Jamey Tucker’s BlogSquat

So which station had the best burglar tonight?

May sweeps started today so what did the two big stations in Memphis do? They both kicked off the book by hiring burglars to break into somebody’s house.

Apparently this stunt spiked the numbers in other markets recently, so WMC and that other station on the river figured if it plays in Peoria, it’ll play in Memphis. Both burglars appear to have had some tv experience by describing tornadoes.


WMC

Kudos first of all for teasing the story, but placing it in the third block. They seemed to recognize this was not news, it was a stunt and therefore did not belong in the first block. There’s bad weather afoot and that’s important, especially with Memphis in May starting this weekend. They led the newscast with a live report on what they’ll do if a tornado or severe storm hits the park with those thousands of people. Good decision.

Joe anchored the segment live from the house which I liked. Their burglar seemed to have more personality and a good sense of humor, he was fun to watch going through the house. He didn’t cover his face either. The video looked good, crisp and showed us everything the burglar was doing. Technically speaking, it was flawless.

WMC didn’t try to make a Hollywood production out of it either. No funny lighting, no spooky music. As classy as they could have done this stunt.

THE STATION ON THE RIVER

Was it just me or did it seem like you were watching Sam Phillips (rest his soul) going through this house? He was wearing some type of face cover which was distracting. Why did he have to cover his face? I thought he was a FORMER burglar. Maybe somebody should follow this guy home after the news.

What was with the red lights? The reporter live on the scene was covered in a creepy red light that distracted my attention from the point of the story. They also dusted off their copy of the “Murder She Wrote” soundtrack to add creepy music which made the whole thing look and sound rather amateurish. I felt like I was walking through a haunted house thrown together by a local high school band.

The station also opted to put this story at the very top of it’s newscast, except for a quick look at the bad weather moving in tomorrow. Guess there was no news in the mid-south today.

Their burglar did seem to get more of a haul in less time than the guy from WMC. This dude went through the house so fast it made me think he was going to hit the house next door when the show was over.

And did anyone else notice that even though the station was careful to shield his identity by covering his face, they didn’t bother to keep his license plate a secret. I’ll bet a good director back at the station said a dirty word when that came up on the screen.

I don’t know which station did this better. Both stunts were similar. I was hoping for a more dramatic “break-in” but both burglars just broke a glass window, reached in and unlocked the door.

I hated the red light and music from TSOTR. On WMC I liked the helicopter shot of the house but what gives WMC the win here was the reporting of recent statistics about break-ins in Shelby County. That actually helped make this a “news story” by giving relevance to the whole stunt. The other station seemed to be more interested in making it look like a bad independent film than the actual content.

thats just my 2-cents.

jt

Just read the story about the new Airbus A380 that made it’s maiden flight today. It can carry 840 passengers, that’s half the population of my hometown!

Who wants to be on a flight with that many people?

Sorry for the lack of updates. Lots going on, but probably nothing any of you would be interested in.

I’m up to my elbows in projects so I stayed up late last night, got up early this morning and didn’t leave the house until around 1. Tonight I made a presentation at a Collierville church for a project I hope to be working on this summer.

I did make it to Wal-Mart today. I guess being stuck in the house most of the day made me kind of want to get out amongst people. You won’t find any place in America where you’ll get over that feeling quicker than at Wal-Mart.

If you ever see me standing in line at a supermarket or Wal-Mart and you’re in a hurry, do yourself a favor and get in another line. I have this knack of finding the slowest line in the entire chain of stores. The woman in front of me tonight had purchased something in the home and garden section but didn’t bring it to the counter with her. She DESCRIBED what she wanted to the cashier who then had to get on a phone with Barney in the Garden Shop and describe it to him. “It’s a round thingy that goes”.

A swimming pool? A tire? (we’re in the south you know). A hemorrhoid cushion?

No, it was “a thingy you put in the yard…you know around plants and stuff”.

Barney, the cashier and the human speed bump finally figured it out and I thought we were on our way. But nooooo. The slow-poke had to write the item number down in her little notebook that she apparently carries around to note each and every special Wal-Mart moment.

Then…there were the coupons.

Then, the cashier forgot to give her her cash back and needed a supervisor.

By this time I had picked up one of those hyped up Mountain Dews in the tiny can. You know the ones they call “energy drinks”. It has about 100 grams of caffeine in it. After I finally got through the checkout line I reached for my just-paid-for jolt of life and pushed my cart toward the door. The cashier yelled for me to say I had left all of my bags at the checkout.

