A few years ago the Indy TV stations stepped up their weather graphics game, buying smart systems that could output updated radar information on the fly down to street level displays. I could argue it’s the single most important thing we’ve done for viewer safety during Spring and Summer storms. All the systems are valuable, but of course I’m partial to ours. “Trueview,” I think, also has the strongest name. Were we geniuses? No, we just use the name of the actual software. That didn’t work for Channels 8 and 13, who had purchased identical setups that go by the brand name “Viper.” And they both used that name. And so no one had any particular advantage. “Does this supercell look better with Viper 1…or 2?” Channel 13 blinked first, ditching the snake for “X-Vision.” New, from Marvel Comics.
Words mean something, and we all have been guilty of wanting to control what others think of ours.
Speaking of guilty, as of this month Court TV wants you to think they are un-real. They are taking the long (true?) view, and have decided they need new Words To Describe Themselves. You can’t build a long term business model around O.J. (“Objection! Not for lack of him trying, Your Honor.” “Sustained.”) The case for “Court TV” has been dismissed, and replaced by “truTV.”
TruTV isn’t reality, its new slogan states. It’s actuality. “Reality has a connotation of not being real, of being phony,” said Marc Juris, executive vice president and general manager of truTV. “We felt that because (our programming) was real, we couldn’t call it reality.”
Got that? If something says real, it’s not reality, and if it’s reality, it’s not real. This sounds like something that belongs on another network. C-SPAN.
Just between you and me, the Smurfs are not real. But they are 50 years old today. Happy Birthday to bluTV.
the best name of a channel has got to be The Weather Channel. I never understood how you copywrite the weather 🙂
you said something on TV about St. Elsewhere today and your wife watching it. Where is that showing?
It’s Sunday nights at 8 on something called “American Life.” The channel is way up on our digital tier, so I’m not sure it is very widely distributed. That net also runs “Hill Street Blues,” along with a Monday night “MTM” block of Mary Tyler Moore, WKRP, and both “Bob Newhart Show” and “Newhart.” Sweet stuff for those of us in the older demos.
WKRP??? I wonder (‘Baby, if you’ve ever wondered’) if the episodes are un-cut, and use the original music.