David Bianculli

David Bianculli is an American TV critic, columnist, radio personality, non-fiction author and university professor. Bianculli has served as the television critic for NPR’s Peabody Award-winning radio show Fresh Air since the Philadelphia-based show went national in 1987,^[1][2] and regularly fills in for the show’s long-time host, Terry Gross.^[3] He is the founder and editor-in-chief of the website TVWorthWatching.com,^[4] and an associate professor of TV and film history at Rowan University^[5] in Glassboro, New Jersey.

Early life and education

Bianculli showed an early interest in television, even making notes about TV shows in his childhood diary.^[4] A graduate of Nova High School^[6] in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, Bianculli received a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Florida in 1975 and an M.A. in Journalism and Communication from the University of Florida in 1977. In 1995, Bianculli was named an Alumni of Distinction by UF’s College of Journalism and Communications.^[7]

Career

While attending the University of Florida in Gainesville, Bianculli convinced an editor at the Gainesville Sun to let him "write a review of a brand-new TV show aimed at college kids, since I was a college kid and Gainesville was a college town."^[8] That show was Saturday Night Live. Bianculli continued writing television reviews for the Sun, at $5 per review, while completing his masters degree.^[4]

Bianculli worked as a TV critic for the Ft. Lauderdale News/Sun Sentinel from 1977 to 1980, which was followed by stints at the Akron Beacon Journal (1980-1983) and Philadelphia Inquirer (1983-1987).^[9] In 1987, he was named TV critic for the New York Post, then jumped to the rival New York Daily News, where he remained from 1993 to 2007.^[10] Bianculli also briefly served as TV critic for the TV trade magazine Broadcasting & Cable.^[11]

On Nov. 5, 2007,^[12] the day his farewell column^[13] ran in the New York Daily News, Bianculli launched his web magazine, TVWorthWatching.com.

Bianculli is the author of three books, Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously; Dictionary of Teleliteracy: Television’s 500 Biggest Hits, Misses, and Events; and Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour', a history of the Smothers Brothers television variety show.^[14][15] In 2011, Smokehouse Pictures, the production company owned by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, and Sony Pictures optioned the rights to Dangerously Funny.^[16]

Bianculli sits on the Advisory Council for the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media^[17] at Saint Vincent College, Latrobe, PA. He is a member of the Broadcast Television Journalists Association^[18] and a founding member of the Television Critics Association.

In 2013, Complex.com included Bianculli in its list of "The 25 Best TV Bloggers Right Now".^[19]

Critical style

With his books Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously and Dictionary of Teleliteracy, Bianculli established himself as a champion of television, challenging viewers to seek out and embrace quality programming. As he wrote in the introduction of Teleliteracy:

The general attitude regarding television has not changed that much since 1986, when author and mass-culture professor Mark Crispin Miller said of television that “Everybody watches it, but no one really likes it.” Miller called that the “open secret of TV today,” and added, “Its only champions are its own executives, the advertisers who exploit it, and a compromised network of academic boosters. Otherwise, TV has no spontaneous defenders, because there is almost nothing in it to defend.”

Statements like that would make me angry if they didn’t display such laughable ignorance. That’s the comment of someone who writes about TV a lot more than he watches it – or, at least, of someone who watches all the wrong things.

I’m more than willing to be a “spontaneous defender” of television, even though it amazes me that such a position has been seen as controversial. I’m not saying all TV is good; the majority of it isn’t. I’m arguing that the best of TV is very good indeed, and that the idea of indiscriminately ridiculing or avoiding the medium of television displays no more intelligence than denouncing all movies as fluff or holding a “Don’t Open a Book Day.”^[20]

Fresh Air host Terry Gross writes:

Watching several TVs at one time for many years has turned David into an incredibly knowledgeable person about TV history. When he reviews a show, he knows every good and bad show that has preceded it in that genre. He doesn’t condescend to TV; he loves it. And his reviews are sometimes more entertaining than the new entertainment show he is reviewing.^[4]

In celebrating the fifth anniversary of his online magazine, TV Worth Watching, Bianculli reiterated his position on championing quality television:

The voices and opinions we offer, from both columnists and readers, are more informed, thoughtful and discerning than much of what you’ll find out there on other pop-culture media sites. And just as the silences in symphonies help make a masterpiece, a lot of the beauty in TV Worth Watching lies in what we don’t present. No Jersey Shore. No Honey Boo Boo. Our masthead slogan may as well be: ‘No Kardashians.’^[21]

Additional

While at the Daily News, Bianculli began collecting "extras",^[22] which are inside jokes written into television programs. Several television series have inserted their own Bianculli references into episodes, including Homicide: Life on the Street, which included his name in the squad room's list of unsolved murders, and Parks & Recreation, which mentioned Bianculli in two separate episodes ("Born and Raised," 2011; "Pawnee Commons," 2012) as part of spoofs of public radio.^[23][24][25]

Bianculli is also known for wearing far too many colorful Hawaiian shirts.^[26][27]

Books

• Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 2009. Hardback: ISBN 1439101167; Paperback: ISBN 1439101175

• Dictionary of Teleliteracy: Television’s 500 Biggest Hits, Misses, and Events. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1996; Syracuse University Press, paperback, 1997. Hardback: ISBN 0826405770 Paperback: ISBN 0815605056

• Teleliteracy: Taking Television Seriously. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1992. Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, paperback, 1994. Hardback: ISBN 0826405355 Paperback: ISBN 0671882384

Bianculli has also contributed articles or chapters to various publications. They include:

• “Twin Peaks” in The Essential Cult TV Reader. David Lavery, ed. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2010. ISBN 0813125685

• “Quality TV: A U.S. TV Critic’s Perspective” in Reading Quality TV: American Television and Beyond. Janet McCabe and Kim Akass, eds. London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2007. Hardback: ISBN 1845115104 Paperback: ISBN 1845115112

• “The CSI Phenomenon” in Reading CSI: Crime Television Under the Microscope. Michael Allen, ed. London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2007. Paperback: ISBN 1845114280

• “The Myth, the Man, the Legend,” in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Children, Television, and Fred Rogers. Mark Collins and Margaret Mary Kimmel, eds. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996. Hardback: ISBN 0822939215 Paperback: ISBN 0822956527

• “The Theory of Evolution, According to Vonnegut (A Review of Galapagos),” in The Critical Response to Kurt Vonnegut. Leonard Mustazza, ed. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. ISBN 0313286345

References

External links

• Official website
• NPR’s Fresh Air website
• New York Daily News archives
• Rowan University, College of Communications & Creative Arts: Radio, TV & Film
• Simon and Schuster website
• David Bianculli at the Internet Movie Database
• Works by or about David Bianculli in libraries (WorldCat catalog)