A great improvement for TV newscasts?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by John B Good, Jul 29, 2016.

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  1. sirmikael

    sirmikael Forum Resident

    Location:
    Cedar Rapids, Iowa
    Same here, but at least those talking heads are guests, and aren't supposed to be professional.

    Speaking of which, we have come a long way in the webcam stuff. I remember watching ZDNet/TechTV back in the late 90s, and watching their webcam guests was brutal.
     
  2. The Hud

    The Hud Breath of the Kingdom, Tears of the Wild

    This is awesome and pathetic at the same time!
     
  3. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    I know, I know. I was once a copy editor for a daily paper. Talk about an extinct species. Today the crap just goes up raw to the website, and if somebody reads it for content (as opposed to spell-check) before the print edition, well that's nice.
     
    EdgardV likes this.
  4. Fastnbulbous

    Fastnbulbous Doubleplus Ungood

    Location:
    Washington DC USA
    Ad free? How do you propose paying anybody to provide this service?

    PBS and NPR have tons of ads BTW, they're just disguised as "corporate partners".
     
    Grand_Ennui likes this.
  5. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    I don't really know. But the whole "news as entertainment" thing has pretty much ruined things.
     
  6. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    The news director literally told me, "we want to have full disclosure and tell the viewers this shot is coming from the air, and not on the ground. :eek: I pointed out that the sound effect of the helicopter was fake, but he didn't get my point. KABC Channel 7 did this all the way up until about 5 years ago, so it was a thing for decades.

    I'm docile and ignorant on a good day!

    Note that the two things local news loves to do the most is a) fires (especially from the air), and b) freeway car chases. Both are visual, both have a fairly simple story, and both get great ratings. But neither is really news in terms of detail and impact on average people.

    The producer would probably say, "ehhhhh, it's just a graphic to grab people's attention." And they probably don't have an animated logo for "Old News" or "Yesterday's News" or "Continuing News."
     
  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    It's also very punchy. I once had a conversation with an ex-editor from Entertainment Tonight, who had been there 20 years before getting unceremoniously dumped after a producer purge. I told him I preferred the editing style they had in the 1990s, where they seemed to actually tell a real story with a beginning, middle and end. I kind of lost interest in the show around 2000 or so. He nodded and said that the new producers' directive was to endlessly promote, promote, promote, so the big story would be placed in Segment 3, and the show would open with a tease, then right after the first segment and going into commercial there'd be another tease that would promise, "coming up: that sensational story you've been waiting for!" Commercial, then segment 2 (with no mention of sensational story), then another promo, and then finally the promised segment would appear.

    I pointed out that all these teasers crowded out space for actual reporting and interviews, and he sadly nodded and agreed. He said that the show went from about 19 minutes of content to maybe 15 minutes of content and 4 non-stop promos. Local news does this a lot, too: it's about holding on to viewers over a long period of time, not about doing a story well and then moving on to the next thing. And it's all about being punchy, fast-moving, high impact, and flashy.
     
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  8. The Hud

    The Hud Breath of the Kingdom, Tears of the Wild

    So, did Kramer have a seizure because of Mary Hart's voice, or all the promos? :)
     
  9. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    The incessant teases give me seizures. It's like "GET TO THE F'ING POINT!"
     
    The Hud likes this.
  10. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    I am always amused when the teases tell you more than the actual story when they finally get to it.
     
    Grand_Ennui and EdgardV like this.
  11. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    The teletype loop that KYW has used forever (it seems) sounds like a Model 14TP or 14ROTR piped through a phone line. Having heard different teletype sound qualities on YouTube clips (notably from the Museum of Communications), I have been able to discern which model based on its sound. (Their on-the-half-hour time tones of :00.5 second duration have ranged over the years from 750 to 787 Hz, but that's another topic for another thread.)

    Most teletype sound effects were of a Model 15, and a few of Model 28's.
    This sound effect is the one heard throughout the "Channel One News" segment of the 1974 film The Groove Tube.
    And a 10-second loop (or 62 "clacks") of the second track on this one is what has been heard for some three decades on KYW's New York sister station, 1010 WINS (New York's audience is as resistant to that kinda change as Philly's). Another loop from that same second track, albeit one channel, was used c.2007 by then-sister station KFWB in L.A. WINS's use of that SFX would have dated to its flirting with AM stereo in the mid-to-late '80's. Before that, they had a muddy-sounding homemade recording of a teletype loop.
     
  12. W.B.

    W.B. The Collector's Collector

    Location:
    New York, NY, USA
    Sort of like a teletype SFX on radio being the news' equivalent to Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax" on The Benny Hill Show . . .
     
    Vidiot likes this.
  13. John B Good

    John B Good Forum Hall Of Fame Thread Starter

    Location:
    NS, Canada
    In "recent news", a lot of the amateur cell-phone video of "events" is now framed with a blurry version of the footage, rather than just huge black bars.

    Guess they have given up on hoping the amateurs will actually hold their phone sideways when making the recording :(
     
    Grand_Ennui likes this.
  14. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    That used to be a mandatory policy, but it kind of evaporated over time. News services don't have to follow any general rules beyond the policies established by each individual network or channel.

    This is sadly true. I was horrified to hear a few years ago from a pal of mine in Northern California that they eliminated the show director's position so that the entire news show was "directed" by automation. Basically, the news anchor and a technician input the script into a computer, and the computer directs the show depending on the timing in the script.
     
  15. O Don Piano

    O Don Piano Senior Member

    Soon there will be no anchors. Just computer-directed images of "hot" guys and gals with modified lip synching based upon voice recognition technology.
     
    John B Good and Vidiot like this.
  16. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    [​IMG]
    THE NEWS WITH MAX NEWSROOM
     
    O Don Piano likes this.
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