News Update!

[John1]

The breaks on the Howard Stern show (and I imagine other morning shows) are now saturated with commercals for Channel 29 news. "This is a Fox29 News Update", followed by hype for some sweeps-like story they are running that night. If you're half-listening you'd expect you were going to hear the latest news headlines, not a "crummy commercial" for some story you'd wait to watch and forget 5 minutes after you saw it.

I'm not sure - is this an insult to the average listener's intelligence, or really clever marketing? They hype it, you decide! I guess in fairness this is as much "news" as the opinion shows the cable news channels run in the evenings.

 

[MattB]

> The breaks on the Howard Stern show (and I imagine other
> morning shows) are now saturated with commercals for Channel
> 29 news. "This is a Fox29 News Update", followed by hype
> for some sweeps-like story they are running that night. If
> you're half-listening you'd expect you were going to hear
> the latest news headlines, not a "crummy commercial" for
> some story you'd wait to watch and forget 5 minutes after
> you saw it.
>
> I'm not sure - is this an insult to the average listener's
> intelligence, or really clever marketing? They hype it, you
> decide! I guess in fairness this is as much "news" as the
> opinion shows the cable news channels run in the evenings.
>
Thats the same way the commercials on TV for Fox News are...<P ID="signature">______________

</P>

 

[Jim_Hicks]

I first heard the ad last week on BEN. At first I thought "hmm, they are actually adding life to the iPOD." Then I realized it was an ad. Anoying? YES. Did it catch my attention? YES. So the ad did the job. But I still won't watch Fox news!
> The breaks on the Howard Stern show (and I imagine other
> morning shows) are now saturated with commercals for Channel
> 29 news. "This is a Fox29 News Update", followed by hype
> for some sweeps-like story they are running that night. If
> you're half-listening you'd expect you were going to hear
> the latest news headlines, not a "crummy commercial" for
> some story you'd wait to watch and forget 5 minutes after
> you saw it.
>
> I'm not sure - is this an insult to the average listener's
> intelligence, or really clever marketing? They hype it, you
> decide! I guess in fairness this is as much "news" as the
> opinion shows the cable news channels run in the evenings.
>

 

[radiophile]

Has this run on KYW-1060? I imagine they would precede it with their usual "the following is a paid commercial messsage."

They have done that with:

Ads for political campaigns that are made to sound like a commercial, and

An ad for something (I can't remember what) that was made to sound like a radio traffic report.

Maybe KYW won't even accept these ads. I sure hear a lot of ads on KYW for CBS3 Eyewitness News and Channel 6 Action News.

 

[Wil]

> Has this run on KYW-1060? I imagine they would precede it
> with their usual "the following is a paid commercial
> messsage."


They don't do that. I heard these spots on MMR too. I thought they were doing a new partnership with FOX, but then realized it was just a commercial. After September 11th, MMR started plaing news updates provided to them from WPVI. These were legit, not commercials. I thought FOX was doing what WPVI used to do.

 

[odomski]

These promos will run on various radio stations during "sweeps" month. November is the biggest ratings month of the year. It's a marketing strategy to get people to listen to the promo, then tune in to Fox 29 News to watch the story. It's marketing. You only see an abundance of radio spots, promoting TV newscasts during a "sweeps" month.

 

[eGillCVI]

I've been hearing this during Stern's show as well (I think I've also heard it on Sunny) and it is pretty annoying. The thing is, if a car drove into City Hall at 9:30 in the morning one day, the "FOX29 News Update" would still be running for the rest of the day with no mention of the day's big news event. Then is when average listeners will notice the ploy.

To those of us who aren't average listeners, it's immediately a sorry state of affairs which cheapens an actually-pretty-good newscast.

It might be a good marketing idea since it surely grabs the attention of listeners. But...will those listeners be thinking of it twelve hours later when "The Ten O'Clock News" actually airs? I kinda doubt it.

Anyway, what can you expect from an already-tabloidy news show that airs immediately before "When Geraldo Attacks"?

> The breaks on the Howard Stern show (and I imagine other
> morning shows) are now saturated with commercals for Channel
> 29 news. "This is a Fox29 News Update", followed by hype
> for some sweeps-like story they are running that night. If
> you're half-listening you'd expect you were going to hear
> the latest news headlines, not a "crummy commercial" for
> some story you'd wait to watch and forget 5 minutes after
> you saw it.
>
> I'm not sure - is this an insult to the average listener's
> intelligence, or really clever marketing? They hype it, you
> decide! I guess in fairness this is as much "news" as the
> opinion shows the cable news channels run in the evenings.
>

 

[eGillCVI]

> So the ad did the job. But I still won't
> watch Fox news!

It kinda didn't do the job then! LOL.

Actually, there are a few reasons to check out their newscast. One is that they actually do tend to cover stories from somewhat different angles sometimes and that's refreshing. Also because they're kinda funny. Wait til you see how seriously this Shratweiser (spelled wrong, I'm sure) character takes himself. It's a hoot. Also, they're pretty laid back which is nice. Mainly, you have to check out Rob Guarino doing the weather. He is many times more informative than the other weather folks in town and he's not at all afraid to go out on a limb with his forecasts. He also takes the time to really explain stuff to viewers.