Monthly Archive for September, 2005

Note: It is very likely this isn’t true. The guys over at BTVN say that although WHDH preempted half of NBC’s golf game, the network hasn’t complained to WHDH as someone who claims to know what happened says! I guess some WHDH hater acting like a troll and spreading false facts! At any rate thanks for the emails and tips, unfortunately for the rumor trolls that one won’t last long

WHDH, owned by Sunbeam TV, the same people who own WSVN if you don’t know that by now, chose to pre-empt part of NBC’s golf tournament game this weekend and instead simulcasted MSNBC coverage of Hurricane Rita at a time when everyone was finding out what the damage was after the storm. When NBC saw what WHDH did they threw a hissy fit over it because they’ve shelled so much green for this golf event and it’s costing them money.

On the btvn.net forum someone, I presume from the inside, said WHDH’s ratings during the golf game were around 1.2-2.5 down from a high of 5.8. Couple that with the seriousness of huricane Rita and it’s not hard to see why the suits at 7 decided the way they did.

Ofcourse if I were waiting for the golf game I’d be pissed too, but what WHDH did shouldn’t really be surprising considering WSVN regularly pre-empts programs to show news. Their main product is “more news than any other station” not really surprising they kibosh whatever they wish in favor of a news event as big as Rita, however redundant it’s coverage may feel to most of us

I watched CBS4 This Morning and whoever came up with the genius idea of shaving 5 minutes of ads for each half hour newscast needs to be awarded some cookies. I watched the last half hour of news 6:30am to 7:00am, they started at 6:29 and went commercial free to about 6:50am I think. The rest of the time they varied content with ad breaks as they normaly would.

The whole newscast felt watchable and had more continuity feel to it although without the ads weather and traffic kind of feel repetative. Weather especially since the forecast doesn’t change at all.

Nice move though, it would be nice if all newscasts had half the ads. It would be interesting to see if other stations adopt the formula. Of course some pocket books are bound to be hit, unless they charge double the rate, but with DVRs becoming more common I’m not sure 30 second ads are what they used to be.

On NBC6 this morning they said Michelle Kosinski, who’s now reporting for NBC News, was named sexiest reporter by Rolling Stone magazine. Bob Mayer said he always knew Michelle “was something special”.