Daniel P. Beckmann, Moderator of Letters
Chicago, IL - 3.02.02

No, no…not Ted Koppelovich too!! First they closed down all of the foreign bureaus, then they turned the nightly news into nothing more than idiot’s guidebook on how to be a better yuppie but only a year behind the trends. Taking down Ted Koppelovich is nothing more than an act of terrorism on this country by the ad industry that is being terrorized by its bad research.Here’s a situation where Koppelovich’s show actually draws a large and extremely loyal audience but is not making enough money because advertisers are convinced that they can only sell products to humans that are young enough and stupid enough to fall for their stupid ploys. While this may indeed be true, a show that is as popular as Nightline is proof that the advertisers control not only what’s on the network, but also the minds of Americans and they are increasingly trying to make the general public more stupid in order to have an easier time selling their stupid products (I mean how can they create such meaning behind Tide® with Bleach, sure its better than all the rest but we should know that by now.The effects of this situation are catastrophic not only to Americans, but all of the humanity that America now effects . The fact that America didn’t see September 11th coming is no fault of Ted Koppelovich-for he tried his best to warn everyone…no, it’s through the dumbing down of our country through today’s adult educators-the mass media, that failed to tell us of that one coming. But if you are looking for someone to sue for what happened on September 11th, don’t look towards the patsy, middleman network executives, or the puppet newsman with their hands duct-taped together, look towards those who come up with this Market Research.

These market researchers are a shady bunch, but they not only control what America is going to look like, but now with the advent of Globalisation, also what the world will is going to look like. We here in these United States have virtually no idea of any of the names of any foreign heads-of-state anymore, yet if you look around the Internet at foreign news sites you will probably see G. W. Bush’s picture on every single one of them-he may even have a special section like for instance, in China’s Xing-hu service…we certainly don’t have a special section for Jang Zeimin on CNN.COM. With the world becoming more connected and American’s having more investments abroad, why is there not more of a demand for foreign news?

Right now we have a situation, which may or may not be drawn back to the late 1960s, or the early days of the program 60 Minutes —with Hewitt’s scheme to take over the world, now all of sudden, news can make money. Before 60 Minutes , news departments were loss leaders and they were there as a public service to give the general public the information that they need, not what someone pencil-necked ad exec. thinks that they want. Ever since then, the network news divisions have been asked to find a way to make money and they can’t do that by selling Uganda-even though right now they may be plotting to kidnap Indian’s catcher and national institution Sandy Alomar in order to terrorize Cleveland fans that much more.

Now news content is not decided by the people who may know what’s going on at all, nor by the academics, not even by the elder’s of our society, who are generally the largest consumers of news. No it’s the teeny-boopers who are picking what’s on—no, actually, it’s not even the teeny boopers either…it’s what these network executives from their read of Market Research that decide what’s on and frankly, most of that market research is hienously wrong.

When you have a show that’s highly rated, Nightline, and it is being forced off the air because its rich and older audience is too stupid to fall for the flashy colors and catchy phrases of today’s advertising market, that perception is also wrong as well. The older, richer audience can be bought, sold, and programmed too! If the advertising market could just figure out how to sell to these people, who actually are themselves, maybe they would get what they want and the smarter ones that have left would come back to broadcast television-I mean the boomers are the largest audience out there, and based upon how easy they were assimilated during the hippies, disco, and yuppy movemnts, they most certainly can be trained once again to buy lets say popular music.

So now we might lose Koppelovich…and you know what I never really watched his show very much because it was on too early. But, I at least knew that it was there, and if more shows were there like it….because they definitely need to be there, we might actually have a better idea of what’s going on in the world which is important now-people in the world really are beginning to not like us, no seriously!. I actually caught a glimpse of Nightline the other night. They actually had on the Ayetolleh from Iran talking about his perceptions of America and why he believes that he and his country are not evil. You can take any side you want to on that issue, but there’s no way that at least hearing what this guy had to say, couldn’t help in the slightest to better understand why someone I know, or even don’t know should be going over there any day now to drop bombs on those living human beings. I didn’t see the Ayetolleh on any other program, just Nightline . And we are considering getting rid of this program so that Mickey Mouse can sell more Britney Spears?-am I the only one that thinks that there’s something seriously wrong with that contraption..I mean she’s looks different every single time and she never really repeats, erie!

And with all due respect for Mr. David Letterman—you sir are a big, fat PUSSY. No, I understand that it’s not necessarily his fault that Koppelovich may be getting the ax, but Letterman is definitely a bone fide P-U-S-S-Y PUSSY! Letterman’s show is stodgy and dated…and most important of all it is barely funny. You used to have some gazzungas when you had the Late Night show at NBC, but since you got the earlier times slot-you sir have become what is indeed wrong with America-you’re bland, your jokes attempt to appeal globally and have no flavor and you are in no way offensive in the slightest. Koppelovich has got plenty of gazzunagas to ask the tough questions and his haircut alone could withstand anything your gazzungas might throw at him.

Your attempts at entertainment are nothing more than status-quo and must really be intended to waste everyone’s time when they should instead be having sex with their partner or getting valuable beauty sleep so that they may one day obtain of sexual partner to have sex with during your show. Not everyone gets 20 million a year to lose to Jay Leno->so stop bitched about your treatment from CBS-they saved your ass from heading into Arsenio Hall style-oblivion. They even shat on a television landmark in the Ed Sullivan Theater in order to house your show…do you remember your roots on the stand-up circuit at all? Those guys don’t make 20 million a year just to constantly poke fun at the fact that their jokes aren’t really funny? You’re just taking advantage of the fact that your audience is too well-programmed to understand that they’re getting stale cheese.

If we lose Nightline it may be almost impossible to get information back unless there comes a time when we actually need information for our survival again. In times when information is not perceived to be serious issue of basic necessity for life, the general public apparently doesn’t care about the quality of the information that they are getting. The only problem is, if we don’t have any infrastructure in place when that day of necessity arrives, there won’t be anyone around who knows how to obtain the truth anymore.

Koppelovich Story Broken-NYT 3/1/2002