Is anyone else NOT watching the Oscars tonight? (1 Viewer)

[Worth]

It matters more to the local affiliates who are waiting to start their late news. You're just sitting there with no way of knowing how long the show's going to run, knowing that every minute can cost viewers as people may not stay up late enough to watch. That means pissed advertisers due to lower viewership or a later air time than was "promised." It can also cost overtime due to having to keep people later than anticipated. It ties down the entire crew. You can't leave. That means you could be on-set or at your position for an extended period (I've had to keep a crew on position/set for almost an hour due to a ballgame overrun). You have to be ready to go at the scheduled end time and then just sit there wishing they'd just get it finished so you can do your job and go home. It never fails that one, or more, anchors will want to leave the set once an overage hits ~10 minutes. They seem to think their time is more valuable and they have better things to do than sit waiting for some program to end. Fortunately, I rarely worked the late shift but when I did wind up working on one of those nights it was a royal pain.

Why wouldn't they just tape the news at the usual time and delay the broadcast? Is most local news still done live? I don't know much about it, but the handful I'm familiar with pre-tape around 10pm for broadcast at 11 or 11:30.

 

[Mike Frezon]

TV news is all about immediacy (supposedly).

If I still watched local TV news and knew they were taping it ahead of time, I'd stop watching.

 

[skylark68]

I saw a few segments but didn't watch the whole thing. I enjoyed the tribute to war films and military veterans. I was glad that Dunkirk and BR 2049 took home a couple of awards. I typically haven't watched the Academy Awards in some time but some films i enjoyed were actually nominated this year and won some awards so I was a little more interested than the last few years.

 

[BobO'Link]

Why wouldn't they just tape the news at the usual time and delay the broadcast? Is most local news still done live? I don't know much about it, but the handful I'm familiar with pre-tape around 10pm for broadcast at 11 or 11:30.

TV news is all about immediacy (supposedly).

If I still watched local TV news and knew they were taping it ahead of time, I'd stop watching.

This exactly. They're not willing to take that chance. I can't imagine any self-respecting news department pre-taping any entire newscast. Segments that don't matter or change much, Sports & Weather, yes, but not the main news portions. Many around here will replay the late news in the middle of the night but the original goes out live.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I can't imagine any self-respecting news department pre-taping any entire newscast.

But there's the rub, Howie.

I'm not sure how many newsrooms really still respect themselves or their place in journalism. They may think highly of themselves, but "respect?"

 

[BobO'Link]

But there's the rub, Howie.

I'm not sure how many newsrooms really still respect themselves or their place in journalism. They may think highly of themselves, but "respect?"

I hear ya! When I was still in broadcasting I directed the news but had zero respect for any of the "reporters" or "producers." Especially after this:

One afternoon while rolling up the "Coming up on tonight's news" tease/promo I thought the story sounded interesting so I made a point to watch the cast that night. The story had nothing to do with what was teased so I made a point to complain to the producer the next day. I was told "It got you to watch, didn't it?" and a big grin. I replied "Yes, it did. But it'll never happen again! How do you resolve that with the sponsors? Keep it up and you'll lose normal viewers who just won't bother to tell you why they left!" That producer now teaches broadcast news/reporting at the local college. I hope she learned her lesson and those kids aren't being taught bad habits - but I doubt it...

 

[MartinP.]

We can have a differing opinion, of course, but I meant what I said: The Academy should recognize Black Panther as a Best Picture nominee.

Jake, I was only making a joke because you mistyped and wrote "Black Panther should be nominated for Bet Picture."
As in BET - Black Entertainment Television. I was joking!

I agree with you, it's a worthy choice so far. Wonder Woman also could have been. The idea of having up to ten best film
nominees came about after The Dark Knight was one of the best reviewed films of the year and thought to have a chance
to enter the Top 5 nominees. It was thought that having more nominees would open up the Best Picture slot to some other
types of films like Dark Knight, Wonder Woman and now Black Panther. Also, perhaps, Foreign Films, Documentaries,
maybe even a comedy, or Sci-Fi (Arrival did last year) and animated films--but once animated got it's own category that's
been pretty well dismissed.

But IMO that intention hasn't worked out very well.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I hear ya! When I was still in broadcasting I directed the news but had zero respect for any of the "reporters" or "producers." Especially after this:

One afternoon while rolling up the "Coming up on tonight's news" tease/promo I thought the story sounded interesting so I made a point to watch the cast that night. The story had nothing to do with what was teased so I made a point to complain to the producer the next day. I was told "It got you to watch, didn't it?" and a big grin. I replied "Yes, it did. But it'll never happen again! How do you resolve that with the sponsors? Keep it up and you'll lose normal viewers who just won't bother to tell you why they left!" That producer now teaches broadcast news/reporting at the local college. I hope she learned her lesson and those kids aren't being taught bad habits - but I doubt it...

I took time recently to e-mail a local weather-caster who used his ten second tease of the 11pm news (during prime time programming) to actually give me some useful weather information and then tell me that if I wanted details, he'd have them "at 11."

