Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Local Television News Overrun By Commercials- Teasers



E
ach new ratings book for local television stations reveals that less people are even watching TV news.



One reason might be the endless commercial breaks and 'teasers' for upcoming stories that may still be 2 more commercial breaks away from actually being shown to you.

Time once was when the 5:30 pm national newscast began right after the local news sign-off- now- there's another 2 minutes of commercials before that happens.

Over the next month or so- we at CSW are going to tape and time the local newscasts from each of the 4 KC "news" stations.

We'll count and time the purely local news stories- as well as the number and length of those insidious commercial breaks.

We won't even bother timing the 5 pm local newscasts and their reporting of national stories when their network's national news is coming on next.

News/weather 'teases' in commercial breaks will be counted as commercials- since they contain no actual useful information for the viewer.

Senseless news people chatter during newscasts will NOT be counted as news time (it's already a waste of the viewers time).

Also- pieces that are veiled station self-promotion (those events that station "personalities" appear) will also NOT be counted as news- local or otherwise.

After all of that- don't be surprised when our numbers come out that there is actually very little time when news and/or weather is presented to Kansas City viewers.

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