Re: "Star Wars--The Phantom Picture"

[Mark Shneyder <bostonradio@yahoo.com>]

Fox 25 is o+o by News Corp., parent company of 20th Century Fox
which is distributing Star Wars release. Make your own conclusions there.


- --- Joseph Gallant <notquite@hotmail.com> wrote:

> But on Channel 25 at ten and Channels 4 and 7 at 11, none of these four stories led their
> newscasts.
> 
> Guess what was the lead story on these three stations' late newscasts?
> 
> One guess.
> 
> That's right, "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". Despite getting mixed reviews (and Channel 4's
> own Joyce Kulhawik literally tearing the picture apart--I've never heard her sound this angry on
> the air!), the much-hyped film's opening (theatres were able to begin showing it at
> 12:01 A.M., local time, Wednesday) led three of Boston's five late-
> evening local TV news programs.
> 
> Had it been a slow news day, it could have been a lead story, but with the other stories listed
> above, it didn't deserve to be anything better than the fifth or sixth story.
> 
> Footnote: One hour later, just as theatres on the East Coast were starting to show "Phantom
> Menace" for the first time, I heard the 12 Midnight CBS radio hourly newscast (which I had to do
> on WCBS-AM New York since WBZ doesn't air CBS' hourly newscasts).
> 
> After the familiar "Doo-Doo-Doo-Doo-Doo" tone, the 'cast opened with a live report from a
> correspondent (probably their South Florida bureau chief; his name escapes me at the moment),
> speaking into a cell phone, from the lobby of a theatre near Miami where the movie was about to
> begin running "within a minute". Before he tossed it back to New York for the rest of the news,
> he got notification from someone in the theatre that it was 12:01, and the film had started to
> roll.
> 
> I don't think "Phanton Menace" should have led the 12 Midnight hourly CBS radio news report. It
> should have been part of the newscast but perhaps the third story.
> 
> I presume that Ed Murrow is (once again) spinning in his grave, while locally, Arch MacDonald
> and Victor Best must have also turned over in their graves. I don't think any of these three
> journalists would have led a newscast with the opening of "Phantom Menace". They might have
> CLOSED their newscast with a brief item about it.
> 
> Joseph Gallant
> <notquite@hotmail.com>
> 
> 
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