Yesterday a friend on Facebook commented that several US solders were killed in Iraq but this hardly got any air time on TV. The friends of this person commented that they had heard enough about Michael Jackson and that outside of the US you could get "better news". One friend even commented in a cynical way, "It is all about the ratings". Really? Is this a suprize to anyone? Yes it is very sad that solders died fighting for a cause. The sad reality is that we expect some solders to die in wars. Because of our expectation that solders will die we don't want to watch a show dedicated to each of the over 4,000 solders who died.

Michael Jackson died unexpectedly and he was well known around the world so everyone wants to see what happened and will sit in front of their TV for hours. I'm not saying that we should pay more attention to the solders or that this isn't fair; I'm only stating an obvious fact. If YOU will watch a show for hours about a solder you didn't know then the advertisers would be delighted to connect with you. The problem is that you might say you'd watch the show because you feel patriotic and want to show support for our troupes but to this day over 4,000 have died so how much of this sadness would you watch? For the past 45 years we have seen Michael Jackson grow up on TV, we bought his music, we watched his Thriller video so it is only natural that we will watch everything about his life and death.

A similar argument could be made about how unfair it is that school teachers are not paid very well when compared with football players. Nobody forces you to sit in front of a TV for four hours to watch football players play while all the advertising is about beer, cars and other consumable products that we all need. A school teacher, even a great school teacher has 20-30 students. Think of those students as customers of the teacher. A football player has not only the thousands of customers who paid to see him play at the stadium but there are millions of others at home and bars watching TV. These are the customers of football players. Can you imagine walking into a bar to see all the big screen TV's tuned in to a show about a school teacher helping students to learn the multiplication tables? OK what if it was a really good school teacher would you watch then? If not then you have to admit that you'd rather be a customer of the football player than the school teacher. So the school teacher is forced to rely upon his or her 20-30 students for income while the football player relies upon millions of customers for their income. Some of the parents will buy a nice coffee mug that says "#1 Teacher" and give this as a gift to the teacher because they care. There is a limit to what parents can afford to pay in taxes to cover the school teachers salary. Would you vote for a tax increase so that school teachers could get paid $500,000.00 per year? This would be a huge pay raise for teachers but still a fraction of what football players get paid. However because you and millions like you bought that beer that was advertised on TV or that car or pickup truck the network paid the football team for the right to broadcast that game (so they could sell advertising) and the team paid their players millions of dollars.

So are football players paid so handsomely because they bring in customers or because they play football so well? It is the same thing isn't it?

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