Thought I would take a peek at KIRO's 7 pm show, designed, of course, for people arriving home later from their workday. It's a highly aggressive newscast, with an overkill of story-starting graphics lkie 'Caught on Camera,' 'Exclusive,' 'Mason County,' and those are just three of many. When you try to make every thing special, nothing is special. The graphics whiz by at fast pace with hardly a moment to digest much of the actual content. I feel like I want to hear the story again, because I missed something on the first pass. Lots of double boxes, too, with anchors and video combined, which is distraction with no purpose. We know who the anchors are, so why do we need to see them in those side by side stories? Oh, son't worry, I get it, it's a production device.
The show offers high story count volume, but I would argue that it needs to step off the gas for people who just want a good, solid summary without the general breathlessness. Could not watch this every night, honestly.
It is a definite alternative in the market, and KIRO has always had the best breaking news reputation. Hare and the Tortoise compared to KING at 7 and KOMO at 6:30. And how does it do against Wheel?
KIRO fans, hit me up with some counters and start some convo.
Elle Thomas is hard to watch. She talks way too fast.
ReplyDeleteShe can at times, especially when anchoring solo. She seems to talk a bit more slowly when she has a co-anchor. I'm not going to fault her for it too much as I suspect it may have something to do her with trying to match the pace and format of the newscast, potentially at the direction of her bosses at KIRO. I cannot confirm any of this as fact, but this is my suspicion.
DeleteNo doubt that the orders at KIRO are to push the content hard and fast.
DeleteThere isn't anything necessairly wrong with pushing content hard and fast, but the format is certainly not for everyone.
DeleteFrom what I've seen of KING's 7pm news, it moves more slowly (not too slowly, just slower), which provides a good contrast to KIRO's offering, and gives viewers a choice of what kind of newscast they'd like to watch at 7pm: hard and fast, or lighter and slower.
It would be interesting to see how the ratings for these newscasts compare to Wheel and Jepoardy on KOMO, as well as Fox 13's West Coast News Wrap (I've only seen a couple episodes of that, and all I can say is that falls victim to the same problem the national network news does: too much to cover, too little time to cover it in).
I'm not a frequent viewer of KIRO's 7pm news, but when I do watch, I get the same feeling that you did. Its too agressive and too fast. It needs to slow down and take its time. Its okay to have fewer stories in the newscast if it means the viewers will have a better understanding of the stories that are covered. If they want to keep the high story count, expand the show to an hour, but slow the pace down so that people come away feeling informed. Under the current format, they might just feel overwhelmed and even more confused about the day's news.
ReplyDeleteTwo words: "Hard Copy". That's all I'll say.
ReplyDelete