Women’s Sports Uncovered

Welcome back. Did you catch any of the March Madness games? The women’s tournament? With all the hoopla focused on the men’s tournament, you’ll probably be surprised that a tally of Twitter and Instagram counts found 8 of the 10 most-followed players on the final eight teams were women.

Coach Tara VanDerveer cuts down the net after Stanford beat Arizona for the 2021 women's national title (AP photo by Morry Gash from chroniclet.com/photo-single/155963/?mode=team).

The fans must have been excited to see those players in action. The women’s tournament was televised, even if there was relatively little on televised sports news and highlights shows. Unfortunately, the lack of coverage is nothing new; women’s sports are usually ignored. At least that’s what Purdue and the University of Southern California researchers have documented every 5 years from 1989 to 2019.

Data Collection and Analysis
For their 2019 effort, the researchers followed the same methodology they applied in assessing the quantity and quality of men's and women's sports news coverage since 1989. They sampled and analyzed three 2-week blocs of televised news in March, July and November on NBC, CBS and ABC Los Angeles affiliates and on the ESPN SportsCenter program. When available, the continuous running ticker at the bottom of the television screen was included. As a first, they also added online daily sports newsletters and official NBC, CBS and ESPN Twitter accounts.

Men’s vs. Women’s Sports Coverage
The enormous gap between men’s and women’s sports coverage in 2019 appeared in every way.

Airtime
Less than 6% of airtime was devoted to women’s sports (i.e., about 94% to men’s sports). Most of women’s sports coverage was in July, when the U.S. women’s soccer team won the World Cup and U.S. women were competing in the Wimbledon tennis tournament. Airtime in March and November was only 1.7% and 0.7%, respectively.

The proportion of airtime devoted to women’s sports on three network affiliates’ sport news and on ESPN’s SportsCenter, 1989–2019 (from journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21674795211003524).

Women’s sports fared better in online newsletters (8.7%) and Twitter (10.2%); however, most was due to espnW, which ended its weekly newsletter following the July 2019 data collection period.

Lead Stories
Like all news shows, sports open with the most important or engaging story of the day. Of the 251 broadcasts analyzed in 2019, five led with a women’s sports story; all five were on the U.S. Women’s soccer team winning the World Cup. Of the 93 online newsletters analyzed, eight led with a story about women’s sports.

Men’s “Big Three”
In their 2009 analysis, the researchers reported that sports coverage was becoming less diverse; 68% of the airtime was devoted to what they labeled men’s Big Three--college and professional basketball, baseball and football. That rose to 75% in 2019, with the remaining 25% shared by other men’s sports, gender-neutral topics and women’s sports.

Televised news and highlights, online newsletters and social media sports coverage, by gender (excludes espnW), 2019 (from journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21674795211003524).

Never Too Early or Too Much
Since moving to Wisconsin, I’ve been amused by TV network affiliates’ year-round coverage of the Green Bay Packers whether important or trivial.

The researchers point out that the dominance of men’s Big Three sports on TV news and highlights programs is amplified by in-season as well as off-season reporting. In 2019, men’s professional basketball had nearly as much off-season as in-season coverage, while women’s professional basketball was covered only in-season. Worse, even in-season, women’s sports stories may be superseded by off-season men’s sports stories.

Notably, the community and charitable contributions of men athletes and teams were frequently featured in news and highlights shows, but women athletes’ contributions, including their social justice activism, seldom made it into women’s sports stories.

Wrap Up
Women’s sports coverage hasn’t changed in quantity for 30-years, yet there have been striking changes in the ways they’re reported. In the 1990s, women athletes were routinely trivialized, insulted and humorously sexualized. By the 2000s, sports news viewed women athletes less offensively, instead underlining their roles as wives, girlfriends or mothers. In 2014, women’s sports was being delivered in a boring, inflection-free manner.

I began and end with March Madness. The researchers found that, in 2019, their local network affiliates and ESPN’s SportsCenter devoted no more than 5% of their combined coverage to the women’s tournament, the online newsletter articles and tweets about 11%. Go girls!

