Skip to main content

TV News Has To Make Changes or Die


Houston, TXEdward R. Murrow and other TV news pioneers dictated the format of TV news.  Beyond high definition color broadcasts and glitzy graphics for our new flat panel TVs little has changed in the 55 years since.
The teleprompter along with pleasant personality with and a decent smile has made the anchor.  The anchors for the most part were serious journalists but that all ends the moment they sit in the anchor’s throne.  News gathering is no longer their responsibility.
We pay the pretty news readers much more than reporters and they are the ones that get the celebrity treatment. But are anchors really needed?
Tribune broadcasting is about to find out after their Houston station, KIAH-TV (CW) jettisoned their newsreaders and are about to begin broadcasting without them.
TV news has lost huge amounts of revenue and cutting the fat out of the budget can’t be avoided. Anchors are expensive.  Anchors do bring order to the stories as the serves as guides to the newscasts.  They are the ones that deliver’s the tease on upcoming stories to motivate viewers away from using their remote controls.
It will take some cleaver news writing and jockeying around by producers to eliminate the anchors. I think we all need to hold our breath and see how this works.
Max Headroom the computer generated news anchor seen above was ahead of his time when he first appeared in the 1980’s.  Perhaps he is now back, with a vengeance! 

There is good news in all of this for me.  That is, instead of watching some lame TV news broadcast you are visiting me!  We will see how this all shakes out, until then stay tuned. Oops! Please excuse that anchor style tease!




Enhanced by Zemanta

Comments

acuvue oasys said…
Great obersvations there. Newsreaders do get the celebrity status but usually, most of them have done the hard yards in the trenches of reporters. Seems more like the pinnacle of achievement in their careers before they retire.

Popular posts from this blog

A 40 Caliber Nightmare Is Caught On Tape.

So you’re confident that that .40 caliber S&W service round will keep you safe. Maybe you’ll have second thoughts after you see this video. One hot summer night in 1994 Tempe and Mesa Arizona police were involved in a pursuit with this suspect who ran into a stranger’s apartment to hide after being shot TWICE in the chest. He was shirtless and you can see the blood pumping out of those two wounds. What’s really frightening is just how agile this fellow is as he struts to the ambulance. If he was not handcuffed and had a knife or a gun, ask yourself if he could still hurt you, your partner or a hostage? If your jurisdiction demands that officers carry either the 9MM or the .40 Caliber S&W it’s time to show this video to your bosses and lobby to have the .45 ACP round authorized. The switch may well reduce the screaming by self-appointed community activists about how many rounds police had to use on a suspect. The really talented and courageous video journalist, Karen Ke...

The origin of the feature film, COME FRIDAY…

CLick On the pictures to see full size versions. Long ago there was a young lady I had the hots for in a big way (Yes, I know that hots is not a word). She was pretty, incredibly bright, and had some real elegance about her. She had a love for children and basic kindness that you don’t often see in someone her age. I met her parents and could understand she came from a much more stable home than mine. I was raised by a single, welfare mom and suddenly found myself way out-classed. For whatever reasons things did not workout they way I had hoped. Sadly for me, we went on our separate ways. From time to time I’d run into this lady in various places where our job had taken us. Whenever this happened my heart would skip a beat or two. I left my hometown Chicago, and moved to Arizona where I founded my detective agency. As a private eye and soon a TV news producer too, my career took me to the highest profile criminal events in Arizona and throughout the country. There’s no question that ...

America Will See Its Worst Race Riot Yet This Summer

Star Prosecution Witness, Rachel Jeantel Sanford, FL —Yes, the George Zimmerman trial here has thousands of African-Americans getting ready for some serious bloodletting. I don’t want to make idle and dire predictions but this nation has never been so divided and racially sensitive.  Our African-American President took sides on this case at the very beginning.  That ratified a George Zimmerman guilty verdict in the minds of millions. There’s just one little problem, and that is the murder case should have never been filed.  It was filed purely for political reasons despite the fact that it was a simple justifiable homicide.  Zimmerman was on the block watch lookout program and followed a suspicious Trayvon Martin after he used an improper entrance to a gated community.  Zimmerman was acting as the eyes and ears of the Sanford Police Department. Martin did not like being followed and knew that he could easily beat up the out-of-shape...