11.09.2005
Pandering To The Ratings
It must be sweeps week. The local TeeVee news is pushing special stories to make you worried, so worried that you’ll have to tune in.
Sweeps, in case you didn’t know, is a period during the year when the rating services decide to pay extra attention to who is watching what when. (Sounds like they’re making an effort to be at least halfway accurate.) The pressure is on for network and local programs to score good numbers against the competition so that they can charge top dollar to advertisers.
On the local level, the local newscast usually works the fear angle: “Lead Paint In Your Schoolyard!” “How Pedophiles Lure Your Kids!” “They (the frightfully unspecified “they”) Might Live Next Door To You!”
Occasionally the sex angle is used: “High School Girls Are Dressing Like Young Hookers!” (That “hook,” like the other preceding ones, was actually used by the local TeeVee news.) Of course, besides the titillation, a story about girls in scanty clothing provokes fear because parents will be worried about how their daughter is attiring herself while trying to keep her away from lead paint, pedophiles, and “They.”
# posted by Stan Spire @ 8:51 AM 