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Most-followed players on men’s and women’s elite eight teams: www.axios.com/ncaa-basketball-social-media-followings-a98b2f21-e907-4276-b860-32565654d64a.html
Study of women’s televised sports, 1989-2019, in Communication & Sport journal: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21674795211003524
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uosc-nmk032221.php

Forensic Science Gap

Welcome back. Do you watch TV crime shows? TV isn’t my forte, but it seems there have been quite a few shows that highlight the marvels of forensic science. Though I never saw CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, I’ve seen episodes of CSI Miami. And being alert to current events, I knew that Abby (Pauley Perrette), the forensic scientist on NCIS, was leaving.

Crime scene police tape (photo from news.gsu.edu/2018/03/07/georgia-state-law-review-symposium-explores-future-forensic-science-reform-april-6/).

If you missed the news, forensic science has a problem that goes way beyond TV and Abby’s departure. I’m not referring to crime show myths reviewed in a 2017 Guardian interview--e.g., DNA does not solve every case, evidence and results do not come quickly, not everyone leaves fingerprints.

No, the problem is much more fundamental. Forensic science--the application of scientific principles and techniques to criminal justice, especially to collecting, examining and analyzing physical evidence--is, well, short on science.

Scientific Validation Lacking
Scientists affiliated with West Virginia, Cornell, Brown, Arizona and Johns Hopkins universities and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies discussed the problem in a recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The six scientists were members of the former National Commission for Forensic Science, which I’ll get back to.

In brief, three Supreme Court rulings in the 1990s led to the requirement that scientific evidence must be both reliable and relevant. That posed a quandary for prosecutors.

Many forensic methods, particularly those applying pattern evidence (e.g., fingerprint, firearm and toolmark, blood stain, tire and footwear, handwriting and bite mark analyses), evolved outside of traditional science before the new admissibility standards. Past convictions could be in jeopardy if they relied on methods that were never validated scientifically.

Bite mark identification, a forensic method discredited by science and false convictions, continues to be accepted in U.S. courts as a matter of precedent (photo from aboutforensics.co.uk/forensic-odontology/).

National Research Council Report
Congress directed the National Academy of Sciences to study and recommend ways to strengthen forensic science. The resulting 328-page, 2009 report from the National Research Council described serious deficiencies in the nation's forensic science system.

For example, although forensic evidence is often offered to match evidence to a person or source, only nuclear DNA analysis has been shown able to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate the connection. To define the measurement uncertainty of other forensic methods (e.g., the likelihood a fingerprint is yours versus matches yours) would require large population studies to determine how many sources might share the same or similar features.

In recommending major reforms and new research, the report strongly urged Congress to establish an independent entity to lead the research, establish and enforce standards for forensic professionals and laboratories, and oversee education standards.

National Commission for Forensic Science (NCFS)
In response, Congress created the NCFS, not as an independent entity, but under the Department of Justice (DOJ) and National Institute of Standards and Technology. The commission was to provide recommendations and advice to the DOJ.

Begun in 2013 under the Obama administration, the NCFS was terminated by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 as the commission began the last meeting of its second term with some far-reaching recommendations pending.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions (photo from www.cbsnews.com/news/jeff-sessions-continues-as-attorney-general-in-spite-of-trumps-open-criticism/).

The commission had held 13 meetings, heard from 140 invited presenters and approved 43 documents and summary reports. Composed of a diverse mix of 40 forensic and non-forensic scientists, law enforcement officials, judges and attorneys, the NCFS overcame a steep learning curve to function efficiently. Only one document was approved before its fifth meeting, yet eight were approved at a single 2016 meeting.

Wrap Up
The six scientists judge that the hard work needed to forge the heterogeneous commission into a consensus-reaching body was lost with NCFS’s termination.

They ask the larger scientific community to advocate for: (i) the research and financial support needed to advance forensic methods and (ii) the requirement for empirical testing to advance the cause of justice.

