Dear dimwit on the phone

Dear radio callers,

You have clearly stated your dissatisfaction with my employer for its political stance. However, you're trying desperately to connect it to me and my sports section. When you speak with me, speak about sports. I have no influence on any other part of the paper. I don't handle election returns, I don't set up debates and I don't write one letter of political editorials.

We don't deal in conservatism or liberalism in the sports section. We deal in wins and losses. As for this withholding of information you claim, where is it happening in sports?

You have my phone number. I know this because I said it clearly on air. I await your call. I'm sure you'll be quick to ring me up.

-ER

 

One of our writers was one the phone for a little more than 30 minutes humoring an old lady that it was vague on how to find the regional cable sports networks for our area. She was initially looking in our weekly TV Week-type supplement, which we don't actually publish -- it just has our contact info because it's personalized for our paper. Then we pointed her to our daily TV listings on Page 2. She then complained about the abbreviations we used for the networks (SPSO for Fox Sports South; FSN for FSN South). She also then complained about why we don't list the actual channel numbers, but she had trouble realizing that, since our coverage area is covered by at least two cable providers, not to mention DirectTV, Dish and just regular non-cable, that a network may be on 5 different numbers on the dial.

The phone call eventually just became humor after a while.

 

Sure, it's all fun and games til grandma strokes out.

 

Really though, aren't we to the point that TV listings are useless? Every cable system comes with a guide now.

 

Here in Podunk, Idaho, my paper tried cutting the TV book to only people who specifically asked for it to be bundled. Of course, people don't actually read the notices printed weeks in advance, so we had low orders and, of course, a high volume of complaint calls. Because people wouldn't read the notice right on the TV book saying, 'Hey, if you don't call and specifically ask to keep it, you're going to lose it on (whatever date)."

We had people cancel subscriptions over us ending the TV book, which we didn't end. Of course, we also had people livid that we pulled Peanuts after more than 10 years of running the same strips we had printed in the 1980s.

But, you wouldn't believe the people screaming about the city increasing the water rate "with no notice." They must have not read the city government reporter's numerous stories on why the city leaders want to increase the water bill, how the city leaders are inviting residents to attend the public hearing, or the story on the city council voting to increase the rates because only five or six people showed up to the public hearing.

These are the people I don't mind losing as readers, because they're not actually reading the paper. They want a TV book, comics and coupons delivered to their door. They don't want news. They want to be ignorant. This is why I don't believe in the future of journalism. Too many people are content with being ignorant to everything except what's on the damn TV, and too many who think we should give them everything we work on for free.

Sorry, it's been a tough few months at work. End of rant.

 

A printed TV guide is 100 times easier to use than the cable system guides you have to scroll through.

 

Seriously? Mine is now advanced enough to the point where you can just type in show names. While I imagine a print guide is still easier for, say, looking at all the prime time network options that night, if you're looking for specific shows it's easier to go on the electronic guide.

 

We had someone call last week to cancel because we dropped Dennis the Menace.

 

I was looking at an old paper from the '70s recently, and it was amusing to see the nightly TV listing take up about a quarter page. Total. There were only eight channels listed (The three networks, the three local affiliates, PBS and a religion channel).

I almost felt nostalgic about that simple era, until I remembered when I was a kid and there were only two channels that showed cartoons at certain times. If they weren't on, I was out of luck.

 

Depends on the system, too. Some are slow and have crappy search functions. And it helps if you know the channel number.

 

Of course, there's also TVGuide.com and titantv.

Our TV "section" now is just a grid provided by some company for free. But only a certain number of channels are listed or else this company would charge. And it has to have some of the channels for the town with which we print our common weekend paper so it lists channels we don't get here and channels not available there (We don't get Bravo or FX; they don't have MSNBC). And it doesn't list all the local stations. And there's no listing for Fox Sports Net because we get the KC feed and the other town gets the St. Louis feed, which can vary slightly at times (Our NBA team is the Thunder, theirs is the Pacers; our NHL team would be the Avalanche if their games weren't on Altitude, their is the Blues).

But dropping the guide for this grid may have brought about more complaints than for the next three hated things combined. And people complain that this grid is hard to read (and it is). Of course, this grid tries to cram about 40-45 channels into a 2 col x 4 inch space.

 

We probably get more calls to the sports department about what channel something is on or if something is on TV or why something was listed or wasn't than anything.