Back in 1997, I did TV for CBS News, when The Computer Answer Guy was a talking head for their overnight national program Up To The Minute. In the spirit of nostalgia, here I am, with then-anchor Nanette Hansen:
Here’s the story, and why I’m telling it now: UTTM was produced and ran in the 2AM to 6AM time slot, because it was cheap. Or at least that’s what the production staff told me when I was there. Literally, the news broadcast that a couple of dozen people turned out every night cost less to produce than it would have been for CBS to license and run old episodes of Gunsmoke.
And if you watched carefully, you might have noticed that UTTM from 2 AM to 4 AM was identical to UTTM from 4AM to 6AM. Same script, run twice? Nope. Same program run twice. An anchor, a technician and a producer stayed all night just in case news broke during the second running, but just as UTTM was a money saver for CBS News, 4AM to 6AM was a money saver for UTTM.
And now, it gets . . . worse.
ABC News is laying off 25% of its workforce. I’m not going to rail against this, or talk about how “news just isn’t what it used to be”. Frankly, ABC’s choice makes sense, and the second statement is something you already knew. What I find fascinating is that it took this long.
For years, young people (yes, I just lumped a whole generation or three into one group . . . sorry) have been getting their news watching The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. Sometimes I’m relieved that they at least watch that much news coverage, in spite of Mr. Stewart’s steadfast position that he’s really a comedian, not a newscaster. I know people who get their technology and business news right here at Answer Guy Central, and I thank you for the trust you’re vesting in us if you’re one of them.
The point is that news—yes, even the news—is undergoing business change, and the change goes on. And while part of it is about the “CNN phenomenon” of having too many hours to fill and so needing to water down the facts with commentary, the real issue is that sometimes people just don’t need you the way you want them to.
And yes, Big Media, that even applies to you.
Repost This Article
[...] In trying to answer his question, I started by saying that there are way too many for most of them to be terribly meaningful. But that’s a non-answer, right? Thousands of people consistently read these pearls of wisdom, but it’s a far cry from the number who hung on my every word back in the day, when The Computer Answer Guy was an internationally broadcast radio and internet program, and when I did television for CBS News. [...]
[...] when the first Toy Story movie was released, Disney gave us an amazingly beautiful game version. As I was then doing computer software reviews on CBS TV’s Up To The Minute, I got to tell a lot of people how looking good isn’t good enough if a game crashes all the [...]
[...] television. I’m good at it after all; those years I did radio as The Computer Answer Guy and the time I spent being The Computer Answer Guy for CBS Television’s Up To The Minute prove that.But really, I’m out for the Google SEO juice. This piece has been an exaggerated [...]
[...] once pointed out, not exactly kidding, that some people get their news right here at Answer Guy Central. As I told you then—and like Jon Stewart—I’m sure grateful for the people who think [...]
[...] very long time ago, I did TV and radio as The Computer Answer Guy, and make the radio program available on the Internet. I needed to decide what audio format to use. [...]
[...] streamed it in the ‘net before people knew how) and also did some TV as a commentator for CBS News Up To The Minute, I’ll say that there’s something just as important to pay attention [...]
[...] in ways that are worrying me more and more. I was only kidding a little bit when I suggested that Answer Guy Central is every bit as much a journalistic outpost as ABC and The Daily Show, but that little bit is the line that’s becoming harder and harder to find as companies that [...]
[...] some sort. I’ve never been comfortable with that; I remember when I was doing TV and radio as The Computer Answer Guy and the occasional fan would contact me gushing compliments my reaction usually ran along the lines [...]
[...] I happened to flip on “Good Morning America”. Like many people, I’ve given up on TV News, but I stumbled across ABC’s produced-by-the-news-division-but-felt-like-a-gossip-program [...]
[...] with knowing your audience, what they want to see, and what you want them to see. When I was on CBS Television’s Up To The Minute as The Computer Answer Guy, I never looked at the camera because the pieces I did with Anchor [...]
[...] that’s what business is, and we all deal with that kind of thing every day. But to me, being The Computer Answer Guy was just plain [...]
[...] It was a simpler time. Telephones were telephones, computers were computers, and unless you were The Computer Answer Guy, ne’er did the twain [...]
[...] pushed, and poked just the right way. It’s what caused me to wonder aloud, a few years ago, where people get their news.It’s what caused me to point out what Jon Stewart and Glenn Beck have always known: you must [...]
[...] two hours, start-to-finish, which if you think about it is pretty amazing. In the days when I was The Computer Answer Guy on CBS Television, it took me eighteen hours to put together a six-minute video, not including the several hours of [...]
[...] The Answer Guy, I get asked a lot of questions about not only our 2013-era focus on Integrated Marketing and [...]