Stateside With Rosalea - Telly time

::King Kong::

NBC's Sunday night family movie this evening is Shrek--and if I watch it, I'm sure to see a "never-before-seen preview of Peter Jackson's King Kong" according to the radio ad I just heard. For a while, I was following the on-line production blogs, but I'm just not a die-hard "gotta know everything there is to know about it" fan of anything these days, not even the big movie by the big guy from Down Under.

::Rate the presenter::

A couple of weeks ago, I got a mid-evening phone call from a survey company based in Aurora, Colorado. They wanted to know what local morning, evening, and late news show I watch. In particular, they wanted me to rate the anchors, including the weather presenters.

For each of the names I recognised I was asked--among other things--if I felt I could relate to them as people, and whether I watched that particular channel's newscast because of them in particular. After an hour, the weary surveyor thanked me for answering 222 questions. I bet she was hoping not all of those surveyed graze every channel and have an opinion about everyone!

::What about the traffic?::

The one class of presenter they didn't ask me about, though, was the folk who do the traffic. It's a mystery to me why the survey didn't include them, especially since I watched KTVU's morning news for years just because the traffic presenter was so funny. In another of its radio ads playing today, NBC11 is using the name of its traffic guy--Mike Inouye, which sounds like In No Way--to promote its early morning news/traffic.

Not being a driver, I don't know how useful or not traffic updates on the telly are. They have snazzy graphics showing where there's accidents and slow-downs, but how recent is the information? Likewise for all those different gizmos you can put in your vehicle these days that use GPS or your cellphone or whatever the heck to tell you the best route.

::What I really watch::

My preference for the small screen these days are the on-demand programs I download to my home video server from Akimbo. Owned by William Randolph Hearst III, I guess Akimbo can afford to lose a few million as it builds up its customer base. Its main appeal to people of my generation is the opportunity to download a Tom & Jerry cartoon, a TravelTalk short documentary, a Pete Smith short, and a full-length movie each week thus re-creating a mid-twentieth century movie experience.

But Akimbo also has many channels of, for example, extreme sports and short films from all around the world. One of their short film channels is iFilm, which has just posted “Mountain Action News ” a spoof on local news/weather/traffic presenters. http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2680621

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