Wednesday, January 23, 2008

RANT: Plugging TV Shows on the News


So maybe it was a slow day or week. Maybe they had nothing else newsworthy going on in the world and in Baltimore. Maybe they ran out of better ideas this morning, when I tuned into Fox 45, for the morning news and heard them plugging the new (and ridiculously stupid) reality show Moment of Truth a total of 5 times in the hour between waking up and heading out the door. At one point, it had its on feature in the middle of the news.


First, I understand that its a Fox affiliate so they want to promote their dumb little show, but why on the news? Once upon a time, I swear the news didn't do this. Second, they spend way too much time on this segment, even showing an interview with the show's producer to further promote it. And its so silly. Basically, they hook contestants up to a lie detector and give money to the person being the most honest. And of course they're going to ask the most sensitive, private questions, cause what would a show be these days without scandal, humiliation and exposing personal info for the public's entertainment.


To Fox, the show sounds absolutely retarded. Why not get off the stupid reality bandwagon and invest in better programming ideas.


To Fox 45 in Baltimore, seriously, what a waste of news coverage, spending too much time promoting an equally stupid TV show. Focus on news. Focus on something that may be helpful and informative to the community. Focus on something that may mean something to people (while you have the ability to capture a wide audience). Focus on something that can give people hope. Or something that can educate.


But stop saturating the airwaves with more and more bullshit. We have enough!

4 comments:

Not Your Average Male said...

Random rant: if you have watched BET lately (sorry to disappoint, but I stumbled across that Keyshia Cole marathon and got hooked), then you've noticed that 99% of the commercial breaks begin by promoting either the "Celebration of Gospel" special or that damn play with Clifton Powell.

Not as bad as "The Moment of Truth" (which I predict will have 23.6 million viewers for its debut), but it's maddeningly frustrating nevertheless

C. Holden Blackman said...

I have to preface this by saying that I don't watch television--excepting the occasional downloaded episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Family Guy. Additionally, I have a great disdain for Fox News and everything for which it stands. So, I'm not exactly unbiased.

That said, Fox News isn't real news. It is a fascist republican echo chamber. But, it is also a big jewel in the crown of Rupert Murdoch's monopolistic media empire. Naturally, he is going to use it in synergistic fashion to promote the other parts of his empire.

As to why they (and other media entities) won't "get off the stupid reality bandwagon and invest in better programming ideas", that's simple. Reality shows draw huge audiences and are cheap to produce. Having not seen so much as a nanosecond of a reality television show since two white girls convinced a black girl to go along with their lynching of the sole black male in the house in season 2 of The Real World, I don't understand the popularity of this type of programming. However, it's undeniable that a large part of the American public finds this, insultingly contrived, crap abso-fucking-lutely fascinating.

James Tubman said...

@blackman... the televison is used for one thing and one thing only

to get us to buy stupid s*#t

if we all get that through our heads then we won't be surprised when we see stuff like reality TV on it

and as for murdock

yeah, he owns a lot of newspapers and televison stations around the world as well

You can't live in a democracy without accurate information about how the world really operates

you can't get accurate news because the people who are ruining the world most are the ones who own the media

and they aint gonna tell on themselves

that really sucks

DANJSG1FAN said...

Fox 45 always does it, that's why I watch channel 11.