Not that there is no local news, just the broadcasts have gotten so bad. It used to be 1/2 hour. A few news stories. Weather and sports and a feature story.
Now they have news that last a full hour. Pre news shows. The BIG STORY, which usually is like “We went to a topless bar, and you will not beleive what we found.” What? Dancers hustling for tips?
They also feel it is their right to interrupt programs for non events like “There was a construction collapse, no one was hurt, but were going to waste 20 minutes on it anyway.”
Damn, what can we do. Don’t these local news broadcasters realize how much they suck.
Anybody who works for local TV news care to respond?
Snotty answer: Go out and shoot up the local courthouse. Guaranteed they can fill up and hour and a half with good stuff (especially in an “anonymous” caller tips them to when you plan on taking out Judge Smith with an Uzi).
Real answer: It has nothing to do with news. Local stations are working for local ad dollars. Affiliates are only given so many hours a day, where they can sell unlimited ads. Locally produced news is cheaper than purchasing a syndicated program to fill those “prime” spots. The news programs regularly get the same or larger ratings than those syndicated program resulting in more profit for the station. Hey it costs the same for an anchor if s/he’s on the air for a half hour as it does if he/she is on for an hour and a half.
As long as it’s profitable, you’ll see the hour and a half news block.
Laugh and the world laughs with you. Smilie and you smilie alone (with my contempt). – missdavis
OK. That answers somewhat the extended broadcasts, but what about the non-event interruptions, which always happen during syndicated shows. I actually enjoy car chases, but I do not want my show interrupted by some metal beam falling at Astroworld that harms no one or some extended coverage of some mass murderer being driven to prison. In the latter episode the news crew actually lost the car for awhile. Do they have to pay Oprah for time lost due to this? Will they play that last Jeopardy question again?
I’m with you on this, cooldude. Just this week, the DFW NBC affiliate pre-empted the NBC Nightly News to cut to a press conference where Jerry Jones officially announced the new coach for the Cowboys. Yeah, that really is “breaking news as it happens”. But the really stupid part is that since they had already announced on their 5:00 pm broadcast who the new coach would be, this wasn’t even news anymore.
Brady Bunch Quote Of The Week:
“Oh, Mom, not glasses. I’ll look positively goofy!” – Jan
Local TV news is the worst. I can’t stand to watch it. That is why I get my news from the two local papers.
I actually bit the bullet to watch the local Fox affiliate news several times this week during our big snow storm in order to find out about conditions and work closings.
I noticed that they would always refer to upcoming segments as “later on in the show.” Note that they consider their broadcast a “show,” not a newscast or even a report. It is all just entertainment, and they know it.
This same “news” team would interrupt local programming with more snow information. Actually, they did not give the information, but just tried to entice the viewer to tune in at a later time. Of course, they would wait until after the commercial break was over to interrupt the programming. Heaven forbid they would pre-empt a commercial!
Then, they would advertise for segments scheduled to air next month. One such segment has to do with doctors and prescriptions costing 1000s of lives. ("Is your life at risk? Tune in next month!).
Are they saying they have information that could save 1000s of lives, and yet they are sitting on it until sweeps week? If this was really a pressing danger, is there any doubt they would break right in and sound the alarm? (not during the commercials of course.)
I’m just getting started, but I’ll keep the rest to myself (for now).
See the bubble-headd bleach blonde
Comes on at five
She can tell ya 'bout the plane crash
With a gleam in her eye
It’s int’resting when people die
Give us DIRTY LAUNDRY!
I think it must be nearly twenty-five years since that record played on the local teeny-bopper radio station four or five times a day. I sometimes felt that I was the only one who got it and stopped watching the news on television. Makes me feel rather powerless when I reflect that lo, these many years later, the basic mission of the On-the-Spot/Action/Eyewitness News team (delivering eyeballs to the paying advertisers) hasn’t been altered one whit. And of course, why should it? It still works, and better than ever, if Paul Moyer’s salary is any indicator (Paul Moyer: news anchor with the local ABC affiliate in the Los Angeles market).
This is the type of thing that makes Broadcast News one of the most authentic-feeling movies (on the subject) I’ve ever seen. I loved William Hurt protesting to Holly Hunter, “I’m an actor!” when she confronted him about faking tears during a recorded interview.
