In like a tired bad joke, out like a tired bad joke. In 2013, the biggest, recidivist local TV news story — easy to freshen, cheap to provide and just as easy and cheap to sensationalize — was the weather.
On Dec. 23, WNBC Ch. 4’s “News at Noon” led its report with this unfolding story: It’s raining.
Although, as was shown on Ch. 4, not heavily, thus the lead report concluded with the news that the rain soon should end. Funny thing about rain ending — it always has.
This top-of-the-telecast news was followed by a report that holiday traffic is expected to be heavy. Again? Gee, that’s gotta be close to 100 straight years.
Coming in third on WNBC’s list of news priorities was the latest on the apprehension of four men suspected of carjacking a young couple — and shooting the husband dead — at a Short Hills, NJ, mall.
That third story simply could not compete for time, space and positioning with news that a light rain is soon expected to stop, and holiday traffic, in and around New York City, is anticipated.
And to think that Ch. 7 News is even more top-heavy with weather — even storms out to sea and expected to die there — are sold as “Run for your life!” grabbers.
2014 forecast: more of the same; no reason to believe that local newscasts, next year, will be modified to target those who once relied on — put their trust in — local newscasts to provide local news.
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A few weeks back we lamented the loss of Thanksgiving as a time when TV would see fit to shelve its crude, vulgar come-ons — even if just for a few hours, even if only in its Thanksgiving-attached sitcom promos.
And so it seemed inevitable that the coarsening of America, as orchestrated by TV’s just-aim-low, modern marketing geniuses, would next soon infest Christmas.
So let’s hear it for the fine folks at Kmart who produced, then approved, an all-day, anytime ad in which a kick-line of six males, dressed in boxer shorts, furiously shake their hips in a “Jingle Bells” routine.
Get it? Testicles as jingling Christmas bells! Clever and classy!
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With the Dec. 21st death, at 91, of John Eisenhower, we not only lost the son of a president, but C-SPAN viewers lost an author of American history who made for engrossing interviews.
John Eisenhower’s measured, modest and good-humored demeanor — and knowledge — will be missed.
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At the risk of sustained accusations of grumpy old man syndrome — I developed it in my early 30s — how do singing talent shows — “The Voice,” “American Idol,” “X-Factor,” et. al. — expect us to appreciate or measure talent when the ostensibly live audience screams and “Woos!” often, as if on cue, during the performances?
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The show I was most easily drawn to in 2013? Glad you asked. NBC’s “The Biggest Loser.” Not that I watched it, but because every time I heard those weight countdown beeps, I came running from a different room, thinking someone had left the freezer open.
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The cops/TV news phrase that should not make the trip to 2014 is “robbery gone bad” (and derivatives, such as, “drug deal gone bad”).
If the victim hadn’t been beaten, stabbed, shot, murdered, it would have been a “good robbery”? Why not “robbery gone worse”?
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The month’s most ridiculous debate was fired by Fox News’ Megyn Kelly’s assertion that Santa Claus is white.
He is white! As right-headed people everywhere know, Santa Claus is any color you want him to be, including turquoise, peach and burnt orange.
Have we forgotten that long before Superman, Batman and Donald Trump, Santa was the first super-hero action figure?