Rejects unite, ads rage against the dying of the light!

Well, I finally got a rejection letter (e-mail, actually) from INdTV, so I guess I won't be a Digital Correspondent after all. On the unofficial message board lots of people are posting their disappointment, but also trying to organize independently to do something with all the "rejected" talent. After all, 2,000 mostly young people with some access to video equipment and interest in producing TV segments responded, and if even a fraction of that number worked together to create shows, they could have just as much chance at making an impact as the 50 people INdTV actually picked. The only difference is, they wouldn't be making a salary doing it.

But then, one part of the e-mail we received said they had decided to accept freelance pieces from members of the talent pool that got passed over. There were some complaints surfacing during the application process about the fact that everybody had to provide them with three possible stories, and explain them on the form. This was seen by some as an underhanded way of soliciting free content ideas, and it may be used this way for all I know, but I think it was a legitimate question for possible hires. If your pitches on the application were uninteresting, there's a pretty good chance your pitches to the network would be subpar as well.

Somebody speculated that TV was already in decline anyway, and ten years from now the web will have enabled everybody to program their own channels drawing content from various locations straight to their computer. It reminded me of the music dream machine, a device that could digitally play every song you ever wanted to hear whenever you wanted to hear it, and you could switch over to the traffic and weather report on the local radio station at the push of a button. We're still a ways off from that, but it's coming, and I expect custom TV programming will be too, although this progress inevitably comes in fits and starts. For instance, I hear Tivo, which made it possible to skip the ads in television shows, will soon be adding software that gives you a pop-up ad on your TV screen whenever you hit the fast forward button to skip the ad that actually aired. Advertising will not go gentle into that good night.