Modern TV audiences have longer attention span, says Spacey

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  • amateur51
    • Jan 2025

    Modern TV audiences have longer attention span, says Spacey

    The conventional wisdom appears to be that the younger members of the modern 'consumer' audience has declined such that Radio 3 has 'trivialised' its mainstream output, certainly at breakfast, with repeated short works and 'bleeding chunks' of longer works, an emphasis that has alienated it established traditional audience.

    Cometh the hour, cometh Kevin Spacey, one of Hollywood's leading stars, who has told television executives in a speech at the Edinburgh Festival that " Audiences are demanding "complex, smart stories" as they become accustomed to "bingeing" on box sets, Kevin Spacey has said.

    Actor Kevin Spacey says television viewers have started to demand "complex, smart stories" as they become accustomed to "bingeing" on box sets, in a keynote speech in Edinburgh.


    A two-time Oscar winner for The Usual Suspects and American Beauty, Spacey last year starred in the drama series House Of Cards, which bypassed television channels and premiered on internet streaming service Netflix.

    Spacey said the innovative form of distribution was proof that the TV industry could learn "the lesson that the music industry didn't learn".

    "Give people what they want, when they want it, in the form they want it in, at a reasonable price, and they'll more likely pay for it rather than steal it."

    Spacey continued:

    ""For years, particularly with the advent of the Internet, people have been griping about lessening attention spans.

    "But if someone can watch an entire season of a TV series in one day, doesn't that show an incredible attention span?

    "When the story is good enough," he said, "people can watch something three times the length of an opera."

    He added: "The audience has spoken: They want stories. They're dying for them. "

    The challenge for the classical music world, including classical music radio must be how to capitalise on this intriguing finding, that seems to fly in the face of the prevalent 'short attention span' analysis.

    Is this going to give Roger Wright some cause for pause, I wonder?
  • Serial_Apologist
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 37851

    #2
    Over-stimulation of the short attention span accords with many primary facets of modern capitalism and the compliant mindset for its operation that responds when trained from early age to subliminal messages and codes, seeks immediate satisfaction of secondary, often over primary needs, experiences everything in relation to an overloaded, isolating/ted sense of selfhood, and is made to believe that this is the essential prerequisite to overcoming sloth and hence thereby ensuring survival. With all that on board, I guess re-engaging the longer attention span is going to need to invoke a lot of escapism if it is to work; hence those amazing plots.

    Comment

    • amateur51

      #3
      Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
      Over-stimulation of the short attention span accords with many primary facets of modern capitalism and the compliant mindset for its operation that responds when trained from early age to subliminal messages and codes, seeks immediate satisfaction of secondary, often over primary needs, experiences everything in relation to an overloaded, isolating/ted sense of selfhood, and is made to believe that this is the essential prerequisite to overcoming sloth and hence thereby ensuring survival. With all that on board, I guess re-engaging the longer attention span is going to need to invoke a lot of escapism if it is to work; hence those amazing plots.
      Do plots come much more amazing than those typically found in opera?

      Comment

      • Serial_Apologist
        Full Member
        • Dec 2010
        • 37851

        #4
        Originally posted by amateur51 View Post
        Do plots come much more amazing than those typically found in opera?
        Hmmm. Suspension of disbelief implies prior belief, beliefs. Thereon hang all manner of interests. It's not that surprising that many people feel alienated from (the world of) opera; even many who love classical music in most other respects.

        When Weill turned to Broadway in the '30s, he described musicals as the people's opera.

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        • amateur51

          #5
          Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
          Hmmm. Suspension of disbelief implies prior belief, beliefs. Thereon hang all manner of interests. It's not that surprising that many people feel alienated from (the world of) opera; even many who love classical music in most other respects.

          When Weill turned to Broadway in the '30s, he described musicals as the people's opera.
          Is it the stories or is it the often strangled voice production and ensuing incomprehensibility of the sung words that causes the alienation, plus the tendency of words to get lost within unsupervised orchestral volume?

          Comment

          • Anna

            #6
            Originally posted by amateur51 View Post
            Is it the stories or is it the often strangled voice production and ensuing incomprehensibility of the sung words that causes the alienation, plus the tendency of words to get lost within unsupervised orchestral volume?
            Basically, I think it's that most of the time you cannot understand a word of what's being sung (even when it's in English) - unless you have a libretto on your lap or surtitles and that puts people off because it's a distraction to keep glancing away. Unless of course, you have a general idea of the plot (who loves who and who kills who) and then just let the music wash over you.

            I don't think people have a short attention span (re tv drama) if the plot is strong. We were all glued to The Killing or The Bridge for 2 hours at a time and our attention never wandered did it, in fact we wanted it to go on for longer?

            Comment

            • Serial_Apologist
              Full Member
              • Dec 2010
              • 37851

              #7
              Originally posted by amateur51 View Post
              Is it the stories or is it the often strangled voice production and ensuing incomprehensibility of the sung words that causes the alienation, plus the tendency of words to get lost within unsupervised orchestral volume?
              I think it's deeper than that, Ams - class interests encoded into the plots, the presentation, stylisation and musical language of operas in general pre... Pelleas? Debussy's masterpiece at least tried to address issues of human nature in a poetic guise divorced from historical analogies or allegory; but is that possible or for that matter desirable? And, if so, can opera ever escape the associations of its format, or are they forever imprinted into its reception?

