Just now, I was flipping through the on-screen program guide and came across a program on NewsMax called “Border”. The synopsis is “An impartial look at the porous US southern border.” Well, (aside from the fact that I know NewsMax’s agenda), I somehow doubt that the program described is impartial when the synopsis isn’t even impartial.
That got me to thinking, where does the guide data come from? Does DirecTV (in my case) have a staff person who writes the synopses for all of the programs offered on their service? That seems a bit wasteful since someone would have to tell that person what the show is about. Does someone at the network providing the channel write the synopses for their programs? That makes sense, but some programs are available on more than one channel (like the ubiquity of Friends and How I Met Your Mother). It seems like the program creator would want to have a say in the synopsis of his/her programs. So, does the studio create the synopsis and ships it with the program or episode?
That takes me back to the “documentary” called “Border” on NewsMax. What if the program’s creator really created an impartial accounting of activity along the southern border, but NewsMax wanted a synopsis that would appeal to their audience, so inserted the word “porous”? Is that allowed? If I were the creator of this documentary and I really worked to create a thorough and even-handed examination of border issues, I would be upset if the channel showing the program inserted editorial content in the synopsis.
NewsMax may play fast and loose with the facts, but what about more mainstream networks that simply want to provide an honest description of their programs? Who writes that stuff?
Sometimes they are the work of staff writers. For example, Rick Polito of the Marin Independent Journal was responsible for this infamous description of The Wizard of Oz, which went viral many years later.
One which amused me recently was seeing something listed on Comcast’s onscreen guide, on BBC America, called “Troy”, which was described as a documentary. A documentary featuring Brad Pitt and Eric Bana, in fact…
I’m pretty sure that whoever writes the listings on the cable guide I have (I’m on Comcast, no idea if listings vary in other Comcast areas) is british. Just some word choices, particularly with regard to stuff like things considered plural in british english but singular in american, makes it seem at least influenced by british english. Except the spelling is always american, but that could be from running a spell checker.
I worked in television for many years and my primary function was to produce a printed booklet with our program schedule. Editing program descriptions was a big part of the effort. To answer your question it goes something like this.
(1) Individual program producers commonly write program or episode descriptions in both a long (>50 words) and short (<30 words) version. These are made available to anyone needing them. Joe Public can get them too, if Joe knows where to look and wants to take the time to do it. Have a look at www.aptonline.org for example.
(2) There are companies whose sole function is to produce and provide this material, for a fee of course. Tribune Media Services is one. But they still get their raw material from the producers.
(3) For printed material the short version is often too long, and gets edited by someone like me for their publication. TVGuide has a whole department of folks doing this kind of editing.
(4) On screen material is clipped even more severely. Computer algorithms might be involved in a first pass sort of way, but the final cut is done by a real person. I did this too but did not have the luxury of a first pass algorithm.
In short, if you detect a bias in a program or episode description it came from the producer(s) of the show or some local yahoo like me who has a point to make. I’ve done it on occasion.
I’ve noticed that 2-star comedies on lesser cable channels are often described as “hilarious” or “side-splitting”, while better comedies get no such boost. Same thing with dramas - “poignant” or “heart-rending”. It’s almost like Realtors describing houses as “cozy” when they really mean “small”. It sounds like they’re trying to pull in viewers, which will help their advertisers.
I was going to comment on that myself, I have noticed the same thing. Frequently the comedies on cable precis are described as hilarious when they are just not All That, same for action movies described as “riveting.” I was wondering where the editorial color came in, and why.
Way back in the late '70’s/early '80’s our family just used the printed guide that came with the Sunday Chicago Tribune, and I remember the movie synopses were hyper critical and hilarious, especially for one and two star movies. Whoever wrote those had a particular hatred for the Bowery Boys, which were always one star and got brutal reviews. I always pictured some bitter man sitting in an apartment in front of a small TV with a typewriter and a bottle of scotch on the cluttered coffee table. Now I wonder if it might have been Gene Siskel.
I’ve recently noticed that the descriptions can vary depending on where you look. For instance I have Comcast (or Xfinity if you’re really going to make me type that), and if I go to “On-Demand” to find Rick & Morty the descriptions are all slangy & weird (I guess like the way Rick kind of talks). But if you read the descriptions in the normal guide at the normal airing time, the description is the usual inane crap that we are used to seeing for most shows.
Hi-I just joined this forum in order to share my pet peeve regarding the synopsis of any number of programs. I realize this is an old thread but what the hell. I tend to get aggravated over the most minor of issues but what bugs me is when “New” is offered as part of the description. Some shows, and I watch a lot of the outdoor shows centered in Alaska, or any variety of mountainous settings, say “new” when it’s the 4th episode of season 1, for example, which may have been 3 years ago. Or, more commonly, taking an already aired episode from the current season and add an originally cut scene therefore claiming it’s new-guess technically it is but come on! Just a shady means of grabbing viewers to watch an ostensibly new show which was produced with the barest of expense.
I don’t know-I guess this is such a trivial matter but it seriously irks me. Just my 2 cents worth-perhaps I need to get a life!:o
TiVo used to use Tribune for their descriptions but switched to Rovi. A much inferior, but presumably cheaper, service. The episode titles for the soap Mrs. FtG watches are now just sequence numbers vs. the old “Sammy fights with EJ.” ones. Those made it easier to tell if the episode was watched but hadn’t been deleted, etc.
I remember when the blurbs for movies on HBO used to include opinion: “Average teen-age comedy about …”, “Simplistic action movie …”
When I did description editing it was common for the producers to make a “new” episodes by mixing segments from two previously-aired episodes. Sometimes the new episode was nothing more than two episodes aired as a single, twice-as-long, “special.” In the vernacular of television programming this latter practice is called stacking.
While I had complete discretion when it came to descriptions I tended to allow the mixed episode to be described as new. But stacked episodes were always described as repeats. (That’s another vernacular thing. What most folks call a rerun is called a repeat in the biz. I asked my program director about this once. She said “We call them repeats, and so will you. It sounds better than reruns.”)
