As a kid growing up in rural NW Alabama....I had three networks which delivered a 30-minute nightly local newscast.
My folks were mostly a CBS-type.....so you counted on seven things to appear on this local news piece (1970s): (1) bank robberies, (2) new malls, (3) traffic accidents involving five cars or more (one car accident were rarely worth getting excited), (4) federal stuff with the Arsenal, (5) weather predictions, (6) tornado chatter (this would go on for an entire week), and (7) farm/drought reports.
The weather stuff? It was presented by some stern WW II weather guy, who could have stepped out and delivered Shakespeare if you'd asked him for a line or two. If he uttered the phrase 'potential tornado'....you sat glued to the TV and expecting some serious chatter.
My brother (still there in the region) brings up this topic.....that things have kinda changed.
Around three months ago, I attempted to watch two or three of these broadcasts (data-streaming). Mostly what you got were fifteen minutes of Covid-chatter and Covid-vaccination business.....some brief sports, and five minutes over the weather. I sat there shaking my head.....no one much is going to watch this.....over and over....nightly.
Like he says and I've watched once this week.....it has changed slightly.....now carrying the insurrection stuff out of DC....some crime stuff, local weather, and local sports. Again, it's mostly stuff that locals wouldn't care for.
It's kinda funny. All you had to do is carry local news that folks cared about, and they'd watch your piece.
1 comment:
The last time I owned a television set was sometime last century.
I have zero-zero-zero interest in televisionprogramming.
.
The final push -- reporters interviewing reporters about reports from reporters.
That, and pretty much everything sounded like a press-release.
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