular–“Joe Isuzu came along and acknowledged the intelligence of the viewer…he mocked the way everyone else was selling their vehicles and people fell in love with him.”

32:41Copy video clip URL TV producer Marcia Brandywine discusses where TV is going and network’s desire for movies about “women in jeopardy.” She questions the audience desire to see such abusive and misogynistic content.

34:49Copy video clip URL She thinks the issue comes down to the audience needing to lead the networks and “clamor” for programming they want to see.

35:34Copy video clip URL Peter discusses whether “sex sells,” arguing that it does, of course, but “it’s not subliminal, it’s very obvious.”

37:48Copy video clip URL Howard remarks that TV is a drug and his job is to “elevate critical awareness” so people think about what they watch.

38:49Copy video clip URL The girls say that TV is “stupid,” even though they really want one.

39:34Copy video clip URL Program break and ads.

41:35Copy video clip URL TV sales man Paul Goldengerg in La Habra, CA talks about how people’s perspective and relationship to TV changed when a girl got stuck in a well. Everyone was watching the news and realized that “watching a news event was much, much exciting than listening to a radio.”

44:02Copy video clip URL He talks about why he started the business and how they big screen changed the game. “When we sell a big screen I feel…we’re bringing something into their house that they’re going to enjoy,” he says.

47:24Copy video clip URL Paul talks about how “he’s the King of big screen.”

49:08Copy video clip URL Footage of one of Paul’s TVs getting delivered in California intercut with a street performers playing guitar.

51:00Copy video clip URL Program break and ads.

52:58Copy video clip URL TV producer Marcia Brandywine talks about her love of the news and how to keep people watching and “away from the remote.”

53:56Copy video clip URL Howard Rosenberg answers a question about changing TV to benefit society more. He says that he “has this fear…that we are relying increasingly on information that’s delivered to us on a screen…one day there’ll just be…two objects in a room, just you and your television…there will be no need, no requirement for you to touch out to real people.”

56:02Copy video clip URL A woman on the street gets a tarot card reading.

57:36Copy video clip URL Credits roll.