Thursday, January 26, 2006

Thursday Three: Early Morning Viewing

After some prodding with a sharp stick, Terry whipped up the following bleary eyed tribute to early morning TV.

No, really--I really am kinda dense!
Another Thursday, and another Thursday in which I completely forgot about the most unforgettable, most fun, most engaging and stimulating activity ever to hit the Internets, the Axis of Weevil Thursday Three!

SO, bear with me as I compose something on the fly this morning. Usually in these cases, the questions turn out to be something of a smorgasbord with no central theme. (When I take time and think them up ahead of time, they are usually a smorgasbord with no central theme AND are boring.)

Here's one--our local early morning news shows are constantly doing stuff to try to get an extra viewer or two to tune in on a regular basis. As you know, I wrote one of them off after they dumped the star of the Wendy Garner Show, and so I've been wandering around trying to figure out what to watch now. Kenny Smith gave a hint last week that things might be changing over on Channel 6, and sure enough, it's ("it" being Good Day, Alabama) running from 5-9 (!) every morning now, and the two anchors who can actually read a teleprompter and who actually seem to be awake are now there from start to finish. Still not quite what I'd like to see, though.

1. What sort of early morning television show do you usually watch?

2. If you had your way and could create your very own show, what type of morning television show would you produce?

3. What sort of television programming at a local level do you think needs to be improved?

There you are, question fans! Take a moment to leave your comments below or a link to your blog, and remember the famous words of Les Nessman, "Good day, and may the good news be yours!"

1)Before kids it was the weather channel, it’s both soothing and informative. Now it is children’s semi-educational programming. Usually it is one of our two PBS stations which offer up Arthur, Postcards From Buster, Sesame Street, Dragon Tales and Caillou. I’m very proud of the fact that we remain a Barney free household. I think it is the over scripted robo-children, but I can not stand that purple dinosaur and neither can my children. If I had a choice I wouldn’t have any TV in the morning because it has a tendency to gum up the works, but we have it on for Max while he is parked on the sofa nebulizing. As a result he gets to pick what we watch. This has resulted in some odd choices. A few nights ago we were surfing through the channels for a show that is “good for kids” when we bumped into “The Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story.” I had paused because James Earl Jones was onscreen and pointed out that he was the voice of Darth Vader. After that there was no changing the channel. Max declared that the program was “kinda like Star Wars” and he wanted to watch.

2)Oh I don’t know, for grownups maybe a mix of traffic, weather and any special events of the day. It would be a bit repetitive, but useful for people that just want to quickly tune in and get some quick information. For the under 10 set I’m happy with my two PBS stations and what they offer in the morning.

3)It would be nice if a portion of the local news was dedicated to informing the viewers of local events and happenings in a more cohesive manner. Maybe the last five minutes could be dedicated to a nice rundown of what is happening during the following week.

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