That one little run to Wal-Mart took nearly 45 minutes and about 4 years off my life.

I noticed as I was finally pushing my cart to the parking lot, I was walking sideways. I must have looked like a dog as it runs to you from far away. You know what I mean, when the dog’s butt sort of gets un-even with the rest of his body and starts to get sideways.

I guess that’s what they mean by being dog tired.

A busy day today. I was the guest speaker at the Olive Branch Rotary Club. We talked about tv and trends and advertising and marketing and the iPod generation.

I’ve been in between projects the last week or two and it’s been a little nerve-racking; wondering if this self-employment thing is going to work. Today helped me get over that.

I’ll be in Collierville tomorrow night to make a presentation for a project, and another meeting Thursday on another project and I got a phone call from a church in Senatobia, Mississippi. They want a marketing type video on DVD they can pass out to visitors.

I’ve got to learn how to enjoy the slow times.

jt

Thanks to STN for letting me know I was back in the Valley for 3 minutes.

Back when WHNT started “For Goodness Sake” about 10 years ago, we debuted the series or franchise with a 5 part look at faith. We talked to people about why their faith is such a big part of their lives. We talked with people with no faith in a higher being about their skepticism.

I was a bit concerned about how we would tell this story visually. There are no great pictures to illustrate someone’s thoughts or feelings. We didn’t have any archive footage of Jesus or the Reformation or the Second Coming of Christ. I didn’t know how we’d do this seemingly “newspaper story” on television.

Then I found out The Freedom from Religion Foundation was holding it’s annual national convention in Huntsville. All of these atheists and agnostics practically came to our door.

My news director wondered what would be the reaction if we put these folks on tv for all of the Bible Belt viewers to see. They did have some pretty radical ideas about God, or the lack of a God. I remember one soundbyte to this day “I was raised in a Baptist church, was saved and baptized. But as I got older I had to come to grips with the FACT that there is no God, and there was no such person as Jesus”.

There were others that I was sure would send many of our viewers running for the phone.

We discussed these soundbytes and decided we had to air them. People did go running for the phones, but they weren’t blasting us for airing the comments.

I remember after the first piece aired, (it was an on-set introduction) I ran back to the newsroom and listened to our “feedback line” which gave viewers an opportunity to leave their comments. The comments came for more than an hour, one right after the other. We aired many of these feedback calls the next night and For Goodness Sake was off and running.

Carson Clark (a reporter/anchor) at WHNT ran one of those first stories in last night’s Sunday broadcast. A 12 year old story that I hope viewers still found interesting and relevant. Thanks Carson, for keeping this religion reporter back in the news.

No way my wife will go for it though. I grew a goatee for a few weeks last month and she pitched a fit until I shaved it off.

I thought of this today as I watched the WKNO Auction. Joe Larkins, who looks pretty dashing in a full beard was one of the hosts. When I tuned in he was wearing a pretty pink ladies hat and a feather boa. Good thing he has a beard.

Good computer tech, who I’ll now be able to call “my computer guy” got me back up and running today. Paul Miller of Now Technical Solutions made my computer a priority, found the worm, exterminated it, and got my computer back in my hands. Same day service at a reasonable price.

I’m running Firefox now and hope to get used to the interface quickly. I don’t think the worm came through IE, but rather that darn Kazzaa Lite program I stupidly downloaded a few weeks ago. Even as computer literate as I consider myself, I’m ashamed to admit I sometimes just hit the next button instead of reading the tab which tells me what I’m agreeing to when downloading a program.

I will not be using WinMX or Kazzaa Lite ever again. iTunes and even Wal-Mart offers music downloads for just a buck a file.

I went by the house last night to take a few pictures and see how much has been done on it. I was walking between the trees trying to figure out if we could wrap the driveway around the front and between the trees so we can have a circular drive. I wasn’t really looking where I was walking, looking over my shoulder to picture the driveway. I looked down just in time to see my foot about to come down on a snake.

I hate snakes. This one was so close to my foot I had to jerk it back. I don’t know that I’ve ever been jarred by anything like this snake jarred me. I froze. I probably even shook, thinking for sure I was about to be bitten.

