TV news is researched to death. They do all this stuff because we lemmings respond to it and watch it.
NBC cut away from the NBA Finals for that. I wanted to watch that more than the damn stupid Bronco running down the freeway. It certainly would have been more exciting than the slow-motion chase.
'Course, I was living in Houston at the time and the Rockets were in the finals, so I am biased…
I think somebody over at CNN sent out a memo not to long ago telling them all to make jokes as often as possible.
It’s really weird.
Local news is the local station’s cash cow! You don’t cut off a little bit of the cash cow.
The station will justify it by saying it “owes” its viewers a full 30 minutes of news (actually it’s only about 22 minutes of content. . . note, I didn’t say NEWS), when what it really means is it needs to run the full complement of expensive News COMMERCIALS to make budget.
The only reason stations have any kinds of programs at all is to hang commercials in them.
And THAT’S the truth!
Actually our local NBC affiliate does shorten their newscast on weekends (especially Sunday) if it will run over into primetime programming. But they are the only station around here that does it, the others will start their shows late and pre-empt part of their late night programming to catch up.
Another Stupid TV News Custom: doing a puff piece story to ride the coat tails of a show on the network. I understand the commercial need to do it, but it’s still a waste of percious news time. Our ABC affiliate did a cheesy feature piece parodying The Bachelor because a girl from the area was on the show. They got her to go on a “date” with a photojournalist from the station and “compare” the two guys. Five minutes of this tripe right in the middle of the news, not even at the end with the really fluffy filler! I’ve never watched The Bachelor before this and I sure as hell won’t now! Grrrrr!
“Precious news time”, that is.
Stoopid spelling…
Insider Information Here: The station CANNOT run over into prime time programming! It has to take the network straight up at 7pm or 8pm depending on the time zone (and 6pm or 7pm on Sunday).
The network feeds its programs live for the time zone. They’re not sitting around on tapes in the local station’s back rooms.
But, hey, while we’re all annoyed at things the local stations do, remember, these stations are small local businesses. And they’re very expensive businesses to run. Their product is time, the most perishable product there is. So don’t begrudge them the opportunity to enhance the value of their product. You don’t pay a thing to watch the dreck they put on. And you don’t even have to pay attention to the commercials. So, ease up. . . .
No no no. Television is consulted to death.
You can’t call the stuff that decisions are made on “research”.
As for the live reports-- my station has 4 microwave vans and a satellite truck. If we ever broke into regular programming, they would be useful…
Damn… I was just thinking about post a Pit thread about this very subject myself. Dopers think alike, I guess… 
My degree in school was in Media Production, and one of my most savvy professors (he owned three radio stations and had worked in just about every major market in the U.S.) taught us to watch for these superfluous live shots. He attributed them to exactly the reasons FallenAngel and annieclaus mentioned… if the stations aren’t doing live shoots all the time, they lose the funding for their live equipment.
Regardless of the reason, he taught us to laugh at some of the lame excuses for live shots. I’ve seen a few good ones recently at our local Seattle stations.
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Shooting the reporter in front of a school as she discusses the recent teacher’s strike. Of course, the school is empty and there are no striking teachers to be seen.
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Shooting the reporter in front of a convenience store/busy intersection where a crime took place. The crime could have happened yesterday or six months ago, but there’s obviously nothing going on there now, other that the usual kids mugging for the camera.
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Shooting the weatherperson on the roof of the station building, “in the weather” as Dr. Hickman used to say. Not only is this silly, but sometimes dangerous to reporter and crew, I should think. One of our local stations even has the gumption to call such shoots “on the weather terrace.” laugh Good one! My wife and I laugh at that often.
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My personal pet peeve: Shooting the reporter inside the production studio for “breaking news,” usually with several monitors/VTR’s behind him or her, and sticking “live” on the screen. Yeah, guys, I’m sure it was really challenging to go and get that live shot, all of 50 feet away from the live soundstage. I’m SO impressed. :rolleyes:
Ah, Dr. Hickman. You taught me well.
I’d just like to be clear: My OP was about reports on the scene when absolutely nothing was going on. Nada, zip, zilch. No car chase, no fires, etc. active during the report. Yeah, there are a lot of live reports of stuff happening that in no way shape or form is “news”, but that’s a lesser sin.
I don’t buy the “use it or lose it” idea so much since nearly all of the reporters for this station do all reports live outside. Just the co-anchors, the weather idiot and the sports airhead report from in the studio. But even the sports dweeb does some broadcasts from stadiums etc. The rest is all bad satellite feeds with kids doing the fingers for horns bit behind the reporter’s back while the reporter is trying to remember if he/she used enough “action” verbs in the sentence so far.
The “consulted to death” idea is my choice. They do “focus groups” and such and they all turn out like the Simpons episode where the kids suggest toy ideas. “It should be soft and cuddly.” “Yeah, with lots of firepower.”
Keep in mind that 1. Consultants are idiots. 2. That consultants never say “keep it the way it is”. They have to suggest a lot of changes in order to avoid making it look like they’re charging a lot for nothing. 3. Stations have to make some of the changes, no matter how ludicrous, else it looks like they wasted the money on consultants. Don’t these people read “Dilbert”?
Watching the news a few years ago, I saw a story about a truck or car that ran into a tree, trapping the driver.
The was a newsperson standing by a different tree that said:
“The vehicle ran into a tree, similar to this one , trapping the driver.”
Oh, that makes it much more clear. One of those wood trees with leaves!
Sorry, but 
Who exactly is funding them? If they need the equipment for real news when it actually happens, they need it still need it regardless of whether its used for fluff pieces or not.
Right?
More recently, we had MSNBC spending hours outside the police station waiting for Chief Moose to come out and give a statement. They had to postpone Michael Moore’s appearance on Donahue for several days because of this. Why couldn’t they have just gone ahead with at least some of the regular programming, then cut away to the police station when the chief was ready to give a statement?
Also, the obligatory stories about gasoline prices and crowds at airports every holiday weekend. This just isn’t news anymore, yet we get the same tired stories every Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and etc.