The News Chair » TV

A breath of fresh air

Shawn Sorrells — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:56:13 +0000

Every now and then I see something that really “entertains” me. Sometimes it’s the little things that I just happen to witness, other times it’s the more standard movie, TV show, book, concert, joke, friend, etc. It’s rare that a TV show impresses me …mostly because they can’t like a good film because of the huge difference in budgets.

I enjoy Vince Gilligan’s “Breaking Bad” on AMC. Vince worked on dozens of “X-Files” episodes and has since created, written, directed and produced all the episodes of “Breaking Bad,” which is in it’s 4th season on AMC.

The show is funny and dark at the same time – usually hard to pull off.

Click on the thumbnail to watch a karaoke video of one of the sub-characters on the show. The karaoke video surfaced during a homicide investigation – yes, Gale was murdered.

Watch the video – caution you may find the video: funny, werid, disturbing, puzzling, etc. Just remember it’s part of really “entertaining” TV.

It’s all about the story.

Caught in the media multitasking mess

Tiffany Whisner — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:45:49 +0000

How many things are you doing right now… in addition to reading this blog entry, that is? Watching a YouTube video? Writing an e-mail? Sending a text message? Well, it seems that more media multitasking is on the rise — and I can’t say I’m surprised!

The amount of time viewers spent watching TV while at the same time cruising the Internet grew 34.5% last year to an average of 3.5 hours a month in 2009, up from 2.5 hours in 2008, according to a Nielsen Co. report released this week.

Nielsen says nearly 60% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month while also watching TV — up 3% from a year before. The survey also notes that the number of people who are multitasking grew almost 5% from the year before to 134 million.

“The report seems to suggest that concerns by TV executives that the Internet was taking people away from their shows are unfounded. In fact, live TV viewing increased 1% in 2009. Add in time-shifted viewing a la TiVo, and the average number of hours jumped to a total of 163 hours a month watching TV in 2009, up from 160 hours in 2008.”

So what are people doing as they watch TV? A look the top 5 sites visited by these media multitaskers gives some clues:

Google
Yahoo
Facebook
MSN or Microsoft Bing
YouTube

But is multitasking really a good idea? … Sorry… just got a text… Right, CNN.com says heavy multitaskers are more easily distracted by irrelevant information than those who aren’t constantly in a multimedia frenzy, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Even when you think you’re doing several things at once, you’re more likely switching rapidly back and forth between them — actually compromising productivity. Plus, multitasking puts stress on your brain’s memory-retention center…

Wait, what was I doing?

Local News Goes Interactive

Tiffany Whisner — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:59:01 +0000

It’s a trend that is taking over the local news in every market–going interactive. No longer is that anchorman or anchorwoman such an unreachable star. It seems that every person you see on the air these days broadcasts their e-mail, Twitter information and more.

Facebook and Twitter are now helping local stations connect with their audience and tap into new viewers. And not only is social media being used as a way to interact with on-air talent but also as a way for viewers to help shape the news content for the day. “Tweet in your opinion on this topic.” “E-mail us about what’s going on in your neighborhood.” “Send us in your pictures.”

According to an article in the Boston Globe, “As local stations lose viewers and advertising revenue, they are turning to social networking Web sites for help. In recent months, news directors have used such sites as Facebook and Twitter to generate stories and, hopefully, boost ratings.”

Eventually — will the news become only what we make and want it to be?