Tag Archives: television

ABC World News Webcast

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ABC News VideoWorking late tonight. Had my dinner at my desk while watching ABC’s World News Webcast. Ran almost 17 min with no commercials except for a little spot at the beginning and end. Perfect. It had a more relaxed feel but that might have been my imagination. The quality of the video was exceptional and the 320 pixel video is fine when you’re 18 inches away. I paused a couple of times while I tended to other business. If you think you’re pretty fast on the Blackberry, watch this piece from the webcast.

Our networks are streaming our newscasts but –as Mark Ramsey warns– simply repurposing your existing programming won’t be enough. Not by a long shot.

Broadcasting on the web

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Interesting analysis of TV station websites by Graeme Newell. The piece is buried in a long, no-way-to-deeplink post on ShopTalk, so I’m posting the full article after the jump.

“The problem is our mindset. We’re trying to recreate broadcasting on the web. We do the web just like we do TV – broad. There is just a little bit of everything and not enough of anything. Because of its very nature, TV news has evolved to become a headline service. Our web sites mirror our on-air broadcast. You usually leave our web sites still hungry, wishing for a little more meat on the bone.”

“In the future, successful stations will have a hundred different broadband channels, all of them geared towards a specific demo. Give up your need to be a broadcaster. We are now nichecasters and the web gives us a whole new way to bring new audiences to our door.”

It’s worth a read because I think it applies to a lot of radio station websites as well as TV. Maybe even some radio network websites?

Continue reading →

What the foosball?!

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I posted/whined previously how annoying and silly I find it when cable channels air movies with “objectionable” words (I don’t object to ANY words) and substitute some non-sense word for the naughty one.

The folks at AMC have taken an interesting approach to this tactic. While showing Fargo, they broke for commercials by putting up a graphic with a bunch of non-sense words beginning with the letter F (announcer voice-over saying these words). The announcer then says something along the lines of “Steve Buscemi said the F-word ten times in that last scene…but that’s okay.”

Almost as though they’re embarrassed by the need to make the silly substitutions and poke a little fun at themselves. Interesting.

Opie and Anthony on Letterman

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I’ve been hearing about Opie & Anthony since they got infamous. But I’ve never heard their show. Got my first look at the lads as they chatted with Dave on Late Night (YouTube). I think they’re on XM so I’ll give ’em a listen, just to see what all the fuss is about. I wonder if the the segment will be seen by more people on YouTube than saw it on Letterman? Probably not. It was a pretty typical interview. Hardly viral.

Update (Next morning): I sampled O&A this morning on XM. They were taking calls from listeners (mostly teenage boys) while they (the callers) were going through their parents’ bedroom drawers. Lots of giggling. Hardly fair to judge the show on one brief sample but I didn’t hear anything fresh or original.

But in all fairness, their hands (lips?) are tied by the reality of needing to appeal to a mass audience. They can’t try anything really different that might only appeal to a few thousand listeners. They need hundreds of thousands. Right out of the gate. This is just not an environment for experimentation.

(Almost) End of Deadwood

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Since the beginning of this season of Deadwood, I’ve been wondering if this is the end. Scott points us to the answer at TVseriesFinale.com.

When it was announced that HBO would we cutting the series short after three seasons, fans signed petitions, took out an ad in Variety, sent letters and made calls indicating that they would cancel their HBO subscriptions at the end of Deadwood’s third season (next week). http://www.savedeadwood.net/

As a result, Deadwood will return next season, but instead of a full-blown 12-episode season to complete the series, HBO and (creator) Milch will instead produce a pair of two-hour movies.

Milch has said that he wasn’t in favor of doing a six-episode season because each episode of Deadwood has typically represented one day in the lives of the characters and South Dakota area. Shifting to two-hour movies will allow him to break that format and to be able to complete the storytelling he had for the final season.

Dan Shelley headed for Big Apple

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My old pal Dan Shelley is headed for New York to become the Executive Editor of Digital Media for WCBS-TV and WCBSTV.com. Yesterday was his last day at WTMJ in Milwaukee where he has been news director since 1995. Before that Dan was ND at KTTS in Springfield. I interviewed Dan in May, 2005, shortly after he was elected chairman of RTNDA, and he talked about journalism in a digital age. I’m trying to get a follow-up interview. Stay tuned.

TiVo Guru Guide

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The guys at TiVo have rounded up a bunch of critics, editors and experts to pick as many as 10 of the best programs in their interest areas for each week and update their lists at least once a month. They’re calling it the TiVo Guru Guide. TiVo users who share their interests can elect to have the shows recorded and have a selection ready whenever they sit down. Program pickers will come from Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, Billboard, H2O (Hip-Hop on Demand),CNet.com and Automobile Magazine. The Guru Guide will be available on the roughly 1.5 million TiVo units owned by direct subscribers to TiVo service. It won’t be available to the 2.9 million who get TiVo via DirecTV. So it’s a cool idea I can’t take advantage of.

I might actually use this (if I could) because I like/trust TiVo. I’d like it even more if I could rate the pickers. For example, they could offer movie picks from 5 different “experts.” Over time, based on their picks, I might narrow that down to just one or two whose opinions most closely match my own. [via Buzz Machine]

Jon Stewart wails on former Learfielder

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“First, host Jon Stewart mocked WTWO-TV (Terre Haute) GM Duane Lammers for his reaction to Stewart’s earlier mocking of a WTWO promo for its weather team. Stewart had made fun Monday of the ad, which bragged that WTWO’s weather team had 45 years of combined weathercasting experience vs. 30 years for competitor WTHI. Stewart marveled at a weather “attack ad.” Lammers, who came up with the spot, apparently responded in a local paper to the mocking, saying people in the industry love the ad, though he said that Thursday’s airing will be its last because it has run its course.

Wednesday, Stewart reiterated his earlier comment that the ad was “fucking retarded,” and then called Lammers the cable equivalent of a wussy for not airing NBC’s Book of Daniel in January.” — Broadcasting & Cable

I only mention because Duane worked at Learfield (the company I work for) many years ago. Just down the hall.

Too young to retire

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Barb says Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ new series (The New Adventures of Old Christine) sucks. As did Watching Ellie (2002). Same for The Michael Richards Show (2000) and both of Jason Alexander’s short-lived series: Bob Patterson and Listen up.

My first reaction to these sad efforts was, “Give it up.” But I’ve change my mind. These three actors gave us some of the best moments in television comedy. Yes, the writing on Seinfeld was great but the actors were damned good, too. If they want to do another series –or half a dozen– they’ve earned the right. Even if they suck. And a few stinkers won’t tarnish my memories of their Seinfeld performances. Those are in the vault.

Seven in 10 watching TV news?

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That’s one of the findings in a new Harris Poll of about 3,000 U.S. adults.

While broadcast television news appears to be the most popular medium sought, many adults also get their news several times a week or daily by going online to get news (64%), reading a local daily newspaper (63%), listening to radio news broadcasts (54%), listening to talk radio stations (37%), listening to satellite news programming (19%), and reading a national newspaper (18%).

Update: Table on Media Usage from Radio Business Report. The most disturbing stat? Radio news tied with online in the 59+ group. Shudder.

Media Usage