CHEAPER THAN CRACK : Keeping us hooked on TV.

How could you be so stupid? That was the brisk greeting Mrs. Richard Parsons gave her husband, the president of Time Warner, when he returned home one night last April, a period in which his corporation was at odds with the Walt Disney Company. A fine welcome for a media mogul! A real mogul, such as Genghis Khan, would have drawn his scimitar, but I'm sure Mr. Parsons only shrugged and lugged himself and his briefcase to the upstairs study. Perhaps he even granted his spouse a grimace of agreement. After all, she had perceived an axiom that he and his associates had only belatedly remembered: If you are a media giant battling another media giant, you don't anger the public while trying to subdue your adversary.

The facts of the business dispute were set forth in an excellent New Yorker article, "Mousetrap," by James B. Stewart, in the July 31 issue. Many important issues, including possible monopolization of the Internet, were discussed, but I want to point out the way one specific phase of the dispute was resolved because I think it indicates a turn in American culture.

Here's what happened: Disney, which owns ABC among other channels, was negotiating broadcasting matters with Time Warner, the owner of the cable systems that carry Disney's TV products. When negotiations broke down, Disney considered taking its programs away from Time Warner but refrained for fear of angering viewers using the Time Warner systems. ("Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and "Spin City" were broadcasting crucial episodes in this period, and their disappearance from a significant number of screens might cause a meltdown in the national morale.) But Time Warner had no such compunction. To make Disney knuckle under, the cable giant banished ABC from its broadcasts and used a storyboard to inform viewers that "Disney has taken ABC away from you."

Time Warner had overplayed its hand and it paid a price for doing so. Public outrage found its way to Time Warner's doorstep via public servants such as New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Senator Charles Schumer. (In the New York area, the ABC signal was cut off to more than a million homes.) The upshot was that, in the next round of negotiations, "Disney got almost everything it wanted."

The same lever of manipulation seemed available to both parties in the dispute--deprive the public of TV programs and then say you were forced to do so by your opponent--but the lever was effective so long as it wasn't used. Once Time Warner did use it, the lever turned out to be a stick of dynamite that blew up in the user's hand. Never mind who was right or wrong in the business dispute. He who had most directly deprived the public of its programs was the one who earned the threat of political intervention.

And so, husband dearest, How could you be so stupid?

Politicians have been known to intervene in business and labor disputes when they believed that the public weal was imperiled, but what was immediately at risk in the fracas over Disney/ ABC programming? Information that would help viewers be better citizens? No. High art that might refine sensibilities and shake souls? No. In fact, Senator Schumer remarked to Robert Iger, Disney's president, "My daughters are complaining that they couldn't watch 'Celebrity Millionaire.'" (Schumer said he wouldn't take sides but did ask the Time Warner chairman to extend an agreement with Disney that would get ABC back on the air.) Though the senator was undoubtedly right that "TV signals should not be pulled off the air because of corporate battles," would he have felt the need to speak to the Disney president if the banished channel had been, say, The History Channel? When does a distraction become virtually a necessity and, thereby, provoke talk of the public's rights? When do circuses begin to look like bread?

Or like heroin? Nowadays, because of the abundance of programming available on cable and the ease with which the remote control can change channels, TV show creators aspire to make their products as addictive as possible by turning everything into a cliffhanger. Before 1980, the literary prototype for the typical dramatic or comic TV series was the sort of thing Conan Doyle did with the Sherlock Holmes short story: each episode was a complete experience, and the audience would keep watching if they liked being in the company of Marshal Dillon or Ralph and Alice Kramden. In the late seventies, "Dallas" and "Dynasty" were big hits but the real tide turner was "Hill Street Blues," which showed producers they could have it both ways: while each episode possessed a certain closure (the murderer was caught, political corruption was exposed), the personal problems of the cops spilled over from episode to episode. So "Hill Street Blues" was both a dramatic series in the old sense and a soap opera. The resolved elements (the murderer was captured) kept the viewer satisfied, but the soap-opera elements (will Furillo pop the question to Joyce, the lovely public defender?) kept the viewer addicted.

Detective shows are now, most of them, soap operas seasoned with violence and grunge. (My favorite, "Law and Order," was for years the exception but has now succumbed to the trend.) The situations in situation comedies now spill over from one episode to the next. (Will Niles cleave to the conniving fiancee who's trying to alienate him from his family?) The wrestling marathons are soap operas cum beefcake--will the Hulkster reclaim his glory in the ring? And the current trend toward "reality shows"--"Big Brother," "Survivor"--throws putatively real people into cliffhanging situations (who will be voted off the island next?). Likewise, the quiz shows now ridiculously aggravate their traditional cliffhanger formats with the spectacle of contestants proposing marriage to crown their success in answering trivia questions. Only the presidential conventions have jettisoned their suspenseful aspects. Thanks to the reforms of the seventies, we now know who will be nominated before the convention begins and are treated only to a feast of self-congratulation. No wonder "Survivor" creamed the Republican convention in the ratings. To be sure, by using a giant monitor to show George W. Bush slowly but surely making his way cross country to Philadelphia, the Republican media consultants tried to turn the convention into a cliffhanger, too; but did anyone at home seriously doubt that the nominee was going to make it? In the Empire of Addiction, George W. is barely a tolerated tenant while Richard the naked fat guy island predator of "Survivor" is king.

Not only politicians and entertainers but serious artists have to make their way in a world dominated by the Empire of Addiction. Unless a novel or painting or movie generates a certain buzz, it risks making a very quick circuit (through movie houses, museums, first printings) before settling into a wan afterlife (on video, in the exhibition catalog, on remainder counters). What was the Brooklyn Museum of Art exhibit "Sensation" but a demonstration of how to escape from the neighborhood of art into the higher-profile zone of publicity, controversy, political grandstanding, and...well, sensationalism. The viewer's ire or prurience or simple curiosity could be aroused by the publicity--"How will I respond to what outrages so many?" a question that must remain unsatisfied until the viewer hies herself to the museum and judges for herself. ("Well, that wasn't so bad. I mean, I wouldn't even have known that was elephant dung unless they had told me.") Thus, the art-going experience becomes, however briefly, a cliffhanger of the sensibility.

But what about the work of art or entertainment that has been made simply to move its audience as deeply or hilariously as possible without addicting anyone? or inciting anyone to join a picket line or sign a petition? Is such a work really doomed, as I may have suggested above, or can it enjoy an existence in some crevice of a buzzing, hyperventilating marketplace? This column will be exploring that question among many, many others in the year to come.

So...dare I say it? Stay tuned.