Poli-tainment

"Say, it's not all about money though, is it Mr Tinker? You said something to us up on the ship that implied that there's a political angle to this racket, too. Am I right?"

"You've picked your officers well Captain Maddox. They ask good questions!" Tinker gestured to the others at the table with his heavy amber glass.

"Yes, Commander de Coursey, there is a bit more to it than mere money... allow me to explain. Entertainment and politics are one and the same here on Viden. In our development as a civilization, the line between entertainers and politicians became so weak and blurred, we finally gave up and just embraced the next logical step in the evolution of both professions."

"Eventually, the big studios and networks became political power houses like our old political parties once were. I just happen to be the head of the biggest and most successful network on Viden." Tinker continued.

"Our planetary constitution states that the man in control of the most successful studio or network is the duly elected 'president' of the planetary government. In this case the voice of the people has been translated into 'viewership' and network numbers, the people of our world make their voices heard daily by tuning into the programming of their choice."

"I've been the president of programming at PBN for the last ten years, but only the president of Viden for the last eight." Tinker explained, "When I took over at PBN, our numbers were down and our programming was weak, the old fella who been in the position before me had NO idea what it was the people wanted and so people tuned out and watched other things."

"But I had a vision of the future for the network... and it took some time, but I finally turned it around and got PBN back on track and at the top of the market again." Tinker beamed with a certain amount of pride.

"I suppose when I get older and out of touch with what the people want, I'll fall to the wayside, and some young buck with a head full of new ideas will swoop in and replace me. I hope it's from within the network, but it could be from anywhere really, there are hundreds of studios and networks for the people to choose from."