I wrote him and told him I thought it was GREAT that he actually used the time to give me some actual pertinent weather information (as opposed to what's usually done). He wrote back saying "I know EXACTLY what you're talking about."

And then the next night it was if none of it had ever happened. "Instead of even a thin sliver of actual info, he reverted back to a series of questions wrapped around a scare attempt: "Big chance for a huge blizzard! Will it hit our area? How much snow can we expect? Details at 11!" And that's the way its been ever since. He probably got "talked to" by a superior.

When you think that he knows all the answers to those questions but chooses not to tell me in that same amount of time, I actually get angry. Probably my advanced age (and subsequent reason).

I've been in the news biz nearly all of my adult life, too, and while I totally get the idea of teasing viewers to watch the broadcast...you could still do it with finesse and in a positive construct. It's bad enough that the pay is so low that most everyone involved in local news is about 15 years old!

 

[Josh Steinberg]

And then the next night it was if none of it had ever happened. "Instead of even a thin sliver of actual info, he reverted back to a series of questions wrapped around a scare attempt: "Big chance for a huge blizzard! Will it hit our area? How much snow can we expect? Details at 11!" And that's the way its been ever since. He probably got "talked to" by a superior.

When you think that he knows all the answers to those questions but chooses not to tell me in that same amount of time, I actually get angry.

That kind of teasing is very annoying to me as well. It doesn't even make sense to me to keep the weather forecast a big mystery until 11pm - anyone who gets scared by the tease can easily check the weather forecast on their computers or phones and get those answers instantly. So to my mind, rather than luring viewers into tuning in, you're just alerting them to an issue and then driving them to check elsewhere for instant information.

 

[TravisR]

Why wouldn't they just tape the news at the usual time and delay the broadcast? Is most local news still done live? I don't know much about it, but the handful I'm familiar with pre-tape around 10pm for broadcast at 11 or 11:30.

I could be wrong but I assume that it's still live. If not, crackpots couldn't yell out "Baba Booey" when a reporter is standing outside.

 

[BobO'Link]

Those practices are why I no longer watch "news" on TV. I get what I want elsewhere.

Weather people are somewhat encouraged to be sensationalistic even when reporting "Sunny and warm tomorrow!"

I get my weather directly from NOAA (where everyone in broadcasting gets their main info - even if they have local radar and a meteorologist on staff) and worked in broadcasting long enough (27 years combined radio and TV) to learn how to interpret their reports just like the "weather guy" does (it's not that hard).

I get my news from the paper - other than national stories provided by the network, the same place the local broadcasters get most of theirs (I've sat with assignments editors enough to watch them read/look at area papers before handing out assignments - yes, I gave them all grief over the practice). In all fairness, they do get some news on their own, but it's rather minimal. A lot of it is simply because most of the news staff tends to be younger, barely-out-of-college, types.

 

[Malcolm R]

I would have been happy to sit and listen to speeches from the rest of the producers and I just think that if you are awarding them the pinnacle of all movie awards, really, they should be allowed to say what they want to say.

I also agree. Either they should allow BP as much time as they want, or they should place a clear limit the number of people who may speak. Allowing two people to speak, but cutting off others who were just as involved in the film is just poor taste.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Jake, I was only making a joke because you mistyped and wrote "Black Panther should be nominated for Bet Picture." As in BET - Black Entertainment Television. I was joking!.

That's funny. I didn't notice the typo or would have corrected it. Sometimes my keyboard doesn't actually get all of my keystrokes for some reason.

And yes, we are in complete agreement about the fact that the expansion of the category hasn't worked out as it was allegedly intended. They've just been nominating more small films than they did before.

 

[MatthewA]

Jake, I was only making a joke because you mistyped and wrote "Black Panther should be nominated for Bet Picture."
As in BET - Black Entertainment Television. I was joking!

Since there actually are BET Movie Awards, it's funny because it's true.

 

[Bob_S.]

But you didn't watch when The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers were similarly nominated? Interesting choice.

Why do you say that? It was Return of the King that got all the press about being nominated for 11 Oscars, and that it had a good chance of sweeping, so I wanted to see how many it would win. Honestly, didn't even know the first two were nominated for anything. Did they win any Oscars?

Edit: Looks like Fellowship won 4 and Two Towers won 2. Didn't even realize that.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Why do you say that?

Because all three of them were nominated for Best Picture even back when the field only supported a strict limit of five nominees and the whole series had wide Academy support. The Return of the King would not have been able to pull off its sweep if the initial two films had not also been well-liked by the membership.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Just adding my 2 cents about this, I stopped caring about the Oscars when I realized that those who vote for them are NOT required to have actually seen the movies being nominated. I've gotten surveys about what I thought should win, and did not answer them because having not seen every nominee, I didn't feel I was qualified.

While the Razzie Awards (honoring the worst movies of the year) are still amusing, I suspect that most of those voters haven't actually seen every movie either- I've seen all of "Gigli" from beginning to end!