DirtyHarry

Back when I was a kid, Sears ran a commercial every night where a local TV guy would start up a Sears lawn mower live to prove that it would start up the first time every time. I think they ran the same commercial in other markets using local personalities in those markets. Sears obviously had National advertising, but they also saw the value in having some local faces shilling for Sears.

Go! (Indy 500)

I don't think they can afford it anymore. Lazarus used to always keep their stores up to date. Now walk into one of the older Macy's stores. Around here they are nice, but in some other cities, ugh! Not to mention that Lazarus used to have 12 stores around Columbus and Central Ohio. Now there are only three full line Macy's stores, and one of them is in a mall that is down to only two anchors. When you have 12 stores, you can justify an expensive newspaper ad. Harder to justify with three stores. Same thing in Indianapolis where they had four Lazarus stores, four or five Blocks stores and I think five or six LS Ayres stores. Federated eventually bought everything up and now there are only two Macy's stores in Indianapolis. Everything else they got rid of. From 20 buildings down to two. Same with grocery stores. Grabbing the Wednesday newspaper so you could see what was on sale at the various grocery chains used to be a big deal. Go look up an old newspaper on newspapers.com and you'll see grocery store ads right and left. I rarely see one of our most successful car dealer chains in the newspaper or on TV or radio anymore. Most of their marketing is digital. And since they are one of the biggest in town, I'm guessing it works. The other day I was in Kroger. I walked by a Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich in the freezer. That's not the kind of stuff I buy, but it aroused my curiosity so I did a double-take to check the price. Apparently their algorithms are able to pinpoint your behavior right to doing a double-take at the freezer case because I was bombarded with Jimmy Dean ads for about two days afterwards. These days advertising isn't paying for news reporters. They seem to be paying people to program these algorithms. *** Actually, now that I think about it, there is the old Lazarus furniture gallery at Eastland that they are using as a furniture outlet store. Oh my God that place is awful.

I don't mind the look per se, but I don't like the all white. It needs to have a little color.

Take it for what it's worth, but I don't think a little bit of informed opinion is such a bad thing. We have been subjected to three years of blatant Russia Russia Russia propaganda about Trump. Orwellian propaganda. I think the mainstream media would earn a lot of cred if they stop regurgitating propaganda and start interjecting their opinion that this is all a bunch of BS conjured up by people trying to cover up some major crimes they committed. You see, I don't think the average person is die hard conservavative or die hard leftist. But everybody loves to see crooks get what's coming to them, everybody loves a good hanging and everybody likes a good tar and feathering. The first respected mainstream national media guy to reject the Washington party line and call out what has been going on will have the same kind of respect accorded Bob Woodward. But the key words in the first paragraph are "informed opinion." Who has the ability to see what's going on and to tell it like it is and the gravitas to get people to listen? Not some kid who is wet behind the ears, that's for sure.

She isn't hot enough for Fox.

Figures they'd hire someone white.

Since you can use the virtual channel number of any overlapping signal you own, I don't know why you wouldn't call 30.1, even if you are broadcasting it from the Virtual 3 signal. At least give the impression that the town is getting a new TV station.

I don't know if this belongs here, but it's kind of amusing. Lorene Wagner (former WSYX, WBNS) and her son Will. https://www.facebook.com/TheHetheringtonTeam/videos/3677872432238408/

Don't forget WSYX. They do a very good job in my opinion.

1. Jay needs to put on a tie and button his jacket. Unless he's too fat to do that. 2. I don't mind the choice of colors, just not for Cleveland. For some reason I think I'm watching TV in Miami.

Not fair. If you can't sell ads, you can't keep the place running. They can't sell classifieds because of Craig's List, department and appliance stores no longer can advertise in papers, car dealers use mostly digital platforms these days. Most of their profitable clients are gone. Without advertising money, you can't have as much staff. What they are trying to do makes sense in the current environment.

I don't like the Sinclair music. Never liked it, never will. I usually like the music Sinclair uses, until this package came along.

Yup. I had to transfer to T-Mobile prepaid before I was able to get it to Google Voice. I bought the Obi202, which works seamlessly with Google Voice, and now basically have a free landline.

