The law does what it can to remain remote, with judges' robes and imposing courthouses...all that Latin, all those arcane rules...But in the early 1990s, that closed world was beginning to crack open. In 1991, Court TV began airing live coverage of high-profile trials; now, instead of waiting for the thirty-second highlight reel on the evening news, you could watch every single minute of courtroom action and stick around after the jury was dismissed for the day to hear expert commentary and analysis...
Even in the splashiest trials, court proceedings are often tedious. Court TV made this procedural drone visible, yet it drew viewers anyway, millions of them. The audience wasn't turning in for highly orchestrated thrills; that was something they could get elsewhere. Long trials, in all their florid boredom, provided a different kind of drama, at a different pace. The genius of Court TV, and of cable television in general, was making programming more addictive even as it was less satisfying minute by minute...
Watching Court TV could feel like peeking behind the curtain, witnessing a less mediated version of reality. If you appreciated human drama but were sick of the manufactured hysterics of daytime talk shows, you now had another option.
Rachel Monroe, Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession, 2019
Even in the splashiest trials, court proceedings are often tedious. Court TV made this procedural drone visible, yet it drew viewers anyway, millions of them. The audience wasn't turning in for highly orchestrated thrills; that was something they could get elsewhere. Long trials, in all their florid boredom, provided a different kind of drama, at a different pace. The genius of Court TV, and of cable television in general, was making programming more addictive even as it was less satisfying minute by minute...
Watching Court TV could feel like peeking behind the curtain, witnessing a less mediated version of reality. If you appreciated human drama but were sick of the manufactured hysterics of daytime talk shows, you now had another option.
Rachel Monroe, Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession, 2019
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