Public Unexcited About Rigged Shows

I'm home.

    And if you've been following my dispatches from the Mysterious East, I'm sure you're aware by now that there is really nothing mysterious about it at all. 

    I suspect that Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who started those shy rumors about the intrigues of the Orient, was — as are many men of the sea — prone to exaggerate. 
   
Actually, all that the people of the Mysterious East needed was a good Ugly American like me — with notepad, copy pencil and  a vague knowledge of what Freud was trying to get across — to unmask them.

    But as I say, I'm home now.  And that's all water under Toko-Ri.

    And in the land of the Occident, the topic of the day is quiz shows.

    Or, to be more specific, "deceptive" quiz shows.

    I see by the large type on the front pages that a U.S. House subcommittee is in a state of shock over the lost morals of our nation.  It's members are righteously indignant.

    But from what I've learned by talking to people of much less prominence, there's very good evidence that the public just doesn't give a damn that the programs were rigged.

    They more or less expected it.  The revelation was barely greater than it would have been  if they'd been informed that professional wrestling isn't on the up-and-up, which I hope by now everybody knows it isn't.

    To support my rather hasty theory, I found an article yesterday in the Nov. 2 issue of Broadcasting magazine.  It's title: "The Public: Calm in Eye of the Storm."

    It reveals the results of a Sindlinger survey on public attitudes toward the quiz show investigations.

    To the question "Did you watch any of the quiz shows when they were at the height of their popularity last year?"   89.2% answered yes.

    And 85.9% of those who watched said they enjoyed them.
 
    Next came the significant question:

    "Even though contestants on quiz shows are helped, have you found the quiz programs educational and entertaining enough to want to see them on television again?"

    Here, five persons answered yes to every three who answered no.

    And only 39.2% of those surveyed felt it was a good idea to take quiz shows, rigged or not, off the air.

    Somehow, in these answers, shines a reflection of our times.
 
    We are — no doubt about it — living in an age of deception, an era of sham.  Everything isn't what it seems to be, but we know it and we're not concerned.  We expect it.