Television Quality Quotes

When television is good, nothing - not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers - nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there for a day without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

A lot of writers dream of feature films, but television - by way of TNT, CBS, Lifetime, and Hallmark Hall of Fame - has always called my name. And after seeing 'True Detective,' can there be any doubt that the storytelling on TV is as genius as it gets?

TV isn't like films; you can't rest on your laurels.

We still have a tradition certainly in English television; it's faded a bit in the last five years, but we still have a tradition where the important thing is the quality and the challenging nature of the programming.

I watch a lot of television. The stuff that they're putting on television, series like 'The Americans' and 'Game of Thrones,' it's so superior to most of the films that are coming out of Hollywood in terms of drama, certainly in terms of what we're interested in.

It's a very powerful medium now, and should be celebrated as such, because we have the greatest television in the world.

I'm on record saying that HBO is the best television company in the world, and I believe they are. I think they absolutely understand how to make television that is really, really vital and interesting and visceral, and all the things that television really should be.

It feels as though, with all of these cable series or Internet shows or limited series events that are only 10 or 13 episodes... the quality is really rising.

Frankly, with HBO and Showtime and cable shows, the DVD box sets and all, you can have a product that doesn't make you feel like as soon as it's projected, it's thrown away. It's really a piece of art.

I feel that 'Person of Interest' is the same quality as 'Brotherhood.' I think it's one of the smartest network television shows on the air today. The audience is a wide range of individuals.

If there's something decent going in television, the mediums now are kind of equal. Television has become much higher quality.

I think right now television is the best that it’s ever been, and I think that it’s the worst that film has ever been.

I am of the opinion that there is more high-quality television being produced than at any time in the history of television.

Even with an improperly ground mirror, the Hubble delivered extraordinary images. When the flaw was corrected, the Hubble delivered images of transcendent beauty and value for many years. So too 'Terra Nova.' Even in its flawed first season, each episode was full of marvelous moments and beautiful images.

I think you know, to not open your mind to television is silly because there's so much good work happening on television.

There used to be a huge snobbism between the film industry and the television industry. I produced and acted in my first - well way back - but the first thing that I produced and acted in was Sarah, Plan and Tall. And the only place to go at the time for really quality television was Hallmark Hall of Fame. And think how much television has changed since then.

I'm an old git now, so I would say this, but television was better when there were less channels. There was more concentration and selection in terms of the output.

Much of what passes for quality on British television is no more than a reflection of the narrow elite which controls it and has always thought that its tastes were synonymous with quality.

Television doesn't get any better than the second episode of 'Castle.'

When you had just three and then four channels, I could always find something that was watchable because the standard of TV was much higher. In those days, they had so much more money to put into so many less programmes.

It's not enough just to put great television shows out anymore.

Television in the 1960s & 70s had just as much dross and the programmes were a lot more tediously patronising than they are now. Memory truncates occasional gems into a glittering skein of brilliance. More television, more channels means more good television and, of course, more bad. The same equation applies to publishing, film and, I expect, sumo wrestling.

The problem, when comparing contemporary television to television in 1974, is that TV has become not just bad but sad.

I think there is a larger responsibility towards actors to make television what it should be in India. I would love to take on the challenge. Had it been for me, I would focus on good content.

For the last five, 10 years, you're seeing the best things happen on television.