TV channels the big screen

First it was the Oscars. Following a broadcast in which the host and presenters openly mocked the low box office numbers of best picture nominees, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that the number of those up for the award this year would be doubled. If 10 films were nominated, presumably one or two of them would have a fan base that extended past, say, La Brea Avenue.

A few weeks later, in a similar effort to draw more viewers to their show, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences decided that certain Emmy winners should receive their awards and make their (edited) speeches off-stage. That way precious broadcast minutes that might be wasted watching writers and producers struggle to the stage could be used to acknowledge popular shows that weren't nominated.

Call it the "Mad Men" Effect. Yeah, sure the AMC period drama with its gazillion nominations is good, but what about "CSI?" What about "The Bachelor"? According to the folks at CBS, which will carry the Emmys this year, their many fans deserve to feel part of the telecast too.

In the end, the television academy and the network recanted; pressured by outraged members, and the Writers Guild, last week they reversed their decision to "time-shift" certain awards. Even so, let us pause for a moment and consider what this sort of conversation implies -- the medium that was once considered low-brow by definition now has to cope with criticism that it's gotten too snooty.

Forget red states and blue, the battle shaping America right now is the one between quantity and quality, between popularity and worth. (Which, of course, are not always mutually exclusive.) Newspapers scurry to compete with TMZ and news breaks on Twitter, bestsellers lists are sub-divided into Fiction and Mass Market Fiction, but nowhere is the tension more visible than on our personal and public screens.

In the good old days, things seemed simpler -- film was smart, television was dumb. Television would rot your brains, make your children fat, ruin your family by filling the sacrosanct dinner hour with "Happy Days" reruns. No one thought of criticizing the "Narnia" or "Harry Potter" franchises for luring kids into the dark and having them sit, popcorn and soda in hand, in front of a screen for three-plus hours.