Friday, April 18, 2014

KTVU and the American Idol Twitter Quagmire; #IdolOn2 Leaves Permanent Scar and is Official Destruction of Bay Area Legacy TV News Station

 FRIDAY EARLY START

Just what the hell was someone thinking over at KTVU?

I'm talking about the lovely, genius idea of a station-wide American Idol  "live-tweet", complete with hashtag, #IdolOn2. Wow.

First off, I'm going to be kind here. You saw the "tweets" I posted on Thursday that came from mainly the news dept. at KTVU including, remarkably, the News Director, the 'Managing Editor', a few of the major anchors like Heather Holmes and Noelle Walker, heck, even top banana himself, Frank Somerville. As I said, I'm going to be kind, maybe.

I'm going to assume this epic failure of thought was somebody in the KTVU Marketing Dept. had this great idea and thought it would be real swell that the station's bigwigs would help promote, via Twitter, the station's big show, American Idol. That's what I'm assuming --a huge leap of faith, mind you, but I'm figuring that this great idea, how stupid and awful and dumb, it looks now, was the brainchild of some yenta or dork in PR who perhaps was nudged by the FOX people as some grand idea and shit, somehow, someway, KTVU and the misfits that run the news operation fell for this dorky, stupid, brand-tainting idea.

First things first before we continue to give the dorks at Channel 2 the benefit of the doubt. American Idol long ago lost its magic. American Idol's ratings are in the toilet. Idol used to be FOX's cash cow, its water-cooler America secret weapon --I'm not into talent shows --I like the real deal, but even I used to watch Idol because, well, who wasn't watching Idol? Only these days, actually, the past five or six years, American Idol began losing viewers, in droves. It's still popular but its ratings are more than 50% down from their high in 2007. The show started tinkering with the judges; most of the biggie judges started leaving, like Paula Abdul--mind you I don't care for Abdul, but her drugged-induced persona and weirdness had me watching as much as British Darth Invader, himself, Simon Cowell, who also left. Bye Bye Idol. Now you hear reports that Ryan Seacrest himself wants out just as soon as his contract is up, but let's get back to KTVU.

Supposedly, a few other Fox stations, especially Fox-owned stations participated in this dumb stunt. We can excuse them because they're beholden to the network but KTVU isn't owned by FOX. KTVU, I had thought, was protective of its brand and image as a Bay Area TV News tradition, yes, even though time has tested KTVU in recent years, it still reigned as a legacy station but that all went out the window with this ill-advised Idol campaign. It looked TACKY. Speaking of looks, it WAS A BAD LOOK. It reeked of desperation and despair --I'm being kind. It looked amateurish and contrived, certainly something that a major force, still, in the TV News Biz would not be a part of. Wrong.

This is where the captain of the ship intervenes and has it out with the network bigwigs and/or the misfits in marketing and programming. Kevin O'Brien, for all his faults, would have told whoever or whomever was a part of this tacky campaign to go shove it. O'Brien, better known as "KOB", in fact, may have even got into a fistfight to STOP this ridiculous idea. But these are different times at Channel 2. Mediocrity has become the high bar. Reporters come and go. Anchors no longer, it appears, give a damn, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt here and get back to the theory that this was some in-house campaign.

Whatever it made KTVU and the participants look like a pack of cheesy frauds. Credibility? Gone. I went to Twitter to see if this Idol campaign was the work of some parody account, but it was not. Sad. I'll tell you one thing, if I were Frank Somerville and Heather Holmes and the Managing Editor I would have told whoever was responsible for this to shove it, nicely. I would gone up to management people like the News Director and GM that by participating in this tacky endeavor would forever taint me and KTVU as a whole. Only, get this, both the ND and the GM, (Wonder Boy, Lee Rosenthal, and Tom Raponi, also took part in the Idol circus), my God. Are you kidding me? No, I'm not.

KTVU should be ashamed. I spoke to at least two of their key players who, of course, couldn't speak on the record because they were fearful of retribution. Anyway, privately, they too were embarrassed and thought the whole thing looked tacky at best. Mind you, some of the people taking part were respected, veteran on-air talent--you would assume they balking at such a stupid-looking thing like this travesty, they'd be given a pass or simple say no. But that didn't happen. You would also assume that 2's  News 'MANAGING EDITOR' would also take a pass, nope. The GM? Raponi started out his career in the Sales dept. so I'm not at all surprised there. He also doesn't talk but given the embarrassing Idol shenanigans maybe it's best he didn't talk too much. I'm assuming someone high up in the Cox Media food chain had a problem with this and there could be repercussions but I won't hold my breath.

What we've seen here is the official destruction of a once-mighty news division and a core group of reporters, anchors, producers and writers forever tainted. The Idol crash sealed the deal. Sure, it's a new world in the TV News business and such but this travesty, and it was, was about as stupid, outlandish and pathetic as can be. It accomplished nothing and only provided more scorn and embarrassment for the people who not so long ago thanked us for trusting them.

