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TV News Has To Make Changes or Die


Houston, TX—Edward 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!




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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.
July 29, 2010 8:52 AM
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