One of the biggest news weeks in television history occurred in July of 1969. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, Ted Kennedy took an ill-fated drive across a bridge, Muhammad Ali was convicted of dodging the draft, the Russians did a little nuclear testing.
But it's summer. As I've heard managers say for years, "Nobody's watching."
Something caught my eye the other day...a little story that network news is up five to seven percent over the past year. A million more viewers for a format universally described as "dead" because of the Internet.
And this weekend networks trotted out their varsity teams to cover a story that impacts us all. Oh yeah, this past week the NFL settled its lockout, and baseball had its trading deadline.
But nobody's watching. It's summer. Nothing's going on.
Proof once again that content is king. Give viewers something interesting, and they'll tune in. And let's face it, the networks are canceling soap operas but we've got a new dysfunctional reality show called Congress. It's getting as good as the Ewings and the Barnes on "Dallas."
We can't wait for news to happen, but when it does we have to jump in with both feet.
And when news isn't falling in our laps as it has the past few weeks, we have to look for stuff to keep the viewers interested.
It's summer. People are watching.
As long as you give them something interesting.
TVNEWSGRAPEVINE, copyright 2011 © Randy Tatano
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