Where's The Week?

Thursday already and I haven't posted a bit this week!!! Been busy at work, sweeps; and Scouts every night this week (Meetings, committees, training) and I have an all day session on Saturday, so I am booked.

This time of year is called the book in my business, sweeps to some. It is when the networks pull out the big guns to get the big ratings so they can charge the big money to the big clients. It works the same on the local level except instead of quality programming and big guest stars, we do newscasts. We want to get good numbers in key demographics to watch our newscasts (5, 6, 10, and 11) so we can crow about being number one and charge big bucks for commercial spots next quarter. The problem most of us on the production side have is that there is no rhyme nor reason sometimes. It is a do it because we can do it mentality that makes a show look like crap and the talent look uncomfortable. Example: We have one of those touch screen monitors for Traffic that they use in the morning, you can draw cars on it with your fingers, or pull video out of a little helicopter or put lines, highlights, etc. Well the higher ups want the regular talent to use it in the evening newscasts to 'enhance' the story. Problem is that those that use it were trained on it for a few weeks then practiced daily for a week or 2 before going on air. So we do a fake touch screen where the talent makes like they are touching it and we in the back change the source in the monitor so that it looks like they are changing it by touching it, it is really pretty stupid.

My comment has been all along that if you want people to watch and want good ratings, then put on good shows, quality shows every day and you will get that audience. There should not be a period where you do your best work, that should be called DAILY!!!!