Undoubtedly the DOJ can strengthen forensic science without the NCFS but transferring oversight of forensic science from independent scientists to law enforcement is not encouraging. Observers like me have to wonder if the move was taken to appease prosecutors or, given other actions by the Trump administration, to simply roll back another Obama-era program and ignore science.

Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Guardian newspaper interview with forensics expert: www.theguardian.com/universal-sony-pictures-home-entertainment-tv-crime-shows-uncovered/2017/aug/30/the-forensic-myth-our-forensics-expert-tackles-some-of-tvs-biggest-fibs
Article on forensic science in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences: www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/04/11/1712161115
National Research Council’s 2009 report and press release on strengthening forensic science:
www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/228091.pdf
www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589
National Commission for Forensic Science:
www.justice.gov/archives/ncfs
(www.justice.gov/archives/ncfs/page/file/959356/download)
Example articles on termination of National Commission for Forensic Science:
www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/sessions-orders-justice-dept-to-end-forensic-science-commission-suspend-review-policy/2017/04/10/2dada0ca-1c96-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3f1dea75cb5e
www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/49183/title/Forensics-Left-in-Lurch-by-Sessions/
www.nytimes.com/2017/04/11/opinion/sessions-is-wrong-to-take-science-out-of-forensic-science.html

A version of this blog post appeared earlier on www.warrensnotice.com.

Careless Cooking

Welcome back. Now that you’re here, how should I begin? I could point out that I’m big on hygiene, as evidenced by multiple blog posts (see Blog Post Topics on right of website). Or I could just say that I’m not big on cooking. Unlike my wife, Vicki, and our son, Noah, I have zero interest in cooking. (Noah telephoned once, excited that he’d prepared a red velvet cake. I was happy for his cooking success, though I neither knew nor cared what a red velvet cake was.)
 
These thoughts about hygiene and cooking rushed to mind when I came across a study on television cooking shows and celebrity chef food safety. 

TV Cooking Shows

Philip Harben, the first TV cooking show
chef; began 1946, BBC. (Photo from
BBC Genome Blog)

Before I jump into the study, I should note that only 1 in 5 American adults are like me and never watch TV cooking shows, which is to say 4 in 5 adults do watch the shows, even if rarely. (These statistics are from a 2010 survey, but since the number and availability of the shows have increased, I’ll assume the statistics are still reasonable.)

One more statistic. About 1 in 6 Americans experience foodborne illnesses each year. Television is one of the many sources that provide or could provide information on how they could be prevented.

Celebrity Chef Food Safety
To evaluate food safety behaviors conveyed by television cooking shows, researchers from Kansas State and Tennessee State universities watched 100 episodes of 24 different celebrity chefs preparing meat dishes. They chose the shows randomly from cable or online services (e.g., Hulu, Netflix or Amazon) and evaluated each episode using a checklist they developed based on expert food safety knowledge and prior studies.

Their checklist had some 20 food safety practices categorized after the Fight Bac! Program: “Clean,” wash hands and surfaces often; “Separate,” don’t cross-contaminate; “Cook” to safe temperatures; and “Chill,” refrigerate promptly.

Celebrity Chef Behaviors

Dione Lucas, the first female TV
cooking show chef; began 1947,
New York City station.(Photo
from CQUnivNews Archive)

The researchers discovered that the TV chefs either ignored food safety or demonstrated very limited positive behaviors. If viewers adopted the chefs’ practices, there could be a rash of foodborne illnesses.

Some of the most commonly observed poor behaviors were that 88% of the chefs did not wash their hands after handling uncooked meat (or were not shown washing or mentioning handwashing); 79% added food with their hands; 50% ate while cooking; 75% did not use a thermometer to determine if the meat was ready; and 25% used the same cutting board to prepare ready-to-eat items and uncooked meat.

The behavior that won my Oh, come on! prize was that 21% of the chefs licked their fingers while cooking. The same number touched their hair, but that would have slipped by me.

