As Promised, More Terrible Teases

I've been on vacation for a while, but I never take a break from hating promotions.

Here's a tease from today's 4 o'clock on ABC7:

THEN, JIMMY STEWART MADE HIS MARK IN HOLLYWHOOD HISTORY, NOW HE'S BEING HONORED IN ANOTHER WAY! SEE HOW HE'S BEING REMEMBERED BY THE U-S POSTAL SERVICE.

Hmmm... how many different ways does the USPS honor somebody? I was really hoping they were going to make a mailbox out of Jimmy Stewart, a la the R2D2-box. Alas, I was mistaken, and he just got a dumb stamp. Damn you teases, AGAIN.

I Hate You, Promotions

One of my pet peeves, something that irks me on all levels, even so much that it forces me to use to the work 'irk': Teases.

They're tricky little bastards to do right, and most of the time writers just fuck 'em up. Given more time, I'd list some more examples. But on Wednesday, just mere hours after the bridge collapse, ABC7 was already teasing their 11:00 coverage:

'Misery on the Mississippi'

I hate you, promotions. Pure disgrace.

(More on teases later...)

CBS Gets an F-

It goes without saying (but I will anyway): Yesterday's bridge collapse in Minneapolis is a huge story, and will be for weeks. "What went wrong?" will be the question that will probably never be answered, yet perpetually asked.

So yesterday, after the 6:00 local shows wrapped their wall-to-wall coverage of the collapse, it was the Networks' turn to take over. Now, the bridge collapsed around 4:00 PT. World News, Evening News, and Nightly all air from 6:30-7:00 for the east coast, or 3:30-4 for those slow in math (and I know you're out there). Here's a bit of inside baseball, "making the band" info about how the networks do their evening news shows. Generally, the show is live in all aspects for the east coast, like most things on TV. But the west coast feed (3 hours later) is usually different than the live version. After the live broadcast, Charlie, Katie, or Brian go back, re-shoot/update/edit/fix things from the live show. So by the time we see it here in L.A., the "West Coast Edition" (as Nightly calls it) is about as live as The Tonight Show.

There's two obvious reasons to reshooting the show:

1. Making the anchors look better by eliminating flubs and screw ups; and more importantly,
   
2. Being NEW (because the NEWS is supposed to be NEW) in case something happens between 4:00 and 6:30 Pacific Time.
   

Get to point right? Yesterday, while ABC and NBC went live with their respective anchors to cover the bridge collapse, CBS did not. For whatever reason, CBS and Katie Couric went with their canned East Coast feed, and had nothing on the bridge until about 6:45, with a live VOSOT.

There may be an excuse, and I really hope there is. Otherwise, the Evening News producers need to be fired, or flogged. Either will do.

Bad job, Katie.