Archives for August 2007

just found this on YouTube tonight. Didn’t know whether to laugh or feel bad for the girl.

I decided to laugh.

I’m looking forward to Wednesday’s debut of the reality/comedy show “Anchorwoman”.

I’m sure you’ve heard about this show about a network affiliate in Tyler, Texas that “hired” a fashion model as a reporter/anchor. The model, or star of the show, is a former “Barker Beauty” from “The Price is Right.”

The general manager hires her to increase ratings. The reporters and anchors at KYTX, of course, aren’t too pleased. From the promos I’ve seen, the “Anchorwoman” Lauren Jones goes out on stories with a crew “Are we gonna jump out of the car all ‘newsie’?” She asks.

Now I have assumed the station she goes to work for is a FOX affiliate, since the unscripted tv series airs on FOX. But the station where this all takes place is actually the CBS affiliate in Tyler.

So…that makes for a very interesting problem for the Tyler FOX general manager. Does he air the show that features one of his competitors? Hmmmm.

The station manager for KFXK, the Tyler FOX station hasn’t decided whether they’ll air the show. Now that’s a conundrum. He’d be guaranteed big prime-time ratings since just about every set in Tyler would be tuned in each week. But, then again, it might promote the competition’s newscast.

If FOX Tyler doesn’t air the show what happens? The CBS affiliate will pick it up.

So…what would you do if you sat behind the desk as the KFXK gm? Air a show that features your competitions anchors, reporters and newsroom? Or, decline to air the show and let the CBS affiliate air it to what I imagine will be Texas sized ratings?

I rarely hear new music that I like. Too much of what’s getting played on the radio these days, whether you’re talking country or pop or rock, sounds like it came from the same group of producers. But this is one band I can’t seem to hear enough of.

The Zac Brown Band caught my ear a couple of years ago on the Rick and Bubba Show. He (Zac Brown) and his band play a brand of music that I, a fan of Chesney, Buffett, Mellencamp want to hear more on the radio.

They’ve got a new album out which I just sampled at the Aware Store and it’s even better than their first album. In fact, some of the second album is re-makes of their first album. I also found a free podcast of a live concert on iTunes which I’ve burned to disc and enjoy over and over again. I’ve loaned, and then given my copy to a buddy at the tv station and he’s as hooked as I am.

Their playing this weekend at Auburn and Alabama and I hope my daughter who’s going through Rush at Bama drops by to hear them play.

So go over, give Zac Brown and his Band a listen. Check out “Whatever It Is” (one of my all-time favorite songs now) and “Toes” and “Chicken Fried”. “Where the Boat Leaves From” could have been a hit for Kenny Chesney or Buffett.

I’m a big fan and I hope you like ’em too.

I’ve had enough. Plenty enough of reality tv.

Survivor was good. Big Brother even held my interest for a couple of seasons. American Idol? Good tv. Heck, I’ve even watched Beauty and the Geek, Big Break 1, 2, 3, and 4. But now, reality television has put on the leather jacket and waterskiis.

The latest are the two almost identical shows: The Singing Bee and Don’t Forget the Lyrics. Horrible. And I’ll bet I’m one of only a handful of folks who sampled “National Bingo Night” earlier this summer.

Pull the plug already on reality shows. Please!

Let’s get back to our regularly scheduled programs. Sitcoms and dramas and news magazine shows. Shoot, these reality shows make me pine for a good old fashioned comedy/variety show. If given the opportunity to watch another episode of “The Singing Bee” with that geek Joey Patone, or whatever his name is, I’d choose a rerun of “The Brady Kids” or “Donnie and Marie”.

Somebody please page the creators of Sha-na-na, Sonny and Cher or The Glen Campbell Show.

And don’t forget about the sitcoms. Who wouldn’t watch something like “Gomer Pyle USMC” about right now? Or Happy Days, MASH, or The Cosby Show?

Time for the tv cycle to turn to something besides reality programming. I never thought something on tv could be more mindless than Punky Brewster.

I was wrong.

Since moving to Nashville a year or so ago, I get asked every now and then “See any famous people yet?”

I joked about it for awhile as the only “celebrity” I saw after a few months of living here was the actor who played “Juan Luis Pedro Philipo DeHuevos Epstein” on Welcome Back Carter. Robert Hegyes was the most unlikely celebrity I thought I would meet first but there he was on a story I was working on for tv.

But last week, I saw Duane Allen of the Oak Ridge Boys at church. We’ve met several times so I stopped to speak for a minute. Yesterday walking out of Publix, I ran into Marty Stuart walking in. I said “Hey Marty” when he looked up like he thought he knew me so we talked a few minutes about our church. It was pretty funny after I walked back to the car. Cameron was waiting (she’s always had a thing for Marty’s hair) and was a bit jealous that I was the one who spoke to him. She said “what were ya’ll talking about”, and I told her we talked about our pastor who’s in the hospital and how he said they’d be praying for him. Then it dawned on me what else I said.

As I was about to walk away I said “good seeing you. Ya’ll doing all right?”. Just like I have heard my dad ask about a billion times to people he knows. “Ya’ll doing all right?”. As if Marty and I were old friends. It just seemed the natural thing to say for some reason. And yes, He and Connie are “doing fine”.

Pretty cool.

So in the past couple of weeks I’ve seen around town: Ricky Skaggs, Duane Allen, William Lee Golden, Lorrie Morgan, Sammy Kershaw, Kreech Rainwater (the drummer for Lonestar) and Jeff Jarrett, the wrestler and Mandisa from American Idol, Teddy Gentry from Alabama, We’ve also been inside the home of William Lee Golden and though I haven’t seen him yet, one of the Kentucky Headhunters lives on the street behind us.

I can’t help but think that’s pretty cool.

As a religion reporter, I rarely ever saw another tv station reporter on the same story. I could go weeks, even months before I’d see another station covering the same story I was covering.As a general assignment reporter again, I’m sometimes in a rather large crowd of journalists setting up for the interview and getting the b-roll shots.

What I saw Monday though, was unlike anything I’ve seen before.I was sent to a pro-wrestling company to cover the announcement that suspended Tennessee Titan Pacman Jones was joining TNA Entertainment while his football career is on hold.

I got there early and walked inside where I found the local AP photographer waiting. A few minutes later a guy walks in with a video camera. Then another, and another and another.By the time the news conference started I counted 9 video cameras in the room. Nine!!There are four local affiliates in Nashville so where did the other five cameras come from?

It turns out, a couple of the other stations in town sent a couple of crews. News and sports were shooting the conference. Another video camera was from The Tennesseean while the other was from the Associated Press while the last was from the wrestling company.

The AP and the Tennessean now have videographers covering a select number of stories each week. They were both using small format DV cams similar to what I carry. In fact, it was a little refreshing to (for once) not having the smallest videocamera in the room. The AP camera was one of the new Sonys, I think an HDR-FX7. The AP videographer was using an older model Panasonic.It’s the first time I’ve been on a shoot with print media journalists shooting video.

They told me The Tennessean rotates video duty among its photographers while the AP has a videographer ready to go. The Commercial Appeal is fortunate to have two photographers on staff with their own gear who love shooting video.

Newspapers are moving that way as their online editions attract more and more readers or viewers. I wonder how long it will be before they are hiring multiple videographers to do what tv stations have been doing since turning on the lights.