Wrap Up
The study was intended to highlight the problem with food television culture, not shame the celebrity chefs. The chefs may have sterling food safety behaviors when off-camera, or perhaps their good practices were edited out of the shows for time or entertainment. What was broadcast, however, was poor food safety behaviors, which viewers might mistakenly believe are acceptable.

Cooking shows and celebrity chefs are popular with TV viewers. Instead of taking the opportunity to demonstrate or discuss good food safety--to promote the idea that good food and safe food are inseparable--the shows too often promote the opposite behavior.

Thanks for stopping by. Bon appétit.

P.S.
Celebrity chef food safety study in Journal of Public Health: jpubhealth.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/04/18/pubmed.fdw026.full
Article on celebrity chef study on Science Daily website:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161214100737.htm
Harris Poll statistics on TV cooking show viewers: www.marketingcharts.com/television/8-in-10-us-adults-watch-cooking-shows-13719/
Fight Bac! Program’s clean, separate, cook, chill: www.fightbac.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Basic_Fight_BAC_Brochure_Oct_2011.pdf
The first TV chefs: www.history.com/news/hungry-history/lights-camera-action-the-first-tv-chefs

TV Cowboys Addendum

In last Friday’s blog post, Remembering the Cowboys, I reminisced about cowboys and presented my A list of TV Westerns from the 1940s and 1950s. If you were watching TV Westerns in those years, I’m sure you have your own favorites. If they weren’t there last Friday, maybe they’ll be on today’s B list of other TV Westerns I would always watch when I could. (They’re listed more-or-less chronologically.) 

A DVD case from the TV Western The Cisco Kid, 1950-56, which starred Duncan Renaldo with Leo Carrillo as his sidekick Pancho. (Photo from www.sitcomsonline.com/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/154938)

Hugh O’Brian was the lead in the TV series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, 1955-61. (Photo from matineeclassics.com/images/thumbs/9ff11672-a0e8-473b-9a40-5ca6c9e37a13.jpg)

Clint Walker (6 ft-6 in tall) played Cheyenne Bodie in TV’s first hour-long Western Cheyenne, 1955-62. (Photo from multiple websites)

James Garner and, after several episodes, Jack Kelly were the poker-playing brothers, Bret and Bart, in the TV series Maverick, 1957-62. Garner left the show in 1960, and Roger Moore was cast as their cousin Beauregard (“Beau”), 1959-61. (Photo from multiple websites)

Have Gun--Will Travel, 1957-63, with Richard Boone as the gentleman gunfighter, Paladin, was almost on my A list; but I guess I didn’t see enough episodes. (Photo from multiple websites)

I thought Steve McQueen was great in just about anything he did. His role as bounty hunter Josh Randall with a shortened rifle in the TV Western Wanted: Dead or Alive, 1958-61, was no exception, whether the episodes were good or not. (Photo from multiple websites)

A comic book after the TV Western The Rifleman, 1958-63. The show starred 6 ft-5-3/4 in Chuck Connors as rancher Lucas McCain, with a customized rapid fire Winchester rifle, and Johnny Crawford as McCain’s son, Mark. (see note below) (Photo from www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=199831)

Given its longevity, Gunsmoke deserves special recognition, but forgive me; I never got into the show. Until 1967, Gunsmoke was broadcast late Saturday night, when I was either out partying or home sleeping.

Gunsmoke began on the radio and was on TV for 20 years, 1955-75, during which time, the main cast members hardly changed: James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon and Milburn Stone as Doc, from beginning to end; Amanda Blake as Kitty, 1955-1974; Dennis Weaver as Chester, 1955-64; and Ken Curtis as Festus, 1959-75. Among many others, Burt Reynolds was in 50 episodes, 1962-65.

Whatever hour Bonanza and Rawhide were broadcast, I wasn’t watching closely. They premiered in 1959, when there were 26…Twenty Six!...TV Westerns in prime time. Hmmm…could that be why viewers got tired of TV Westerns?

