If you haven't checked it, the column of PBS ombud Michael Getler is often a good read, if just to see what's bugging the pompous asses who seem to write the most to him. The latest column deals with complaints about the Ken Burns doc series on the national parks premiering on Yom Kippur (even if many PBS stations dealt with that by having the first airing in the afternoon on Sept. 27, before the prime time airing) and PBS following their SOP on the network's tentpoles of running an animated bug every 15 minutes of the PBS logo morphing into the program logo and then back to the PBS logo:
http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2009/10/the_mailbag_16.html Of course, by doing this PBS is risking offending their hardcore minority of viewers by trying to catch the majority of casual channel surfers, some of whom may not even know who Ken Burns is. And it should be pointed out that some PBS stations are doing commercial network-type things with their continuous logo bugs--in the week before the Burns series began, WTTW Chicago had a promo flag above their logo bug hyping the Burns series during all of their adult programming ("KEN BURNS' OUR NATIONAL PARKS STARTS SUNDAY AT 7"). Getler notes that the two biggest letter-getters were programs that didn't air on PBS--an independently produced and syndicated doc on autism and the disputed use of "facilitated communication" and a doc supporting the so-called "9/11 Truth" movement that aired as a pledge drive (!) attraction on defiantly lefty Denver secondary PBS affil KBDI (well, what else would you call a station that counterprograms the "NewsHour" on Denver primary affil KRMA with "Democracy Now!"). Of course, even if the shows weren't PBS, people just saw that PBS logo in the station logo bug in the lower-right-hand corner and assumed... --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