It looked to be about 4 feet long and had the color of a copperhead except for a couple of bright yellow streaks in it’s markings. After I shook for a second or two I noticed it didn’t have a head.

I suppose some of the workers spotted it and beat the thing to death and chopped off it’s head.

It spooked me so much I carefully walked back to my truck and drove home. No pictures this time. I went back today to take a snapshot, but couldn’t bring myself to walk up the drive again.
Funny, I’m a grown man but I’ll probably be spooked by that snake for years after we move into the house. Go ahead, make fun of me. I really don’t care.

jt

A couple of weeks after installing broadband, and I have my first virus. I don’t know that my computer has ever been infected before, but this is frustrating.

It’s a trojan horse virus called csmss.exe that automatically disables your virus protection. Tonight I upgraded my zone alarm and then my Norton Anti-Virus to 2005. Norton will not protect my computer.

csmss loads on startup. You can’t delete it and since Norton won’t work, I don’t know what to do. I’ve been fooling with it for hours, searching the internet for solutions. The only one I’ve found so far requires you to go into safe mode and then into dos and rename the file before deleting it manually.

I’ve tried that, but my DOS knowledge isn’t what it used to be and I can’t remember how to rename a file in DOS.

I think I got the virus from the music sharing program Kazaa. DO NOT DOWNLOAD THIS PROGRAM! And if you have it: DELETE IT IMMEDIATELY!

This virus isn’t crippling my computer, but it does keep Norton from working and it causes Windows Explorer from starting. It also causes some programs to start running.

Anyone know what to do here?

jt

After my blog about the community involvement of my old station (WHNT-TV) in Huntsville, I got an e-mail from someone from the Valley who tells me the station has dropped many of it’s community events. Apparently, according to this person, the bottom line has taken precedence. The station has dropped it’s annual “Kids Count” expo and won’t be sponsoring a booth at the Panoply Arts Festival which is one of the biggest community events in that city.

Their competition, WAAY and WAFF will be at Panoply. I would think all of those folks dropping by those booths will go home, turn on the tv and watch the folks they just met.

That’s too bad. As I’ve mentioned Tennessee Valley viewers have a very real relationship with the on-air people at all three stations. I remember some of those events were a bit tiresome for us reporters and anchors, but we all knew deep down that they were important in developing those relationships and thus, ratings.

Viewership at all local stations is down across the board. Could part of that decline be because viewers no longer relate to the people they see on tv? Consultants tell stations to get viewers they have to investigate more, create more exciting tv, be more aggressive, and cover more news. That’s been the call for the past decade and it hasn’t worked yet. Tv stations are fighting over an ever dwindling viewer pie.

Maybe what will work is what worked 15 years ago. Be essential to the viewer. Make your newscast a ‘can’t miss appointment’. Develop a relationship between the on-air staff and the people in front of the tvs.
Be real, give the viewer a peak behind the curtain every now and then (that’s why reality tv is such a hit).

You can’t have a successful movie or tv show without good character development, giving the audience a reason to connect with the character. Screenwriters let viewers decide if they like the character or dislike the character.

Why do you think Survivor and American Idol go to such great lengths to introduce the people on the shows? Viewers have to identify with the people they are going to be watching. “Nashville Star” did away with the preliminary competitions this season and look what happened: the show stinks partly because viewers didn’t develop any feeling about the contestants.

It’s important for every newscast, every reporter and every anchor. Weather forecasters are typically viewer favorites because they are more real to viewers than news anchors and reporters. They don’t read from scripts, they talk to the viewer instead of reading to them.

When WHNT was at the top of the ratings, the station did everything it could to bring viewers closer to the anchors and reporters. As I said yesterday, I must have played in 30 golf tournaments a year and sat in booths at Panoply, Kids Count, station open houses and Big Spring Jam.

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

As for me, I had the honor of being the honorary chair at this week’s golf tournament for the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home. I’ll be speaking to a women’s group on Monday, a Rotary Club on Tuesday, I’ll be at Collierville FBC on Wednesday and with a Business group tomorrow and next Thursday.

I’ll be shaking hands with a lot of people who don’t watch local tv anymore.

jt

I thought it was “The Simple Life”. No…it’s a former “one of the better shows on tv” finalist.

Nashville Star on USA. When this show hit the air a couple of years ago I liked it more than American Idol. Now? It stinks. Although I think it is physically impossible…it seems to suck and blow at the same time.