There is a certain entertainment and sports programming network that has gotten on my last nerve… again! Sometime around 2000 I began realizing that this network was trying to manipulate me into caring about aspects of sports that I really don’t care about and that don’t make much sense. Imagine that, media manipulation for profit! I’m not sure what awakened me to the light. Perhaps it was turning 25 years old. I would have thought that would put me square in the middle of their target demographic but what do I know?
So a couple of Thursdays ago the NFL held their annual amateur draft. A few days before I had been flipping through TV channels and happened to do a “drive-by” of this particular channel. Their NFL show (that I will refer to as “Live NFL”) was having draft coverage, as one might expect on a show about professional football. However, in the lower left corner of the screen was a countdown timer that read 75 hours and however many minutes and seconds! Seriously?! If I’m an NFL fan I already know when the draft is so the timer is as necessary as a humidifier in Miami on the 4th of July. Do they think some college kid is slamming energy drinks, watching the show and counting down? “Hey, guys, come here! Look! Look! Seventyyyyyyyy… FOUR hours left!! WOOOOOOO!!!!” Not even at the peak of my sports fandom did a countdown timer increase my excitement or anticipation. And I used to watch a minimum of four episodes per day of their flagship show “CenterSports!” I’m ashamed to say that I would view four consecutive episodes, repeats and all!
Okay, so maybe the countdown timer’s purpose was to inform the borderline fan when the draft was taking place? Well, I’m not sure a countdown timer of over 75 hours is much help. Personally, I would still need an abacus and a calendar to figure out a countdown timer that’s that far out. If you’re actually interested in pointing someone to your coverage of the draft, instead of the timer, why don’t you just put the time and date that your coverage begins!! “What? Impossible! Having all this technology at our hands yet keeping it simple? Preposterous!”
Sure, this is one tiny detail that is easily lost amongst millions of other details that are also insignificant but this was just the latest to draw my ire. (Don’t get me started on why the “information scroll” won’t tell you what channel an event is on unless it’s within the genealogy of the original channel! Maybe I’ll give up looking for the Super Bowl and just watch this World Series of Poker rerun.)
In conclusion, a certain televised, well listened to radio show host (Dan Patrick) refers to this particular channel as “The Mother Ship” as a nod to their pioneering status. I, however, shall henceforth nickname this channel “The Ship of Mothers” as a wag of the finger to all the people who have mangled what I once loved. [Please note that I’m not referring to “women with children” type mothers.]
Sincerely,
Just Joe
* This was my first attempt so please don’t give up on me. Obviously, I plan on improving with each entry!
No comments:
Post a Comment