              I must admit here to being out of my depth regarding knowledge about opera, and to whom it has been addressed, or addressed maybe to exclude in the past. We're all classless now, of course, so no one can claim exclusivity for opera as a genre and be politically correct.

              Comment

              • Serial_Apologist
                Full Member
                • Dec 2010
                • 37851

                #8
                Originally posted by Anna View Post
                Basically, I think it's that most of the time you cannot understand a word of what's being sung (even when it's in English) - unless you have a libretto on your lap or surtitles and that puts people off because it's a distraction to keep glancing away. Unless of course, you have a general idea of the plot (who loves who and who kills who) and then just let the music wash over you.

                I don't think people have a short attention span (re tv drama) if the plot is strong. We were all glued to The Killing or The Bridge for 2 hours at a time and our attention never wandered did it, in fact we wanted it to go on for longer?
                There needs to be some sense of people and a world changing for the better in plots for me to want to watch them - the existential dreads went out in the 60s for me when I realised it didn't matter if I dropped dead on some demo tomorrow so long as someone was planting a tree the next day. Give me an alternative plot: Thatcher lost the battle with the miners in 1983 after someone close to Scargill had a word with him: the Tories were swept from power when the police refused to repress the pickets and demonstrators and the army chiefs refused to deputise; the Russian Green Party won the first ever elections under Gorbachev; environmental volunteers flocked into the country ready to clean up the dead polluted rivers and lakes. Come on fellas or all genders and none, we need NEW ROLE MODELS!

                Comment

                • eighthobstruction
                  Full Member
                  • Nov 2010
                  • 6449

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
                  Come on fellas or all genders and none, we need NEW ROLE MODELS!
                  bong ching

                  Comment

                  • Serial_Apologist
                    Full Member
                    • Dec 2010
                    • 37851

                    #10
                    Originally posted by eighthobstruction View Post
                    Well, there's one for starters!

                    I was thinking of a new generation of Ken Loaches - after all, we managed to come up with a revamped socialism in the 60s known as The New Left; surely today's kids can summon a new ideology, one that draws on the digital age? Where are all the people who would have gone into politics or arts in our day?

                    Comment

                    • scottycelt

                      #11
                      Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
                      Over-stimulation of the short attention span accords with many primary facets of modern capitalism and the compliant mindset for its operation that responds when trained from early age to subliminal messages and codes, seeks immediate satisfaction of secondary, often over primary needs, experiences everything in relation to an overloaded, isolating/ted sense of selfhood, and is made to believe that this is the essential prerequisite to overcoming sloth and hence thereby ensuring survival. With all that on board, I guess re-engaging the longer attention span is going to need to invoke a lot of escapism if it is to work; hence those amazing plots.
                      Er ... I seeeeeee ... maybe ahinton could help out and provide members with a slightly more reader-friendly, comprehensible version of the above, perhaps ... ?

                      Comment

                      • eighthobstruction
                        Full Member
                        • Nov 2010
                        • 6449

                        #12
                        .....it's all explained by 'hence those amazing plots'....surely....<some sort of emoticon, not sure which>
                        bong ching

                        Comment

                        • Resurrection Man

                          #13
                          Originally posted by scottycelt View Post
                          Er ... I seeeeeee ... maybe ahinton could help out and provide members with a slightly more reader-friendly, comprehensible version of the above, perhaps ... ?
                          Um..yes...but I don't think that even AH wouldn't make any sense of such proselytising. Pure bunkum. Good for a laugh, tho'.

                          Comment

                          • jayne lee wilson
                            Banned
                            • Jul 2011
                            • 10711

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Resurrection Man View Post
                            Um..yes...but I don't think that even AH wouldn't make any sense of such proselytising. Pure bunkum. Good for a laugh, tho'.
                            SUCH wisdom and insight, RM! Thankyou. Shame so many lovely poems are written in foreign languages isn't it?

                            Comment

                            • Pabmusic
                              Full Member
                              • May 2011
                              • 5537

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
                              Over-stimulation of the short attention span accords with many primary facets of modern capitalism and the compliant mindset for its operation that responds when trained from early age to subliminal messages and codes, seeks immediate satisfaction of secondary, often over primary needs, experiences everything in relation to an overloaded, isolating/ted sense of selfhood, and is made to believe that this is the essential prerequisite to overcoming sloth and hence thereby ensuring survival. With all that on board, I guess re-engaging the longer attention span is going to need to invoke a lot of escapism if it is to work; hence those amazing plots.
                              I believe there's a real point in there trying hard to get out, SA. Do you get your inspiration from such as The Postmodernism Generator?:

                              The essay you have just seen is completely meaningless and was randomly generated by the Postmodernism Generator. To generate another essay, follow this link. The Postmodernism Generator was writte…


                              Or from Alan Sokol's infamous article?:



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