Viewer Tastes, TV Diversity

Re “TV on Decline, but Few Back U.S. Regulation,” Sept. 21:

I’m tired of articles concerning what people want on TV. People announce what they want on TV every time they turn on a show, and the ratings are a much more accurate gauge than their high-minded pronouncements. Apparently, people want to watch “Baywatch” while pretending to watch “Masterpiece Theatre.” Quality dramas and innovative comedies get canceled for low ratings while Xena and Hercules bra and brawn their way to riches.

And TV producers are supposed to create shows with less sex and violence? For whom? For the mythical people we wish we were? Mythical people don’t buy the advertisers’ products.

TOM TRAUB

Pasadena

I, too, have stumbled across a network where greed rules, where alleged “role models” routinely use threats and intimidation to get their way, and where the most amoral, short-sighted and vindictive among us are shown to be “winners,” compared to the poor and disenfranchised, who are routinely portrayed as “losers.”

The name of this network?

C-SPAN.

MARK L. WILLIAMS

North Hollywood

In “Where’s the Color on Primetime TV?” (Commentary, Sept. 19), Karen Grigsby Bates bemoans the lack of minority characters on several popular TV shows. Without presuming to speak for the shows’ writers, I could offer a guess as to why this might be.

“Seinfeld,” “Frasier,” “Friends” and “Mad About You” are comedies; their raison d’etre is to make people laugh, and the style of the humor is largely sardonic and irreverent.

Ms. Bates, did it ever occur to you that in today’s oh so politically correct climate, the creators of a sitcom simply can’t afford to risk the possible fallout should they treat race relations in the same off-the-cuff, nothing-sacred approach they use with all their other themes? Even a character like Archie Bunker, whose very purpose is to lampoon bigotry, would probably not be seen on prime time in today’s climate.

BERTON AVERRE

Pacific Palisades

Ms. Bates, I am the handsome, black neighbor on “Seinfeld.” I work as a field service engineer. As such, I have a regular job which requires my being gone 90% of the time. Lighten up!

ADRIAN B. JAMES

Norwalk

It is interesting that the shows that meet with Bates’ approval, the “cop” shows and “ER,” etc., depict people of different races interacting at work. This accurately reflects real life.

The other shows, such as “Seinfeld,” primarily depict people of the same race socializing together, off duty, so to speak. This also is a true picture of life in America. It is also a true picture of every nation on Earth. Bates should read a basic anthropology text and find out that all people, not just white people, prefer to be with their own kind.

MIKE BURNS

Bakersfield