They really should update their lettering. Looks like a stretched Univers font and it looks dated. And while they're at it, Action News is so 1970's.

A successful Channel like Me-TV is having this much trouble staying on stations? You would think these broadcasters would be tripping all over themselves to keep it. But Weigel is a small player and I guess the small players are getting squeezed out no matter how successful they are. this is further evidence that Dispatch made the right decision to get out of the business. No room for small players anymore.

I was in the next county yesterday. On the convenience store news rack was the local Gannett paper for Licking County, which was just a few pages. on the second shelf was The Columbus Dispatch, a Gatehouse property. I wondered to myself if it would make sense to have the Newark Advocate as a wraparound or whatever they call it for The Columbus Dispatch. Let The Advocate do its thing, however little it is these days, include The Dispatch along with it just so the paper doesn't look so pathetic and there is something to sell to subscribers.

TV programming is too tortured for my taste. I like the old way of doing things like the original Hawaii Five-O. Hawaii Five-O's format can be summed up as follows: 1. Cute introduction where this week's guest star bad guy character actor appears. 2. Bad guy commits crime. 3. Mcgarrett chases bad guy. 4. Standoff situation with the bad guy. 5. Mcgarrett prevails and they arrest him or he ends up dead. That's all I need from a TV program. I don't need some over-wrought acting where I have to bother with McGarrett's divorce, his dating life or his kid getting gender reassignment surgery.

I specifically said everything except the signal. Of course digital signals are great. But the underlying content was much better when it was done the old-fashioned way. Film looks better than digital cameras. Editing the old-fashioned way gave you a more interesting picture on screen. Now with computer editing, everything is predictable and looks the same. Same deal with graphics. Some graphics are okay, but most of them look like the office secretary photoshopped them. In Arial. The A-Team and The Rockford Files had some pretty good car accident/chase scenes back in the day. I know you misworded that, but it is correctly misworded. Fake, but accurate, as Dan Rather would say. The threat is that they keep the station on and gouge you at the bottom of your bill!!! Cable TV is simply not worth the cost. They are killing the Golden goose. The higher these fees go, the more people cut the cord. $0.10 here, $0.10 there adds up to be real money.

P.S. technology has also aided in the decline of the TV viewing experience. Analoggives you a much better experience, and I'm not talking about analog TV signals. I'm talking about using actual film, cutting it by hand, actual stuntman instead of CGI, etc.

TV was far more watchable when we had three main networks. Cable has diluted talent to the point where practically everything everywhere sucks.

Meh. She didn't have a good presence on air. Fort Wayne material.

OSU / Nebraska affects their checkbook in Columbus, Dayton and Charleston and all over the state of Nebraska. Then we have all the SEC cities like Birmingham ...

I'm by no means a hater of corporations but when it comes to creative content, they ruin everything they touch. And not just in the media. Shopping these days is about as fun as going to the dentist because all your choices have dwindled to just a handful as the big corporations gobbled up market share. (Retail does have a creative side to it.)

LOL - I finally got my parents to get a cell. They have a $3-ish a month pay-as-you go plan from T-Mobile (30 minutes a month plus 10 cents a minute after that). I buy that for them, too. (They're not poor, just technologically incapable of loading the phone up with more time every couple months when you have to add money to the account.) If you have wireline cable, get an Obi202. It can work in conjunction with a Google Phone Number and it usually allows you to fax. Not perfect, but it usually works. Best part about it is that it is effectively free except for the cost of the box. (No monthly fee.) My home landlines are with Obi. Maybe it works with wireless internet, I haven't tried. Also, there is faxzero.com (free but limited to 2 pages) and faxaway,com, which I have been using for years. $1 a month gets you a Seattle-based fax number with a 206 area code and unlimited incoming faxes that come in through email. For outgoing faxes, there is a nominal fee. You compose/scan something in Word or PDF, email it to them and they fax it for you automatically. Also, I didn't realize this until a few months ago, but my T-Mobile voicemail accepts incoming faxes too, but then you have to forward to a regular fax machine.