Deborah McAdams is the Executive Editor of TV Technology.
TV stations are now running news at 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9-and-a-half, noon, 4, 5, 6, early evening, later evening and again at 11. Just the other evening, I was treated to a weekend primetime news block during which I learned about a very important phenomenon.
It was hot in Los Angeles.
Contrary to popular belief, Los Angeles is not always hot. Parts of it dip into the 70s. So it really was astounding that Los Angeles, a concrete-covered geologic bowl situated in a subtropical zone, was hot in August.
Washington, D.C. may have been shaking to the ground and getting inundated with hurricane-force gales, but that was nothing. Besides, there is a general belief in Los Angeles that Washington, D.C. is a mythical city of fretful paper-pushers in off-the-rack wool blends dreaming up problems.
Out here in the real world, where people are busy visualizing the mortgage payment, it was hot. So hot, in fact, that one roving reporter and her crack team of investigative journalists found a digital bank thermometer that read 83 degrees after sunset! For those of us who have lived in areas where the temperature and humidity remain in the high 90s all night long, it may be hard to appreciate that 83-degree dry heat is hot.
Perhaps that is why the anchors, reporting live from a spot on some sidewalk, were wearing suit jackets. Or perhaps they simply were impervious to the outrageous heat that was gripping Los Angeles like a germaphobe’s handshake.
I, for one, was grateful to be informed that it was hot in Los Angeles. Otherwise, I never would have known. I might have gone out in public improperly attired, if that is at all humanly possible in Los Angeles. If so, I’m sure I’ll find out.
“Local Woman Appears in Modest Wool-Blend Suit Dress. News at 11.”
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