Dear dimwit on the phone

Guy is upset that "an important NFL game" isn't being televised here and wants to know why WE don't put it on TV.

 

Doesn't this belong on the extravagance thread?

 

justhad a 10-minute call with an 85-year-old man who has apparently never heard of cbs, doesn't know what cable provider he has, whose remote apparently doesn't have a "guide" or "menu" button. he was mad at me for not printing every channel number for every possible cable provider, which he said would simplify things even though he has no idea which number would correspond to his system, AND HE'S NEVER FUCKING HEARD OF CBS. who in hell is too old to know what cbs is?

 

Just tell him to turn to the channel that Cronkite is on.

 

I thought CBS was the old people's network.

 

Last week on a typically busy football Friday, some guy called to complain about a feature we did…in 2000.

So to sum up: Thirteen years after it ran, and with pretty much everyone who helped compile the feature no longer working at the shop, this guy chose a football Friday to air his grievances, with his call coming close to deadline.

 

Are you one of those paper/television media conglomerates?

Trying to explain the TV rules and why certain games air where and when they do to people is a little complex, for sure

 

Guy called on Thursday afternoon and asked a pretty reasonable question about a high school outside our immediate area. I answered it, then told him to "call back any time."

He called twice more over the next couple of hours. The third time, I had to kindly suggest that we were getting a wee bit too busy for me to talk to him any more that day.

 

No, we're not a conglomerate, but one time a reader blamed us for the new sports TV stations over the past few years and accused us of trying to get more money out of people by making them subscribe to our satellite TV service.

 

Seems like there are more and more companies that own both print and broadcast outlets, which shouldn't be permitted, but apparently is. But, hey, the suits have far bigger things to worry over than what football game is broadcast when and where.

 

If it's any consolation, the flood of calls and emails to the TV stations from viewers that don't understand NFL broadcast rules is enough to make you leave the business.

People seem to think they have an absolute birthright to see whichever NFL game they want for free, on the TV channel of their choice.

 

Our previous sports editor would've bent over backward for this caller. You would not believe all the stupid crap we used to run explainers for just because some older person would call in confused about it. For the spring training baseball calendar, there used to be a guide that would say COL = Colorado, SD = San Diego, KC = Kansas City, etc., all because of one caller!