If you take a few minutes to search such places as YouTube, you’ll be able to find dozen of modeling related videos…including mine. What I don’t understand, is why is it that in some other countries such as Japan, do news programs as well as other programing, featuring modelers and their hobby? Yet here in the US & Canada we rarely get a mentioned.
Could it be none of us here in the west are willing to open our homes, workshops or ourselves up to the invasion by the camera? If you are a cable TV watcher, you’ll find programs covering several other hobbies. Programs on PBS such as “Tracks Ahead” and “Sewing With Nancy” have been long time veterans of the hobbies of model railroading/rail watching and sewing. By the way Tracks Ahead has been around since 1990 and Sewing with Nancy is celebrating it’s 25th anniversary!
Some will remember PBS’s presentation of “Adventures In Scale Modeling” which featured my good friend and fellow IPMS member Al Jones. Yet today, none exist on PBS or any cable channel. Does our industry need its own cable channel? Are simple pleasures more popular in say Japan than they are here?
I guess the only way to get on the tube is to compel the beat reporters that there are some good human interest stories out there, like the story about the modeler who has the Guinness World Record for the most models. A local news story gone viral over the modeling forums. We need to find a way for more stories of scale modelers to go mainstream in the television media. Maybe a segment on Good Morning America…”Hobbies in America.”
Well hopefully there are those who can make such things happen reading my blog. I talked with Al as I was preparing this article and he too feels disappointed that no other program as Adventures In Scale Modeling ever picked up where it left off. So I am not alone in the disappointment that such a great hobby doesn’t get the attention it richly deserves.
Write the networks, ask them get in touch with the hobby industry for more information. Ask them to attend, meet and learn about the hobby industry at this years iHobby Expo. Learn more about the passion of scale modeling by attending this years IPMS/USA Nationals.
I’d rather watch someone building a model than two idiots arguing on a “reality show.”
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Entries (RSS)