OK. Go ahead. Take your shots. Tell me about your favorites.

P.S.

Note about The Rifleman: Before taking up acting, Connors spent a few years playing professional basketball (Boston Celtics, one season) and baseball (Brooklyn Dodgers and Chicago Cubs, mostly minor league). Crawford was one of Disney’s original Mouseketeers.

Useful references include:
www.wikipedia.org/
www.imdb.com/
www.jimwegryn.com/Names/Cowboys.htm
www.tv-cowboys.com/
www.ourchuckconnors.com/

 

Remembering the Cowboys

Welcome back. Do you miss the cowboys? I don’t mean modern Western-themed-TV-show cowboys you see on Longmire and Justified. I mean cowboys like Tom Mix, who Miriam Biskin mentioned in last Friday’s blog post, My Brother Manny. He was the “idol of every boy in the world,” and if you missed his full-length movies or movie serials, you could find him and Tony, his wonder horse, in circus shows, comic books or souvenir products.

Tom Mix, his wonder horse, Tony, and a poster for a 1935 movie serial that had 15 episodes. Each episode was generally shown for one week and ended with a cliffhanger to be resolved in the next episode.

Growing up, I loved cowboy movies and TV shows; however, I felt a stronger push to write about the topic. An irate reader privately shamed me after viewing my blog post on TV shows from the 1940s and ‘50s (TV Shows Photo Addendum). “But you left out the cowboys!” he emailed. It’s time for me to make amends.

Setting the Stage

Though I’ll focus on TV shows from the 1940s and 1950s, I thought I’d take my lead from the US Postal Service. In 2010, it issued the Cowboys of the Silver Screen stamps, honoring four extraordinary performers who helped make the American Western.

Cowboys of the Silver Screen postage stamp, issued 2010, and silent screen movie star William Hart.

William S. Hart (1864-1946) was one of the most popular leading men of the silent film era, long before my time; Tom Mix (1880-1940) was one of the most celebrated film stars of the 1920s and 30s, which was years before anyone took me to see Pinocchio; and Gene Autry (1907-1998) and Roy Rogers (1911-1998) did it all--acting, singing, live shows and more--their movies, which began in the 1930s, merging with their TV shows in the 1950s.

1933 Movie poster for the first
singing cowboy, John Wayne.
(Photo from multiple websites.)

Before turning on the TV, I have to point to John Wayne, who will always be my Western movie hero. Did you know he was the first singing cowboy?

Lash Larue, king of the bullwhip.
(Photo from multiple websites.)

In the 1940s and 50s, there were a handful of others, like Johnny Mack Brown, Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott and Jimmy Stewart, that I never missed in Westerns; but for me, Lash Larue’s movies--and his many comic books--were the best.

Favorite TV Westerns

OK, on to TV and some of my favorite Westerns, whose choice was driven by my age and the competition.

A year before the Cowboys of the Silver Screen stamps came out, the US Postal Service issued 20 Early TV Memories commemoratives, which included Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger. They were the first Westerns I ever saw and have to be on my list of favorites.

Two US Postal Service Early TV Memories stamps, issued 2009.

William Boyd starred as Hopalong Cassidy in 66 movies, 1935-48, which were edited and released as the first TV Western series beginning in 1949. Fifty-two 30-minute TV shows were added 1952-54, and there was a radio version, 1950-52. Boyd endorsed some 2400 products in merchandising deals, including the first school lunchbox to have a celebrity image.

A comic book featuring Hopalong Cassidy and his horse, Topper. (Photo from comicbookplus.com/?dlid=16312)

The Lone Ranger began in radio and ran on TV 1949-57. Clayton Moore starred as the Lone Ranger, though John Hart had the role 1952-54, and Jay Silverheels costarred as Tonto, with horses, Silver and Scout, respectively. The show was noted for its ideally selected theme music from the William Tell Overture.

The Lone Ranger and Tonto, played by Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels. (Photo from multiple websites.)

