Thanks to the Internet, most of us aren't as easy as we used to be. We are no longer the pawns of the hairdos on the evening news.
When it comes to television attempts to bait us into watching the rest of a news program, we are no longer so willing to play the fool. So it's surprising how many television newscasts and sportscasts still begin with those antiquated teasers:
"Will we be getting snow again tonight? Stay tuned for Sunny Dewdrop and her forecast later in the broadcast."
Or, "It looked like the State University Marmots might have their hands full in the Intermountain Croquet Championships, but a broken mallet handle changed everything. Details next from Brock Loudtalker and his evening sports report."
That doesn't work any more. When I hear a teaser like that, I don't sit there waiting helplessly for Sunny and Brock to give me the details. I get up and go to the computer where the latest weather and sports reports are always waiting.
Somebody needs to tell television news producers that the Internet has been invented.
Those teasers at the top of the newscast, designed to hold the audience, probably take the audience away. By the time Sunny and Brock do their thing I'm out of the room looking at a computer screen instead of at them. Their teasers have delivered me to the enemy -- to those Internet sites that compete for my attention. What century do these producers still think they're living in?
It's going to get worse. Maybe you think we are all such couch potatoes that we will sit and wait through commercials to find out who won the game or how much snow is expected. You may still be right in some cases. But not for much longer. We are near the day when most television sets are part computer. We will be able to access the Internet right there on the same screen that brings us the television news and its antiquated teasers.
We will stay seated there on the couch when we hear the teasers but we will use the wireless keyboard at our elbow to bring up the weather details or the game results right over the top of Sunny's cute little face or across Brock's beefy athletic demeanor.
Of course, those of us in the newspaper business have the same problem. We also lack immediacy. If people won't wait 10 minutes for the television sports or weather, then they certainly won't wait until the next day's newspaper edition either. Many newspapers now recognize that fact by offering online editions where you can find greater detail on news, sports and weather than you will ordinarily find on television. And we also bring you the organized detail in the printed edition. Television is the eyeball on the world and newspapers are the scorecard.
But people won't wait for information. We live today in the information age of instant gratification, and you ain't seen nothin' yet. We are not far from being able to watch television on our own schedules. We won't all sit down at the same hour and watch "Everybody Loves Raymond," the evening news or Sunny Dewdrop and her stylish new outfit on the nightly weather report.
In the future, Raymond, the news and Sunny will come to us when we say so. They will all be stored in a giant brain and we will call up their latest offerings when we find the time. We will no longer watch "West Wing" each Wednesday night. We will watch it when we want to watch it.
We will no longer march to one, big television schedule. We will schedule television to our own clocks, our own rhythms, our own lives.
So don't be a tease, Sunny. And don't get coy with us, Brock. We're in the saddle now and we won't wait through the murder and mayhem reports and the nine commercials to learn how our team did and what our weather is. We are no longer your eager playthings sitting obediently on the couch grateful for the sports and weather whenever you condescend to give them to us. The teasers that once kept us in place now send us running to the Internet to read www.everything.com.
By the way, Sunny and Brock, do you know what is going to happen after that?
Stick around for next week's column and, if you stop teasing me, I'll be happy to tell you.
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Hall may be contacted at wilberth@cableone.net