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From: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Effects of poor writing? (Long)
Message-ID: <1262@mmm.UUCP>
Date: 8 May 89 20:11:22 GMT
References: <4352@ttidca.TTI.COM> <3893@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <4365@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Reply-To: cipher@mmm.UUCP (Andre Guirard)
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Organization: 3M Company - Software and Electronics Resource Center (SERC); St. Paul, MN
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In article <4365@ttidca.TTI.COM> hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>}It can happen that TV replaces books...
>TV ... will never _replace_ reading.

I agree.  But...

>Economically, it's far cheaper to
>produce and publish a good book than even the worst film or TV show.

Are you saying that the most expensive book costs less than the least
expensive TV show?  I seriously doubt it.  A few people with a camera can
put out a shoddy half-hour TV show with a few hours work.  A competent book
publication, contrariwise, takes months of work by author(s), editors,
proofreaders, typesetters, artists, printers, distributors, and a host of
other people doing minor functions.

>Look at how many books are published annually vs. TV shows...

I assume your point is that there are many more new books than new TV
programs.  I'm not sure this is the case.  There are many TV shows with a new
episode every week or every weekday.  Most of the hundreds of stations in
the U.S. produce a significant amount of local programming (news, talk shows).
Then there are are the shows produced specifically for cable.  That comes
to a _lot_ of TV shows, hundreds every day.

By contrast, there are (by my generous estimate) about 260,000 new books
published annually in the U.S., around 712 per day.

I'd say it's probably pretty close.

> even though there's at least one TV in nearly every home in the [U.S.]

No there isn't.  I know of several homes that have no TV.
-- 
    "Lalabalele talala!  Callabele lalabalica falahle!  |   Andre Guirard
     Callamalala galalate!  Caritalla lalabalee		|   cipher@3m.com
     kallalale poo!"					|  "Wake me up for
	 						|   the good part."