Saturday, March 5, 2011

Turnover: KCTV-5 and CBS

If you ever wondered what the world would be like when tons of people are upset, and had a common outlet for their frustration, then today is your day. KCTV 5 (CBS) cut away from the Kansas-Missouri basketball game today, with 3:46 to play, in order to show the Michigan-Michigan State game. The subsequent outrage, from Kansas and Missouri fans alike, sent the Facebook world and Twitter world into social media overdrive.

The online assault on the local CBS affiliate caused a response...but, a response which then set off round two of social media zingers given KCTV's lame attempt to excuse the mistake. And, let's call this for what it is--a horrible mistake by CBS nationally and locally.

The national mistake was cutting away from the first game of the day in a market which is full of Kansas and Missouri alums and fans. It's common practice to cut away from one game in order to get to another which is of higher interest locally. The exact reverse of that happened today--instead of KU-MU, Kansas Citians were treated to unranked Michigan playing unranked Michigan State.

The local mistake was twofold: one, why didn't the local affiliate make more of an attempt to correct the wrong by getting corporate CBS to cut back to KU-MU, and two, once the crime was committed, why didn't KCTV run a scroll at the bottom of the Michigan-Michigan State telecast, acknowledging the issue and apologizing for the mistake? The lame attempt at an excuse was feeble, late in coming, and disingenuous.

Shame on CBS and KCTV-5.

1 comment:

  1. Great observations. I also wondered why they didn't run a scroll during the Michgan game saying they were working on it. Or better, cut away entirely. Probably would have made people less mad that there were technical difficulties than airing the wrong game.

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