On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 11:05 AM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> I'm actually perfectly fine with CNN wanting to seek programing > options to avoid the 24-hour news cycle. It saves them from throwing a > bunch of opinionated talking heads onto the screen, and -- since they > aren't willing to invest money in local bureaus or experts in related > fields -- they frankly shouldn't be trying to program news shows in > every block, every day. I could easily see them doing a fun end-of-day > show like fx's long defunct BackChat (the vehicle that launched Jeff > Probst) where viewers provided feedback via email and video. And I > actually enjoyed D.L. Hughley's show on CNN a few years back, but it > was never given the chance to expand (anyone remember the first season > of two of Politically Incorrect when they had a tiny studio audience > and too many ideas going too many directions? but someone gave Bill > Maher time to work out the kinks). > > If there is an event requiring expanded coverage, CNN ought to be able > to do that, but when the news runs at its standard pace (and as long > as CNN underfunds news programing, thus preventing it from being > effective), thrice-a-day newscasts are more than enough. But since CNN > clearly isn't committed to news, having a lineup containing all news > programing makes no sense. Better to throw other things into the mix. > I don't know if I can get behind this specific project, but I have been thinking for a while that CNN's problem - and maybe Fox News too, is the model of being an all-news operation. It just seems that, whatever the initial idea, it just is not financially feasible to really program all news, all the time, and neither CNN nor FN nor MSNBC have really even been trying to do that for some time. There is no shame in this - in the mythical glory years of network television news, neither CBS nor NBC programmed 24 hours of hard news. If CNN and FN had something like entertainment divisions, that produced shows like O'Riley and Hannity and Pierce Morgan and whoever, these programs would be less odious and objectionable. Then they could have programs produced by the news divisions, which could aim to be straight, reliable and valid news. If CNN committed to 4 solid news hours (early morning, midday, evening and late night, eastern time), perhaps supplemented by 2 hours of news interview and background somewhere during the day, and maybe a 2 hour weekly "Frontline" type show, they would be doing us a real service. They could then fill the remaining 16 hours or so every day with whatever infotainment and news-like substances they wanted, clearly labeling them as coming from the entertainment division. And of course they would presumably have a quicker trigger than the broadcast networks on breaking into entertainment programing for something like breaking news, and maybe might have a 3 minute news summary at the top of each hour. -- 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
