It’s safe to say I’ve spent more time watching daytime TV over the past 12 weeks than I have in my entire professional life.
After all, there’s not a whole lot of time to watch TV when interviews must be done and stories and columns are due.
But for the past few months, I’ve been working hard during my cardiac rehab sessions to strengthen my heart. In the rehab room, three TVs are mounted to a wall to distract me and my classmates from the burn of doing cardio on various machines.
Of course, the volume of each set is turned off, so these observations about two local channels and ESPN are based on sight—not sound:
- LeVar Burton, host of “Trivial Pursuit,” and Steve Harvey, host of “Family Feud,” are the sharpest-dressed men I’ve ever seen on TV.
- Harvey wears some of the shiniest sports and suit coats seen on television—at least since Johnny Carson wore houndstooth jackets.
- Back-to-back political ads for the two U.S. Senate candidates from Kansas, watched without sound, are so hyperbolic that they make both candidates look more like cartoon villains than real people.
- The Little League World Series on ESPN is a lot more fun to watch than I would have imagined, especially compared to endless talking sports heads whose lips were moving without anything coming out.
- There are a whole lot of people standing trial for murder, at least if “Dateline NBC” is any indication, and it’s nearly impossible to take any of it seriously when host Keith Morrison is talking silently and your brain is conjuring up comedian Bill Hader’s impression.
While interesting, these pale in comparison to what I learned from “The Drew Barrymore Show,” hosted by the actor of the same name. Some of the things include:
- Bird-watching is the new “hot girl” activity.
- Adults are wearing diapers when they go to concerts (or standing in line for tickets) to keep their “spot.”
- At least one of the host’s bare feet must not smell because she stuck it right in the nose of someone seated next to her on the couch.
What I didn’t see much of were promos for NextGen TV. To the best of my knowledge, there was only one saying something like “NextGen TV on (insert call letter).” It was only a two- or three-second bumper.
I even saw what looked to be a minute-or-longer infomercial on the Tablo TV digital video recorder and several other station promos letting viewers know they can watch on Roku, mobile and other platforms—sans NextGen TV—over the air.
On one of the first days of my cardio rehab sessions, a fellow classmate was wearing a rather surprising T-shirt with an image of the S.S. Minnow and the castaways from “Gilligan’s Island.” For a moment, I thought I might mention how the show’s creator was taking a poke at then-FCC Chairman Newton Minow by naming the fateful ship after him following his “vast wasteland” speech in 1961. But ultimately, I thought it was better left alone.
Don’t misunderstand, I am not saying daytime TV is a wasteland, but it certainly is vast. Perhaps broadcasters should stake out a bit of room in that vastness to do a better job of educating and informing viewers about NextGen TV.
