Cloudy Skies for My Television

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So it’s Saturday night, and guess what I’m looking forward to? 

Watching one of my favorite television shows in a first-run episode.  No, my taste for television isn’t so bad that I’m reliant upon Saturday night programming (is there anything original on Saturdays anyway?).  And, no, I’m not digging back into my DVR to catch up from earlier in the week.

I’m watching Lost, which is being aired on my local ABC affiliate tonight at 10:35 … and I’ll get to watch it with sidebars on the screen rather than in full HD!

Those who don’t reside in my part of the country - but do pay attention to the national news - probably know that the Midwest was peppered with some pretty solid spring storms late in the work week.  Straight-line winds, a few minor tornadoes briefly touched down, and there was some damage that appeared rather compelling.  So it seems logical that most of our Thursday night was dominated by local meterologists on our televisions.  But, as you may have guessed, I have several problems with this. 

First of all, I have HDTV, which means I have two of every local channel.  Why do both frequencies have to be ruined by weather coverage?  What I’m looking for with my HD feed is a message in the corner that reads something along the lines of,  ”For severe weather info, please tune to analog channel.”   

Too much to ask?  Consider this: Two of our local channels also have a 24-hour weather channel on our digital tier.  Why not steer viewers to those otherwise useless spots on the dial?  These also just so happen to be the ABC and NBC affiliates, which were the ones I needed Thursday to watch Lost and The Office. 

Point #3:  Three of the four local KC stations own “sister channels” within the market, Fox being the only one which doesn’t.  ABC owns the channel that doubles as our CW affiliate, while NBC and CBS run UHF frequencies that seem to only exist to air poor local programming and reruns of South Park and King of Queens.  What I’m trying to say is that, as a digital cable/HD customer, I had 16 local channels that broadcast pretty much nothing but weather coverage Thursday night. 

Is it important to cover severe weather?  Absolutely.  Don’t think I don’t understand that.  But, like the storm cells that approach, things aren’t always terribly organized.  Maybe the forced transition to digital television in 2009 will help me cause.

*****

A little salt for my wound:  The local NBC affiliate has announced that ER will re-air this weekend, but the rest of its usual Thursday night lineup will not.  I bet I can watch The Office online at NBC.com, but forgive me for not getting too excited.  I bought a large HD television for a reason, and I’d prefer not to watch one of my favorite shows on my 17″ computer screen.

And who watches ER these days anyway?  I saw the promo for this week:  “The ER held hostage!”  How many times have they gone to that well?

How about for next week a crazy storm wreaks havoc on the ER?  Oh, they’ve probably already done that before too.

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Filed under Lost, Media, News, TV, Weather