Coronavirus is rapidly changing how TV is made — and how we watch it. What's next? - AZCentral

Bill Goodykoontz Arizona Republic

Published 2:14 PM EDT Mar 12, 2020

The world is getting weirder while we watch.  

Or don’t watch, as the case may be, at least not in person. 

And it's hard to keep up.

Due to concerns over the new coronavirus, the NCAA will play its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments — by far its most important basketball events — in front of just about nobody (parents and essential staff only). The Pac-12, ACC, SEC and Big 10, among other conferences, have canceled their league tournaments.

The Democratic debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders scheduled for Sunday in Phoenix has been moved to a Washington D.C. studio. Late-night talk shows based in New York will tape without a live audience. So will “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy.”

Why these changes matter

You want to talk about a fast-moving development? I wrote this on an airplane Wednesday. By the time we landed the NBA had suspended its entire season. The NHL followed suit Thursday.

A lot of people don’t care about basketball or politics or any of the other things. That’s fine. In the big scheme of all things pandemic, these and other changes are not important if they make us all safer. But changes to our daily routines are coming so fast and furious that eventually some part of all of our lives will be affected.

Yes, there are economic impacts involved with the changes, potentially catastrophic where the NBA and the NCAA Tournament are concerned. Like a music festival, such as SXSW, there’s a small associated economy tied to the events that will be wiped out — concessions, merchandise, things like that. But at least the NCAA Tournaments, unlike SXSW and the conference tournaments, will take place. 

For now.

How TV will change for viewers

Certainly it will be strange to watch a basketball game and hear little but announcers, squeaky sneakers and trash talk during play, or to miss the roar of the crowd when an underdog team wins on a buzzer beater, one of the things that makes March Madness so great. Or Stephen Colbert telling a joke and no one laughing. Or to hear Sanders challenge Biden (or vice versa) and the reaction is stone-cold silence in a TV studio.

And if it’s going to be bizarre to watch these things in near silence, think of what it’ll be like to participate in them. 

Think of what it may be like to not watch them at all.

What makes all this so dramatic, and strange, isn’t the events themselves, or even how we experience them in the moment. What matters here is something bigger, and scarier. 

What the new normal could look like

It’s that dreaded phrase, overused and basically wrong in almost every context but this one: the new normal. 

It’s the ground shifting beneath our feet in ways that seemed unthinkable a week ago. And if that’s the progression from then to now, what will next week hold? And the week after?

Maybe nothing, though that seems unlikely. Or maybe greater changes, ones that affect our daily lives a lot more profoundly than something we are watching on TV. And only on TV.

That’s just it — no one knows.

But when you’re watching a game in an empty arena or a talk-show host joking to thin air, or if you don't get to see the Phoenix Suns finish out the season, remember it’s more than just that. It’s a reminder of how, so suddenly it seems, that the world is changing in a heartbeat — and we have to be ready for anything.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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Coronavirus is rapidly changing how TV is made — and how we watch it. What's next? - AZCentral
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