And I really feel sorry for Howard Rosenberg (television critic at the Los Angeles Times, with, evidently a no-sharesies, no-delegating-allowed assignment for keeping tabs on the local news broadcasts); this poor man has to watch that crap, or he and his family don’t eat. I wouldn’t be able to take it. At any level of remuneration.
Of course truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Mark Twain
Ah. I am in an unusual position here. I admit, local news sucks, but it varies depending on what area you’re in.
Being from LA, I’m used to the LA local news. My favorite is the local WB station, KTLA Channel 5. They’ve been around forever, and seem to be less “sleazy” compared to the other networks. I still admit, I like KNBC’s news (Paul Moyer is on the local NBC affiliate, by the way, not ABC - he used to be on ABC.) Anyway, I like watching KNBC news. Still do.
I moved out-of-state recently, to a shitty Midwestern town, and saw what really crappy news is. Bad technical skills (glitches, bloopers) and SOOOO boring. Making mountains out of molehills, too. The local news thinks that a boring local story is more important than a vital and gripping national story. And the local obsession is football…they’ll cut in in the middle of anything to announce that some coach has quit, or whatever. They’ll report endlessly on anything football, and shuffle the vital national stories to the back burner. It’s just pathetic. I immediately noticed the difference between this shitty Midwestern town’s local news and LA news. I mean, LA news sucks, but not as much, and for different reasons. (L.A. news seems to occasionally acknowlege that there is a world outside of L.A., and will actually report on it.)
I got a satellite dish a while back, partly because I hate the shitty Midwestern cable company, and partly because I could get KTLA. So I get to watch KTLA again, and yes, it is better than the local news where I am now. I also even get to see the local L.A. news (and Paul Moyer) but because of recent satellite dish laws, that may end soon. (Sigh.) But I should be able to keep KTLA. (I admit, I am terribly homesick and watch it just to hear about home.) The people here are amazed and appalled that I don’t watch the local shitty Midwestern TV, but I can’t bear it. I don’t want to hear about football, after all. And for the other local news, I can get on the Internet.
CBS is still on my shit list for something that hapened a couple of months ago. I was watching *The Young and the Restless * (Yeah, yeah, I know) and programming was interrupted by a special live report. I thought, “Plane crash. Hostages. Huge industrial accident.” No. It was the fucking Buckeyes returning from a game.
First of all, what a stupid time to interrupt programming. How many football fans do they think are watching the afternoon soaps, and how many of those people would actually * care * that the team has arrived home enough to cut off the show at a very juicy moment, and covering the team’s speaches for a half an hour? Luckily, my cable also carries another CBS affiliate, so I didn’t miss much.
What irritates me the most is local news’ attempt to connect a major event no matter how remotely to our region. “Tonight at 11:00, we’ll talk to the man who knows the brother of the man who’s married to the cousin of Elian Gonzales’ uncle, who lives right here in our city! Hear what HE thinks of the controversy tonight!”
Velveeta is less cheesy than the sudden look of concerned sympathy that puckers the face of perky newscasters when a tradgedy occurs. She’ll frown slightly, draw her eyebrows together as she relates the horrible details. Then the usually looks down for a second at the obligatory sheets of paper, and then her face will resume it’s normal look of vapid perkiness as she introduces the Cheap Gourmet with a fabulous casserole recipe.
I absolutely love the fuck ups, though. The other night, something happened to the bacground weather maps, and though the woman was continually pressing the button, nothing was happening. She continued to talk about the snow, which quickly went downhill, from driving in the snow to snow safety, to how to walk on snow, and finally, she was starting to get a look of desperation on her face as she babbled about how to lift a full snow-shovel without hurting your back when the map finally changed.
Yeah, I take your points about news coverage in the more …uhh, rustic regions. In 1982, I attended the NPTU in Arco, ID (S5G plant, if anyone cares), and shared a house in Idaho Falls with two other attendees. We’d usually get back to the house just about fifteen minutes before the late-night reruns of SCTV. Which meant I caught the tail-end of the late news (broadcast out of Pocatello, IIRC). Well, one night, I was watching the technical credits crawling up the screen at the end of the newscast, when some names started jumping out at me, such as:
SOUND TECHNICIAN I. P. Freely, LIGHTING Willie Makeit, CAMERA OPERATOR Betty Don’t
und so weiter. My guess is someone at the station was celebrating his final day on the job.
