The Great Winter Storm of '09???

Much of St. Louis has slowed down today because of a piddling three inch snowfall. That's how it is currently, at least where I live. Most schools are closed and many people stayed home from work, because of the fear of a much greater snowfall amount. The hysteria was triggered by over zealous radio and TV weather forecasters.

It made for humorous television watching last night. At the first hint of a snow flake several of the stations started running crawls of cancelled events; such as the "St. Charles Old Ladies Sewing Circle" and the like. Some of these groups probably don't have more than five people who attend them, but yep, we got to see them all night long on that stupid crawl. Then, while flipping channels I saw where the ABC affiliate was running a crawl of all the schools that were closing for today. The same crawl persisted on KDNL for at least two hours and it did not appear to be updating any of the times I saw it.

Then the NBC affiliate,of which I have written of so "fondly" in the past, has a new trick. It is embedding it's call letters and logo into footage that airs in it's newscast. It is annoying and totally not professional. But, they do it because some idiot consultant has told the station to do so. KSDK's "news" director has blindly followed the order. If seeing an animated logo/call letters in the middle of your screen while your trying to watch the "news" isn't reason to stop watching the station, then I don't know what is. The station is owned by Gannett and it has always had a large amount of cheesy crap it obscures the picture with, while you're trying to watch NBC programs.

KWMU Update

The Riverfront Times has updated it's readers on KWMU.

The alternative newspaper wrote last spring about the management "style" of former GM Patty Wente. The article helped to drive her from the position after an investigation was launched by the University of Missouri which owns the St. Louis NPR affiliate. Since then Tim Eby has taken over as the boss of the station which resides on the UMSL campus.

The latest RFT article also reports KWMU with it's highest ever rating in the fall Arbitron book.

I am So Ready for Spring

It snowed today and the ground is covered in white. It's 18 degrees outside, the sky is dark and threatening more snow. In fact the forecast calls for a chance of snow from now until Wednesday. And it's not going to warm up very much any time soon. The high for the work week should be about 35 degrees on Thursday. And the furnace is running off and on all the time. I like being warm but I hate paying the gas company a fortune just to be moderately warm.

Uggghhh! I am ready for spring.

I Would Say They Have no Integrity

A journalism professor of mine told me many years ago if you see an advertisement on the front page of a newspaper it means one of two things. Either the paper is going broke or it has no integrity.

Well the same can be said of a St. Louis TV station that runs advertisements inside it's "newscast". The local CBS affiliate, KMOV, is doing just that. I was flipping channels after the Mizzou game ended and the sports dude was showing highlights of the St. Louis Blues. But, down below it was an ad for a local hamburger chain just as plain as day sitting next to a crawl of NBA and NHL scores.

Since the parent company of this TV station, Belo Broadcasting, isn't going broke it verifies the management at the TV station has no integrity. Shades of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which pulled a similar stunt about a year ago.

Tigers Escape Stillwater with a Win

My beloved Tigers basketball team went into Stillwater, Oklahoma this evening and escaped with a 97-95 win against a good Oklahoma State squad. The Tigers led by 20 points with ten minutes to go in the second half but barely got out of the pit; Gallagher-Iba arena. The Tigers pressure wore down the Cowboys in the second half as they built the lead. But, OK-State capitalized on Missouri's turnovers and cut the lead to a point with a minute to go.

The win moves Mizzou to 16-3 and 3-1 in the conference. OK-State is now 12-5 and 2-2. The Tigers play next at home Saturday against Texas Tech.

It also provides some payback for the Cowboys football upset of Missouri in Columbia back in October.