Filler for the holidays

AP Wire (Myrtle Beach Online) | Study: TV Shows Gravitate to the Coasts
NEW YORK - As far as TV is concerned, much of the country outside of Los Angeles and New York City is flyover territory.

Those two cities account for just under half of the fictional settings for prime-time television shows going back to 1948, according to a new study by a media agency. California and New York state are settings nearly 60 percent of the time - even though those states make up less than 19 percent of the nation's population.

..."I knew a lot of shows seem to be in New York and L.A., but I didn't expect it to be so concentrated," said Rob Frydlewicz of Carat Insight, a company that studies TV trends for advertisers and conducted the research.

..."As much as many people don't like to be in New York and Los Angeles, they're fascinated by the people who live in these two cities," Frydlewicz said.

Now, I realize that many of the stories we see over Thanksgiving only exist to fill space between advertisements in the weekend newspapers. For that reason, I don't want to read too much into this. But it may say something about just how coast-centric the TV networks are no matter how you interpret this:

1. they needed a study to tell them most shows are set in New York or L.A.
2. they think that, after all this time, it's news to us that this is true
3. they think that those of us in Flyover Country are no less than fascinated by Big City Life.

I guess I'll go back to Green Acres now.