Live TV. You gotta love it.
BTW, thanks for the heads up on Paul Moyer’s whereabouts. Frankly, his name is the only one of a local news anchor that sticks in my mind, and that’s only because I used to sing in a church choir with his half-brother, or his step-brother, or some such relationship. I also was aware that he’d switched stations, but I couldn’t remember in which direction, because, well, to tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less.
Of course truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Mark Twain
From one who works in “the business”: There has yet to be made a movie or TV show (“Sportsnight” comes close though) that accurately conveys what life inside a TV news operation is really like. “Broadcast News,” while containing tiny, atomlike elements of truth, was not it. Any news anchor who tells their boss that they think of themselves as an actor or salesman would quickly find themselves a joke in “the business.” The part with Albert Brooks sweating profusely in the studio though was accurate–it gets hot in there! Despite the cynicism, many TV news people love their careers, take their jobs seriously and strive to do good work. They’re not all brainless Ken and Barbie dolls who laugh at the boobs in the audience while raking in huge amounts of cash. Witness old-school Chicago anchors Carol Marin and Ron Magers who angrily resigned their highly paid positions rather than share a news set with “commentator” Jerry Springer.
Quite the opposite. Locally produced news means you have to hire anchors, reporters, producers and numerous technical staff. You also have to purchase equipment, cameras, computers, news vehicles (plus insurance for each vehicle), live trucks and a ton of other stuff. Then you have to build a news set in the studio, which means you have to pay someone to design the news set. Then there are the consultants and their outlandish fees. And if you want a helicopter, well you gotta pay for that too. Compared to all this, a syndicated series can be had for peanuts. The impetus for starting up a news operation is that it helps a station build an identity within that local community. The bigger and more recognizable the station’s identity, the bigger the ratings…and with that comes more local businesses who want to spend advertising $$$ with your station.
The “if it bleeds, it leads” philosophy that has pervaded TV news for many years is primarily the result of broadcast consultants. Consultants (second only to sports agents and entertainment lawyers on the pond-scum scale) are paid to deliver advice that results in big ratings. Naturally, they’re going to go for the low road and push the blood and guts as much as they can…which is exactly what they’ve done. And since so many stations across the country subscribe to the same consulting company, and since stations and consultants get some of their ideas by watching what the other does, local stations all over end up resembling each other in a big ol’ homogenous mess. Go to www.broadcast.com and click on “local” under the “TV” section. You’ll find that the newscasts in New Orleans look just like the newscasts in San Francisco or Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Finally, STOP COMPLAINING! It’s TV news for chrissakes! What do you expect? If you want the New York Times, read the freakin’ New York Times.
Torgo, thanks for responding. Finally someone who works in broadcasting replying. But you have not answered the question that I and several posters have commented on. Why are syndicated shows interrupted by bullshit non-stories, and there are several examples on this message thread. Does Oprah or Jeopardy get some money back for your interruptions?
I certainly feel that local news credibility could be improved by keeping local broadcasts to 1/2 hour, Stop going to tittie bars with “BIG STORIES”, and maybe putting some control on those obnoxious investigative reporters.
The first one in my mind is Wayne Dolcefeno. He is an asshole. I have met him personally.
One of the things that bothers me is the anchors’ habit of reporting the news to each other: “Karen, the President said today…” “He certainly did, Bob…” Funny, I thought they were tell US the news, not each other. Sometimes I feel like I’m eavesdropping.
For kaylasdad and yosemitebabe: Do you remember KABC’s clownish weatherman Dr. George? Lord, that guy was an imbecile. One day, he did a story on fire safety and he was his usual idiotic self. Good grief, I wouldn’t trust that man with lighting the candles on a birthday cake!
