Who watches Judge Joe Brown?

After living in France for three months, watching American television is a real treat, even the mid-day nonsense programming. I quickly found myself invested in the dispute of a man suing his girlfriend for damages to his car. Never mind that the BBC was digging deep into the ongoing Afghanistan election debacle, I was hooked on Judge Joe Brown. Later I did feel guilty.

Like fast food, these shows are engineered to hold your attention. They also seem to have an inordinate number of commercials. Of course these are usually preceded by some upcoming teaser. In that way, you view most of the show as a series of foreshadowed events.

The commercials are telling. Apparently the target demographic at this time of day is unemployed due either to lack of education or personal injury. Sam encourages you to call now if you have been the victim of medical malpractice. Inspiring student A implores you to go back to school; if they could do it, so can you. Community college and online education seems to be big enough business to devote quite a bit of advertising capitol to the midday commercial slate.