Hell’s Kitchen can compete with President Barack Obama, seriously?
| June 15, 2010 at 7:45 PM EDTPresident Barack Obama will be speaking tonight during the prime time TV hour of 8 pm EST. You can watch him on all of the major network stations like Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC. Red on to see what TV show some America’s would rather watch than listen to the President talk about the devastation with the oil spill.
The 15-minute address is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET and will air on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox, according to reps from all four networks. The White House had previously asked TV networks for the time. The programs that were scheduled in the 8 o’clock hour include NBC’s Losing It with Jillian, Fox’s Hell’s Kitchen and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night — all of them new shows — as well as a repeat of NCIS on CBS.
Part of being an American means that, unlike other some countries, no one is going to make you watch Political statements (or even be political). And while the topic is sad and overwhelming to many, it is arguably more important to have this air than your regularly scheduled reality show.
As much as we love TV, you have to draw a line somewhere. Forget politics, think of the animals.
It’s difficult to understand the head space of American’s who voted on TV Guide in a poll, and said they would rather watch Hell’s Kitchen uninterrupted than the President. The poll asks “Do you think Obama should speak in prime-time?” As of right now 66% of people said “Yes; this is an ecological crisis that demands our attention.” The other 34% responded with, “No, I’d rather watch Hell’s Kitchen.”
We’re as big a fan of TV as just bout anyone, but the BP oil spill is such a horrible disaster that it seems to be arrogant to think this will never affect your life. Thinking of the poor animals like the Louisiana brown pelicans, who get all mucked up in the oil, it’s heart breaking. Certainly it’s worth sacrificing any amount of TV interruption. As far as I can tell, this is an ordinary episode of Hell’s Kitchen. But were this address being aired during the middle of the Lost* season finale, we would like to believe that even more people would stand up and say they’d be okay with it and watch Lost later.
(While it’s true another TV guide poll said most Lost fans would be angry if the President’s State of the Union pre-empted the Lost finale, the topic at hand is different and somehow more urgent. And for anyone who wants to complain, the thunderstorm that night meant that I couldn’t even watch Lost without the station flickering out at crucial moments the entire time! Life happens, so I watched it on Hulu later.)
This is the greatest oil spill ever to occur in America. A blind eye is not appreciated. And seriously, who even watches Hell’s Kitchen?
For more about what Obama will speak about, we can refer you to NPR’s “Speech on Spill Aimed at Reassuring a Nation.”
For more on the animals affected by the oil spill, we can refer you to CBS’s “Most Vulnerable Animals in Oil Spill.”
Previously: Doctor Who has lizards, lizards, lizards (Ironically, this episode of Doctor Who deals with a lizard race who is not alien, but was on planet earth first but feared for their ecosystem and hibernated underground.)