These “bullshit non-stories” you refer to may be bullshit, they may even be non-stories, but you must remember that TV news is the way it is because focus groups (groups of viewers used in researching purposes) responded favorably to it. That means the responded favorably to the obnoxious graphics, the hysterical anchors and even the interruptions of “Jeopardy” and “Oprah” to bring you live aerial footage of the latest high-speed freeway chase. Plus, the interruptions, no matter how irritating, serve as a reminder to, “HEY!! DON’T FORGET TO WATCH OUR NEWS!!”
Reminds me of what people say about supermarket tabloids; “Why do they print this garbage?” “Because people buy it.” TV news is the way it is because the ratings support it; “Because people watch it.”
As to whether or not the syndicated shows get their money back, I honestly don’t know. I do know that the station has to “make good” on any scheduled commercials that didn’t air due to breaking news coverage, i.e. air them later at no charge to the client.
I live in a * very * rural area in northern Michigan (the nearest “big city” is 50 miles away from me and has a population of about 13,000), and although we don’t have cutaways to car chases and overblown investigative reports, our local news sucks just as hard.
It’s funny as hell. They have all the big-boy’s toys, SkyCam live remote satellite dish trucks and so on, but no real news to use the stuff on.
So they will typically lead with a news story
such as (I swear they did this) “When it’s really cold, and there are strong winds, frostbite is a real possibility.” Then their ‘team report’ switched over to a news bimbette shivering in a winter parka with the news logo on it, reporting live from out in front of the local hospital, so that she could say, “frostbite can be serious.”
“In much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” - Ecclesiastes 1:18
Milossarian, if I recall correctly, you live in the Traverse City area, I know you speak the truth regarding local news…I had a friend who was a reporter for WPBN up there, and was fired when he refused to report on inane stories, rather than local politics, which, boring as it may be, is more NEWS than the local Quickie Mart shoveling their sidewalks later than normal on Tuesday. I quit watching any local news after I spent a week getting all hyped up about “the silent killer”. They won, they drew me in. However they lost a viewer for life when I found out that “the silent killer” was carbon monoxide gas. All week I was driven to ferverous distraction regarding who the silent killer was, only to be shown an ad for carbon monoxide detectors. Talk about a letdown - I felt like a slimy cad.
Torgo: Yes, I take your point about the viewing audience’s culpability in the danse macabre of pander/demand pandering that results in so much dreck being passed off as journalism on television. I believe I was thirteen years old when I first heard the cynical witticism “the masses are asses.” Somehow, it rang true then, and intervening events have done little to cause me to consider the saying either inaccurate or outdated.
Actually, Jab, during my last few months of watching local news, I considered Dr. George my Friday night hero. If he rolled out his 500 millibar chart during the eleven o’clock news, chances were that I’d get to sleep late on Saturday morning, because nobody goes to the beach and rents a bike when it’s raining. In truth, I was impressed by his lofty academic title, and the fact that he was clownish; he seemed to take himself less seriously than the rest of the crew. As the years passed, however, the whole newscast seemed to have degenerated into a yuk-fest, and Dr. George was hard put to it to try to appear to be the token comic relief artist. I caught him a few times during the waning years of his career, and I found it rather sad that he appeared to be doing a parody of himself in the old days. I suppose in the roster of embarrassing moments in show biz, the section marked “Once-Entertaining Personalities Holding On Too Long To The Faded Glories Of Their Past Successes” will hold a footnote for Dr. George, alongside Mae West and Lola, the showgirl from Copacabana.
Of course truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.
Mark Twain
I remember Dr. George well. He was a piece of work, all right! But I have to say, in his hey day, he was OK. He just had a “gimmick”…most weathermen do, at least in LA. (Remember Pat Sajak used to be the weatherman for L.A.'s KNBC? He acted up plenty on the news, and look where it got him!)
As for the reasoning that these “non-news” bullshit interrupts on local news - I believe it’s true. And it’s sad. If the local people really think that the local frickin’ football coach quitting is such Big News - then they are pathetic. I’m sorry.
I grew up in the SoCal area and vividly remember Dr. George Fishbeck…and my grandfather grumbling to get “…that maniac off the air.” Personally, I liked him. I believe that Dr. George was one of the last weathermen in SoCal to adopt the chroma-key technology (weather guy electronically super-imposed over computer maps & graphics) in favor of the old-fashioned maps n’ magnets.