Local News After Kris Allen Wins 'American Idol'

I live in Washington DC, so I got a chance to watch the local FOX station (WTTG FOX 5) after Kris Allen's rather surprising 'American Idol' win. I don't envy the fight for ratings in local news for one minute! You have to fight for every single meter. That also means I don't envy the sometimes over-the-top effort to keep me watching. Here are a few notes.
--The pre-show LIVE tease was OK. The only problem: the LIVE bug in the upper left corner covered the male anchor's face as he fronted a tease standing beside a monitor.
--The show open: "ANNOUNCE: This is FOX 5 News. ANCHOR: FOX 5 news is everywhere tonight." I guess that implies they are NOT every where every other night. I get it. It's urgent writing It lets us know they are doing a good job. I get it. Having been removed from local news now for 2 years, it sounds forced.
--Pretty 'clean' newscast.
--The content on this station is always pretty solid.
--An awkward moment in the final element of tease 1. The anchor voiced over a tease for Idol. The shot was a W-I-D-E studio shot of the anchor desk and a picture of Kris Allen in a studio monitor. The problem.... nothing was really the focus of the shot. It was using a camera for using a camera sake.

As I said, this station is pretty good.. day in and day out. I just happened to watch tonight... and as a blogger, I write about most media I see. I would never pretend to have all the answers about local news engagement. I worked at two very good TV stations and two very challenging stations in my local TV career. I learned a lot from all of them. While I don't have all the answers... like every viewer at home, I always have an opinion :)

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