Fox firing at will

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 30th, 2009 - 13 comments
Categories: International, Media, workers' rights - Tags: , ,

From Finsec’s blog, …the gossip:

Fox TV is taking television to a new low with a new show with the working title Someone’s Gotta Go. The show will make ‘entertainment’ out of job cuts, with staff being able to vote for who should lose their job. The employees will have access to internal company information budgets, HR files, salaries etc in order to help them make their decision.

Commentators are describing it as the anti-Apprentice rather than get a job, the chosen one loses the job they had, with Fox sweetening the deal with a small severance payout for the laid off worker. Think we’ll stick with Dancing with the Stars!

We’ve always known that some of the narratives behind our TV entertainment are deeply ideological, but this one takes the cake.

13 comments on “Fox firing at will ”

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  1. Graeme 1
    30 April 2009 at 9:57 am

    This is Fox, not Fox news.

  2. Tim Ellis 2
    30 April 2009 at 10:01 am

    What a crass show.

    Only in America.

  3. infused 3
    30 April 2009 at 10:03 am

    It will be sunk before it airs.

  4. Mike 4
    30 April 2009 at 10:22 am

    Hosting a NZ version could be a great gig for JK after he gets rolled by his own caucus.

    • Philonz 4.1
      30 April 2009 at 12:19 pm

      Have you seen his approval ratings? Phil Goff would have to save a photogenic child and their pet kitten from a burning building every day for the next month to even get close. I think we’ll have to find another host, perhaps Susan Boyle?

  5. Pascal's bookie 5
    30 April 2009 at 10:26 am

    They should do one for the courts. “You be the Judge” summink like that.

  6. vto 6
    30 April 2009 at 10:34 am

    Last years election was exactly this no?

    Democracy in action on a small scale??

  7. trademark 7
    30 April 2009 at 10:38 am

    Now why wasn’t this idea raised at the jobs summit? Think of all the jobs it could create in the culture industry! Think of the ratings – more people in front of TVs (media controversy sells), more advertising being spent… the seamless merging of entertainment and economic stimulation. Fantastic!

    And Fox paying a small severance payout – that’s bloody socialism that is. No, send them off with nothing. And then get a camera crew in on the action – possibly a spin-off show, where all the fired people battle through stages of elimination to win the chance to keep their homes, or pay their medical bills, buy next week’s food etc. And to show social conscience, the losers get a Fox-branded cardboard box to live in.

    There’s a long way to go to the bottom, but we’re getting closer each day.

  8. Stephen 8
    30 April 2009 at 10:41 am

    Crass, yes, but coupled with the severance pay (quantity unknown though) mitigating being fired (somewhat), some might see being seen strutting their stuff on TV as something of an opportunity. I doubt these people are exactly going to be helpless and naive janitors…

  9. Bill 9
    30 April 2009 at 10:44 am

    OK. As a TV show it’s…can’t think of the appropriate word. You choose.

    But. In a situation of redundancies being made, I’d far rather workers than bosses made the choice. I could see a lot of superfluous mid-management going bye-byes. And then the brown noses and stoogies….

  10. Con 10
    30 April 2009 at 11:41 am

    This reminds me of the marathon dance competitions of the ’30s, during the last Great Depression. Desperate unemployed couples would dance continuously for days, eventually dropping from exhaustion, trying to be the last ones awake, and win the cash prize.

    This is more of the same isn’t it? Just making money out of the spectacle of the misery of others.

  11. Rich 11
    30 April 2009 at 1:42 pm

    I’m thinking that after the revolution we can use a similar concept for the televised trial and execution of the bourgeois parasite running dogs. I see them strapped into a modification of the auto-chainsaw suicide device, with the timer replaced by an Internet voting hookup.

    Farrar, Slater and Prick, for starters. People will be glued to their sets.

  12. morescreamingface 12
    30 April 2009 at 5:53 pm

    and then a couple of years down the track we get the 60 Minutes pieces on the failed employees and the fall out and their subsequent shit life
    who the fuhc would sign up for this?

    T.V appears to be a monster that will eat itself but not before it eats us

    captcha: john key does’nt look very happy these days, perhaps a holiday will do the trick

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