The Gene Autry Show aired 1950-56. A member of both the Country Music and Nashville Songwriters halls of fame, Autry is the only person to be awarded stars in all five categories on the Hollywood Walk of Fame--film, television, music, radio and live performance.

Gene Autry and Champion. (Photo from multiple websites.)

The Roy Rogers Show was on TV 1951-57, and he and wife Dale Evans were on again in 1962 with The Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Show.

Roy Rogers mounting Trigger. (Photo from multiple websites.)

Guy Madison starred in The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, 1951-58, with Andy Devine as his sidekick, Jingles. They also did a radio version, 1951-54. 

Guy Madison and Andy Devine were featured on numerous products, such as this breakfast cereal my mother wouldn’t let me eat. (Photo from www.rubylane.com/item/123265-1072)

 Wrap Up

If my memory’s not overwhelmed by nostalgia, those were my top TV Westerns. Don’t take your shots yet. I’ll be back on Tuesday with other Westerns that I and possibly you used to watch. Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.

-Wikipedia, which you’re likely familiar with, is a valuable resource for general and specific information on cowboy actors as well as Western movies and TV shows.
-Another useful reference for movies, TV shows and celebrities: www.imdb.com/
-Compilation of cowboys, their movies etc: www.jimwegryn.com/Names/Cowboys.htm
-General information on several TV cowboys: www.tv-cowboys.com/
-Bios of William Hart, Tom Mix, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers:
uspsstamps.com/stamps/cowboys-silver-screen

Additional information on…
William Hart: marymiley.wordpress.com/2010/09/12/the-first-cowboy-star-william-s-hart/
John Wayne: www.biography.com/people/john-wayne-9525664
Gene Autry: plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.fil.005
Roy Rogers: www.biography.com/people/roy-rogers-9542070#early-life
Guy Madison: www.westernclippings.com/remember/wildbillhickok_doyouremember.shtml

Video of The Lone Ranger opening with the theme music (26 seconds):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxIuIxqo2So

TV Shows Photo Addendum

Picking which TV show to watch in the 1940s and ‘50s was so much easier than today. Unlike the 290 channels in last Friday’s TV Tribulations, in Upstate New York, we had one channel, which eventually grew to three.

The first show I ever saw was a hand puppet--only a puppet, but I can’t remember the show’s or puppet’s name. Here’s a sample of shows from those years, whose names I can remember, some because they were on radio before TV.

Do you remember them? Any of them? Not even Ed Sullivan? His Sunday evening variety show hosted every talent, from comedians to jugglers to opera stars to Elvis (from the waist up), not to mention Señor Wences (1950s and ‘60s), the Beatles (1960s) and, of course, Topo Gigio, another puppet (1960s).

Kukla, Fran and Ollie, 1947-57. (kukla.tv/kfo7.html)

Buffalo Bob Smith, Howdy Doody and Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody Show, 1947-60. (broadcastarchive-umd.tumblr.com)

Ed Sullivan with June Taylor Dancers on The Ed Sullivan Show (Toast of the Town), 1948-1971. (broadcastarchive-umd.tumblr.com/post/25513550411/the-ed-sullivan-show-then-known-as-toast-of)

Milton Berle Show (Texaco Star Theater), 1948-56. (www.pbs.org/wnet/pioneers-of-television/photo-galleries/variety-shows/)

Sid Caesar (clown) with Howard Morris, Carl Reiner and Imogene Coca on Your Show of Shows, 1950-54. (www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20712079_20711820_21225093,00.html)

George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, 1950-58.
(tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/GeorgeBurns)

Groucho Marx with George Fenneman on
You Bet Your Life, 1950-1961.
 (www.radiospirits.info/2012/10/27/the-secret-word-is-anniversary/)

Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, Vivian Vance and William Frawley
on I Love Lucy, 1951-57.
(ilovelucyandricky.wikia.com/wiki/I_Love_Lucy_Wiki)

Ozzie, Harriet, David and Ricky Nelson on
Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, 1952-66.
(americanprofile.com/articles/quotes-famous-tv-dads/)

TV Tribulations

Welcome back. I once blogged about our unused televisions and limited TV viewing (Television Time). That was in a previous incarnation. Everything has changed radically.