#IdolOn2 --forever. No more trust. Just a whole lot of laughs.

*Follow me on Twitter


25 comments:

  1. Lieberman (the guy who drools over weather girls) outraged again! That's a shock.

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  2. No harm, no foul Rich.
    This going to be your latest dead horse?

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  3. I noted this twitter-twitch and wow... it is shameful. KTVU should continue to be THE station for news, but with a ND and GM like they have at the moment... one should be ashamed to even call yourself an anchor or reporter over at 2. How does a ND stay around... when things like this happen... baffling!

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  4. Give 'em a break… after having milked the gay marriage cow dry the station needed something to replace its daily collage of unappealing people kissing each other, lest it lose favor in the community that most dominates Bay Area cultural tastes, the lowbrows.

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  5. This doesn't really surprise me. It took me a while to figure out why I dislike both "American Idol," and "Dancing with the Stars," to the point resentment.
    After all, what could be wrong with people singing and dancing???

    Finally, it occurred to me that my visceral reaction is due to the way that Fox and ABC turn these programs into major news events.

    From the time that "Idol" went on the air, "Mornings on 2," has been reporting the previous evening's results, and doing endless interviews with participants ... winners and losers throughout the entire contest.

    "Good Morning, America" does the same thing with "Dancing with the Stars." It's not unusual for them to include a tease for coverage of the previous night's episode in their opening rundown of "top stories."

    Networks and stations know that we will accept, as news, anything that they SAY is news. Of course they're going to take advantage of that -- until we say "that's not news!"



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  6. THIS MUST BE TOLD: I'm watching the Giants game and they show Amy G. talking to a 5 year old with a AmyG. sign asking for her autograph. So Amy kneels down and talks to the little girl while Kuiper narrates on the game...and some guy in a Dodger cap sneaks up behind Amy and puts his head on her shoulder and cops a feel of her cheek with his while talking a "selfie" . Kuiper- and good for him- calls out "That Clown couldn't have tapped her on the shoulder and said excuse me?"
    I hope Giant security threw that bum out. Man,that bordered an assault.

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    Replies
    1. Cool story bro?!? In other irrelevant Stan news...

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    2. The guy is a clown. Who in the hell would want a "selfie" with Amy G? I can excuse the 5 year-old for wanting the autograph, as she is too young to know any better.

      Amy G's presence is an assault. An assault on the nerves!

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  7. Rich--agreed, every word.

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  8. Simon was and still is American Idol.

    Randy was pretty cool, with his, I dunno man I dunno but lets give you a chance.

    Now it's pretty much unwatchable. I liked when Simon went on his tirades. You sound like the drunk dad singing at a Wedding.

    Much better talent over on The Voice.

    Desparate times mean desparate measures.

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    Replies
    1. What do you mean? Harry Connick, Jr. is an awesome judge! Not as mean as Simon, but just as insightful, perhaps even more so because he's a singer/musician and he can relate to the contestants on a different level.

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    2. Oh brother, folks arguing over the best/worst idol judge.

      Please refrain from voting in future political elections, you've already done enough damage...

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    3. 1:23, thank you. You took the words right out of my mouth. Well said.

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    4. 1:23 and 3:41….I think it is interesting to hear people's comments about the judges. Go ahead and look down on the posters, but they are having more fun than you and insulting their intelligence based on their comments says more about you than them.

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  9. Rich's self-righteous indignation about this is hard to take seriously.

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    Replies
    1. It's true what he says in this case though.

      And his indignation is always entertaining if nothing else (though at times he does have a point).

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  10. Ronn Owens on KGO Radio phoning it in the morning, giving his daughter more free air time to build her resume? ... boring TV talk... giggling ...

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    1. And don't forget, Ronn (with two n's) will make the latest installment of American Idol the subject of his next program.

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  11. This is a "quagmire?"
    Really?

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    Replies
    1. No, a quagmire is what is the current White House occupancy and its staff.

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  12. 834 and 909 must be sales people at KTVU or spouses of those responsible for the lack of professionalism. News people are news people. Sure, they're on TV and can be mistaken for being personalities. But they are news people. They should remain neutral and detached from the programming. But no media outlet has any sense of decorum or common sense any more. Look at CSN Bay Area with that braindead bimbo Amy G. She'd fit right in at KTVU. She'll be a whore for anything.

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    1. Braindead is also fitting for her employer.

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  13. More nonsense about Amy G. here? Why? She's ridiculous, should never be on the Giants broadcasts and is not worth mentioning.

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  14. I learned long ago that if I don't like something, simply don't watch. And happy to report that I have never watched either of those two dunderhead shows.

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  15. Why is Amy G. even on the Giants TV broadcasts? Does she have compromising photos of Larry Baer or Ted Griggs? How does this airhead bimbo with that annoying nasal voice keep her job? I guess it just shows you how dumb some of the people are that do the hiring in that schlocky business.

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