So the WB is doing new for what is obviously geared towards the 20-something demograph.
This is their version of news:
Share this: A Tosh.O like segment wherein a guy shares “really cool” vids/weblinks.
Some crazy guy with his funny take on current movies.
Celebrity Gossip (Today was Beyonce and her lip syncing at the inauguration. So hey, that’s news, right?)
Some guy bitching about the amount of excess spent on all the inauguration balls. I guess this has some merit for debate, but geez, not on the nightly news.
And weather.
Lordy, I hope young adults don’t watch this crap and seriously think they are informed on today’s worldly events. They’d be better off watching The Daily show. (Which I like)
TBH, it doesn’t sound all that different from what local news broadcasts on the major networks have to offer. The first 4 minutes is devoted to trivial details about and/or maudlin obsession with the few news stories they can’t get away with ignoring, then 10 minutes of weather and flirtatious banter, then 5 minutes of network promotion and requests to “friend us on Facebook,” and the rest is sports. News stopped being informative a long time ago.
Australia has a great News show that plays opposite the tabloid news programmes. Called TheProject (after multiple renames as it moved around the schedule) it’s aimed at a younger demographic than regular news bulletins, or perhaps better described as the modern generation as they range from teens through to my age (early 40s).
It attempts to engender discussion amongst its viewers by approaching News less formally, with some amount of humour and silliness, yet not talking down to their audience. Though the bulletins are less investigative, they’re still discussed deeply, in as an unbiased a manner as you can reasonably expect for a younger generation’s show.
It has a live audience, and occasionally has interviews with celebrity guests who come with an agenda of promoting their movie or book or whatever, but that’s maybe 5% of the week’s output, and doesn’t seem out of place or in any way pandering to them.