Warren’s future home entertainment
center. (www.home-designing.com)

I could just announce: We now have high definition TV (HDTV) and a streaming device! But that’s a tad misleading; and if I stop there, you’ll never know about my wife Vicki’s struggles, her father Muns’s loss or TV service providers’ weather reports.

Weather Channel

The change starter’s gun sounded when Muns’s TV service provider, which also feeds our TV, dropped The Weather Channel (TWC). Though Muns couldn’t give a hoot, I was distressed. Lacking a local 24-hour news and weather radio station, I turn on the TV before my predawn jogging. If I tuned to TWC and pushed the correct button on the remote, I would get the current weather and forecast for our zip code.

Losing TWC was my tipping point for:
Action 1: Buying a tablet computer. I couldn’t see turning on the desktop computer for a weather report, and I’d been thinking about a tablet for some time (Going Digital).
Action 2: Buying a video streaming device and dropping DVDs. I can’t think of a link with losing TWC, but you see where this is going.

TV Blip

Shortly thereafter, Muns’s TV began taking at least five minutes to realize it was turned on. Vicki telephoned a trusted repair shop, described the problem and was told to bring the set in. After describing the problem on site presumably to a different employee, she was told, Oh that’s the TV’s internal power source. It’s failing and the set isn’t worth fixing. Vicki schlepped the set back and tried unsuccessfully to replace it with one then another older TV.

1st Bottom Line: Muns needed a new TV.

Even with my superior ability to read Consumer Reports, there was a hitch. The failing TV is an older HDTV that was not hooked up to receive high definition. The recommended HDTVs and others Vicki inspected do not allow for many connections and receive only high definition video.

2nd Bottom Line: For Muns to use the new HDTV, the TV service provider would have to install a new receiver and raise the level of service.

TV Service Providers

Hmmm, Vicki wondered. Is it time to change TV service providers? I was delegated to determine which TV package we would need if we switched to the service provider that still offered TWC.

To receive the 5 or 6 channels I watch, we would need the 290-plus channel package--funny how that works. Though I didn’t have comprehensive information on Muns’s viewing habits, it seemed that package should do the job.

After obtaining the current provider’s charges for the upgrade and comparing notes with other subscribers, Vicki contacted the second provider and discovered the cost would be substantially lower for the contract period with no installation charge. She switched.

Switchers’ Remorse

Installation went smoothly and the cost will be lower, yet doubts persist.

The original provider offered a small, last gasp price reduction when Vicki called to cancel service. Perhaps negotiation instead of waving good-bye would have saved time and effort.

But what about TWC? Well, before the new service was installed, I observed the original service provider was showing its own weather channel with essentially the same push-a-button-get-a-zip-code forecast. The new service provider’s TWC—the real thing--not only doesn’t offer real-time conditions, its Local Forecast isn’t local.

Most disappointing, Muns sifted through the 290 channels and still can’t find some programs he’s watched for years.

Wrap Up
 

Exactly one week after the new provider’s service installation, our 10-year old non-HDTV stopped working. 

The failed TV (left) en route to
a recycler and the failing TV.

Rather than rush out to buy a new TV, we replaced it with Muns’s failing HDTV. As the set culminates its death throes, we are becoming adept at turning it on now 6 or 7 minutes before we’re ready to watch.

High definition is great! Streaming would be great, too, if what’s available weren’t so limited. I’ll have to check out those 290 channels. Thanks for stopping by.

Cat TV Time Photo Addendum

Never mind about my TV viewing, which I discussed last Friday, consider Henry-the-cat’s TV fare.

