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MSNBC’s fall-out from political coverage … Wilmington, N.C., gets DTV early
Fallout from the political conventions:
MSNBC has ended its stupid experiment of having opinionated analysts Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthew anchor actual political coverage. The guys remain free to rant and rave on “Countdown” and “Hardball,” respectively, but they will no longer be pretending to be news anchors.
NBC and MSNBC have had an increasingly uneasy relationship during election season. Fair and balanced? Not so much.
Elevating NBC White House correspondent David Gregory to anchor MSNBC’s upcoming debate and election night coverage should help heal the rift — and benefit viewers, too.
In an effort to increase its last-place cable news ratings, MSNBC had decided to go the leftwing opinion route during the primaries, possibly assuming that the move would do for them what Fox News’ conservative slant has done for Fox.
But loud-mouth right-wingers like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly don’t anchor news coverage for Fox, and MSNBC’s decision to put its opinion guys into news coverage roles backfired.
Ratings for MSNBC improved, but NBC News’ reputation took a big hit that has finally been deemed unacceptable. Kudos to the network for choosing what’s right over ratings … finally.
Now can we all just learn the lesson and move on?
Wilmington, N.C. gets DTV early
Today is Wilmington’s version of Feb. 17, 2009. The city is switching all of its commercial broadcast stations from analog to digital.
If viewers are plunged into darkness because (a) they don’t have cable or satellite or (b) because they have failed to buy DTV converter boxes for their rabbit-ear analog sets, we’ll know soon.
Wilmington has been spamming its viewers with even more dire warnings than the crawls we’ve been seeing for months on Austin’s stations: Are you DTV ready? Get DTV ready! Life as you know it will end if you don’t!
Today the folks in Wilmington who are NOT ready will see this message flash across their screens: “If you are viewing this message, this television set has not yet been upgraded to digital.”
Wilmington is the 135th TV market, according to Nielsen’s latest rankings. Austin is the 49th. We’ll see how they handle things.
UPDATE: How conveeenient! The City of Austin just sent out the following release …
The Austin Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission and the City of Austin’s Office of Telecommunications and Regulatory Affairs will present a free community forum on “The Transition to Digital Television” Thursday, Sept. 18 from 6:30 to7:30 p.m. at the Dottie Jordan Recreation Center, 2803 Loyola Lane.
Members of the community forum and those affected by the technological advancement are invited to learn more about the digital TV transition. This transition affects viewers with televisions that operate with rooftop antennas or “rabbit ears.”
Speakers will discuss the basics of DTV and what residents without cable or satellite television will need to do to continue to receive free over-the-air television programming.
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By austinights
September 8, 2008 10:52 PM | Link to this
Those two hacks don't deserve to be anchors nor have their own talk shows. Who watches them anyway? I like to watch the news for content - not hear their diatribe and put downs - no matter who the candidate is. Whatever happened to integrity in news? What about the real issues of the day and not worry so much about gossip mongering. When the mainstream media is taking their lead from The National Enquirer on stories - then you know awards like Pulitzer might as well be a prize out of a cracker jack box.