Thursday, August 19, 2010

Jeers to TV Guide

The TV Guide has a Cheers/Jeers section wherein they feel free to let a show, actor, or organization know when they think something awesome or seriously lame has happened. They'll even open it up to readers to give their own opinions here and there.

I should not have opened up this week's TV Guide. To be honest I've been debating about whether or not to even renew my subscription as I rarely even check it to see what's on that night anymore. I do enjoy the articles they write, but to be honest I could always just check their website if I truly wanted to know who was doing what in my favorite shows.

But read this week's edition I did, and I grumbled at one of their main articles. TOP EARNERS could have been meant to let us oooh and aaaah over the money certain of our "favorite" stars are earning, though the article itself talked about how the actors of new shows will be getting less for a starting salary than before.

That's right, even the most popular shows out there are feeling the crunch of a harsh economy. These poor actors (even veteran actors) will go from a starting paycheck of $150,000 to under $100,000 ... PER EPISODE! Just to start out with! Oh, doesn't that just break your heart? Incredibly enough, one actor refused to take a job because the network/studio refused to go over $200,000.

In a time when a family of six (yes, I'm talking about ours) is struggling make it through life with a yearly income of just under half of that, and thousands of other families out there are struggling to even find some sort of income, it makes me more than mildly ill to sit back and learn what some of these stars are making (regardless of whether or not I absolutely love them). When I think of what I could do for my family with the money many of them earn from just one episode, I get angry.

The article felt like a slap in the face. There's no other way to describe it. So Jeers TV Guide, for not remembering the circumstances of many of your readers out here.

1 comment:

Debbie said...

We got rid of our Comcast cable in December. The only thing we use our TV for is watching videos and playing Wii. There is just way too much smut, even on the regular networks...we decided there really isn't anything worth watching these days. And as for TV guide, all good things seem to get ruined somehow or other or go down hill.
They should make a reality show with what you could do with an episodes' worth of money...I'd pay for TV again to see that!!