In news rooms and edit suites around the world you'll find photocopies of the quote shown above. It's always in this font and format. Some wag mass faxed it sometime in the late 1980s, and it was forwarded ad infinitum in a stone-age example of viral distribution. It's a quote from the late, great Hunter S. Thompson ... actually it's a misquotation, he was talking about the record industry ... but there's something about this inaccuracy that makes it even more appropriate.
“Nobody really knows what makes one show successful and another a flop. Television is one of the few modern industries that can be accurately described as a Dark Art.”
- TV series producer, name withheld by request.
“Anyone who tells you that making television is a science is fool or a charlatan. It's a Dark Art.”
- Network executive, name withheld by request.