The Great Experiment

Writing on the first day of spring as the snow falls outside my window and I've posed the question "On the Equinox, can you stand snowflakes on their edges?" to anyone who will listen.

I'm not in a very good mood. I have a headache and I'm still wondering what the hell TechTV's dreaded Powers that Be were thinking with the Screen Savers experiment last night.

If you didn't see it, here's a quickie: the TechTV jibcam revealed that they moved the screen savers to the TechLive studio. Worse yet, they put Leo and Patrick in suits and apparently were going for some sort of ESPN SportsCenter look for the screen savers. While it was an experiment, and it never aired, the TechTV community was upset with what they saw. They were even more upset when Leo posted something (hopefully in jest), essentially saying that he'd quit if they went forward with this format.

Many (myself included), turned to Paul Block's blog to express our disappointment with what we saw. We cared enough about the show to be pissed off and tell him about it. His response? Another blowoff. He wants us to "chill." He's already written off complaints as "there are some of you that might never be happy anyway," so there's no real point in complaining to him further.

I have this feeling that TechTV is a lot worse off than even what they're saying at fuckedcompany.com. I have a feeling that all the egos, torrid affairs, high school mentalities, and general "me first" attitudes are running smack into their first ratings period and people are freaking in management. I also have a feeling that the smart folks are playing an endgame strategy to get the heck out of there before the ship sinks and those who aren't are running around making stupid decisions and dooming the channel even further.

Can things turn around? Will they ever get a clue? Will Paul Block ever take his head out of his butt enough to see that we complain because we love the network and we don't want to see it die?

Probably not.

Does anything we say or do right now matter to anyone in management? Will bitching and writing and being pissed off change anything?

Probably not.

Then why do we care?

I really don't know anymore. I seriously don't.

k9

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