Years before Henry intruded into my life, we had three female cats, Lassie, Rex and Boss. Someone loaned us a cat-sitting video, featuring birds, rodents and other objects of cat fancy. I expected Rex, who stared at walls, and Boss, a cat of exceptionally low intelligence, to be intrigued, but was confident that Lassie, one of the smartest cats that ever lived, would have no interest.

To my amazement, only Lassie watched--intently--from start to near finish. Rex and Boss couldn’t care less about the video.

If Lassie would watch, it was a good bet that Henry, an unusually brilliant cat, would be intrigued. Of course, while Lassie would sit and watch, Henry would keep attacking the screen. Lassie was a little smarter.

Henry-the-cat watching a cat-sitting video.

Henry-the-cat attacking a cat-sitting video.

Television Time

Welcome back. Did you watch the Emmys last month? I missed it again. I heard this would be the final season of The Office. Being alert to current events, I’m aware of the show, though I’ve never seen it. I even know that the show came from the UK.

I don’t mean to come off snobbish about TV, and I don’t consider TV to be Minow’s “vast wasteland.” There are just lots of shows I haven’t seen.
 
Television Sets

An unused television.

We do have a TV, three actually. That’s a red flag to acquaintances who have none, but it’s also misleading to TV junkies since we only have one cable box, without which we couldn’t see anything on the one connected set.

One of the unused sets is a portable that hasn’t been turned on in, let me guess, 20 years. No charitable organization would want it; inertia prevents us from taking it to a recycler. The other unconnected set was used by our son, who’s now sampling post-college life. I forget why he didn’t take the set.

Antennas suggest many neighbors have or had Direct TV. Our cable service is good, though having to pay for an inordinate number of channels that we wouldn’t watch if threatened with bodily harm is scandalous and expensive.

Sampled Television Fare

Lots of popular shows have escaped my viewing--Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Friends, reality shows. Well, I did see a clip from the reality show Teen Mom, but it had my first cousin-once-removed. (She was great!) She wasn’t the teen mom (whew!); she was the therapist assisting the teen mom.

I also saw about 30 minutes of an episode of American Idol. I was traveling in a group of about 20. One evening, I wandered into a TV room, where many fellow travelers were crowded around a set, cheering and cheerfully disagreeing. It was the finale, they told me. Although spared from voting, I was introduced to their favorites.

Oh, I also saw most, maybe all, of an episode of What Not to Wear. We were with friends, who wanted to share their enjoyment of the show. Yes, clothes are important for one’s image, but to discover that TV viewers give a hoot about improving someone’s attire every week was enlightening.

Regular Television Fare

Long ago and far away, I might watch M*A*S*H, Cosby, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. Then I ran out of time, especially after moving to the Washington, DC, area, where my work schedule shoved evening TV out of bounds. Now, my only regular TV fare continues to be the news and the start of sporting events, presently, early innings of the Nationals’ games.

Since online sources provide much of my news, when watching cable news, I often mute the sound and watch the news tapes. When commercials overwhelm, I switch to Al Jazeera, whose news tape is usually the best in content and speed. (Fox's tape is either motorized by a turtle or the network underrates viewers’ reading speed. CNN’s tape is written by someone who tweets, often leaving me wondering.)

Wrap Up

We are endeavoring to catch up on missed shows. Typically, we set aside weekend evenings for DVD-watching, interspersing movies and TV shows. (We’re not streaming yet.) We got through most of one episode of 30 Rock and Boston Legal and the first seasons of 24 and Lost before giving up on each. We did well with West Wing and seem to be doing ok with the Mentalist and Bones.

Your viewing recommendations would be gratefully accepted. Thanks for stopping by.  

P.S.

A note about Teen Mom. I help out with a multi-generational website, Stage of Life (www.stageoflife.com), which held a writing contest for teens on why pregnancy rates have declined. A substantial number of entries included reality shows such as Teen Mom as a factor.

Here’s the Teen Mom clip with therapist Laura McLauchlin:
http://remotecontrol.mtv.com/2012/07/19/teen-mom-amber-therapy-boxing/?xrs=share_fb