WCVB Preempts News For Infomercial

["Mark" <markwats@netway.com>]

My father called me yesterday (Saturday 6/3) and mentioned in the course of
conversation that WCVB preempted their Saturday 12 Noon news,airing an
infomercial instead.He told me that shortly after the infomercial started a
crawl ran across the bottom of the screen indicating that the Noon news
would return next week.Channel 5 is the only Boston TV station to have a
regularly scheduled 12 Noon newscast on the weekends

.I find it quite surprising that WCVB's management would OK blowing off a
newscast in favor of a paid program.If I were the news director,I'd
certainly be more than livid.Given the fact that Channel 5's news ratings
have been slipping of late,having people tune in to watch the news only to
find that George Forman is hawking his grill or Regis Philbin  is helping
to sell  Time Life CD's(I don't know what was being sold in place of the
news Saturday) certainly won't help in the ratings.It's possible some of
the folks who tuned in to watch the news Saturday at Noon may not come back
in the future as they may think they've canned the weekend Noon
news,despite the crawl on the screen indicating otherwise.

Their new slogan should be "News Center 5,Coverage You Can Count On,If No
One Buys The Airtime First." <g>

Mark Watson