The Charlotte area had some rough weather yesterday evening. A tornado, heavy winds, hail, thunder and lightning out the wazoo, the works. That’s bad enough — actually, that’s plenty bad enough — but local television news outfits decided they had to make things even worse. How? By going through their now-standard, the-sky-is-falling song and dance, ad infinitum. Loud siren-like warnings, info about the upcoming storm crawling across the TV screen, and then more info about the now-occurring storm crawling across the screen, and just for good measure, wrap-ups about the storm that just passed through. Enough already!
Here’s something local TV weather folks don’t seem to realize, or maybe have forgotten: If someone is watching a particular station at a particular time, it’s because they want to see the regularly scheduled program — not neverending crawls, much less interruptions of the program that supposedly give more details as a public service but are, in fact, one great big pain in the ass.
Case in point: We’re watching the Duke-Baylor NCAA basketball game on WBTV when all of a sudden someone interrupts it to tell us of severe weather headed our way. OK, we think, good to know — but wouldn’t a crawl across the screen (make that an intermittent crawl, say, every five minutes) be just as useful? It’d certainly be a whole lot less annoying. We’re watching WBTV, after all, in order to WATCH THE GAME. But even after the interruption is over, there’s still a damned crawl warning across the top of the screen — and it never goes away. During halftime, another damned cut-in, telling us what anyone who’s been trying to WATCH THE GAME already knows about; followed by, yep, more crawling warnings, these conveniently placed right over the faces of people being interviewed during halftime. Finally, the game starts again, and, of course, more crawls at the top of the screen. That does it. Jesus, could you guys possibly be more irritating to your viewers? We’re not stupid, OK? We get it: There’s a bad storm — thank you for the info, but for crying out loud, leave it at that. Go away and let people WATCH THE DAMNED GAME in peace.
This article appears in Mar 23-29, 2010.
And if I might add another aggravation with WBTV’s constant weather updates during the game: for a long while they ran their weather crawl at the bottom of the screen, which covered up the game score. Ran right smack on top of it. I was actually happy they finally woke the f**k up and ran it at the top of the screen so we could at least catch the game score when we returned from the bathroom or whatever.
Oh man oh man, taking a simple story on weather interruptions during an NCAA basketball game and turning it into a political rant. Typical of the increasingly lunatic right wing.
The reason WBTV kept running its weather reports over and over has nothing at all to do with a “nanny” state and everything in the world to do with ratings, viewers and money.
It’s simple marketing. WBTV can now promote itself as the station that “was first on the air with severe weather reports,” providing “wall to wall coverage,” giving viewers “up-to-the minute accounts of the deadly storm that ripped through the Carolinas.”
WBTV and the other stations couldn’t give the first f**k about “nannying” or lawsuits because the former doesn’t pay the bills and the latter is a non-issue.
Frank, if you had the slightest clue about TV journalism, or business, or anything at all, you’d know that.
I have never agreed with your columns until now. These damn weather warnings have got to stop. If I want to know what the weather is, I will look out my window.
What a truly sick man Frank Griffin is. I suppose it’s a good thing his wife was shipped in from overseas and can’t understand a damn thing he’s saying.
Global warming is very real and this article hasn’t a damned thing to do with that. Pitiful as usual.
All the Charlotte television stations are out of control with most of their over the top ’emergencies’. The weather people take it overboard and only causes more grief and panic than is necessary.
Great article, Mr. Grooms!
Can your mail-order bride spell, Frank? Because you sure as shit can’t, as you’ve proven over and over and over again.
For instance, it’s “mainstream” media — not “Main stream” media. A 3rd grader would know that. But then, a 3rd grader would know his ass from a hole in the ground, and you don’t.
I wonder if your mail-order bride can spell the following sentence:
“I am married to a dumbfuck.”
I bet she can. Since she’s married to a dumbfuck.
I wonder if your mail-order bride can spell the following sentence:
“I am married to a dumbfuck.”
I bet she can. Since she’s married to a dumbfuck.
LMFAO, that’s the funniest shit I’ve seen in awhile!
Frank, you’ve been punked!
“under performed,” Frank? Is that the same as “underperformed,” as it should be spelled, and as it is spelled by educated, thinking adults?
Did they not teach remedial spelling and grammar in the trailer park where you grew up? Or were you so busy getting fucked in the ass by your drunken uncle that you didn’t have time to notice? Please let us all know.
Cheers!
I’m not surprised Frank’s “students” get a kick out of his silly little posts. They’re probably kids, which are the only ones he can relate to on a personal level. I’ve noticed that adults on this Web site pretty much consider him a douchebag, though, by a score of, like, 80 to 1.
BTW, I’m a Libertarian, Frank, in case you want to blame my position on my liberal bias. I disagree with 98% of what CL says, but at least they don’t sound like childish little dorks saying it. You, on the other hand, conduct yourself like a 5-year-old, always trying to get in the last word, always trying (and failing) to one-up someone with some obscure “fact” you pulled off the GOP’s list of favorite half-truths.
You’re more Republicrat than Libertarian. And more child than man.
Frank, I’ll keep this slow and simple so even you can understand.
You try to talk down to people, and act like you’re smarter and better informed than they are. You’re neither — not by a long shot — but that’s a different story.
The point is, you try to talk down to people. But when you do so you can’t even meet the most basic spelling and grammar standards when you do so. That’s the irony: someone who THINKS he’s smarter than everyone else, yet comes off sounding like an uneducated rube. It would be like someone pretending to be an expert in auto mechanics without being able to find the gasoline cap.
So as long as you carry on with your smug, superior attitude, your extraordinarily lousy spelling and grammar are fair game.
Or, as you might say, “fare game.”