Sample Letter to the Editor

A sincere thank you to TV stations KWWL and KCRG-TV9 for understanding the proper usage of informational graphics and crawler data.

Beginning Dec. 19, all stations correctly felt the need to inform the public about the inclement icy weather and closings. Nothing wrong with that. But KGAN somehow forgot that the main reason people watch TV is for entertainment purposes. The last thing we want to watch are self gratifying graphics taking up the bottom of our TV screen. Worse yet, the information that KGAN kept displaying had gone out of date three hours prior. But they kept running it anyway. It served no purpose whatsoever. The next night, the same thing. However, the times I flipped over to check KGAN, they had their graphics plastered on the screen, but with no information crawler.

On Saturday, Dec. 21, the only station that felt the need to run a crawler again all morning was KGAN. It's little wonder that I hear from others that KGAN is the least watched local station. Unfortunately, I do watch CBS for some shows. But I can miss shows if it means having to stare at useless graphics. So if you're thinking about advertising with a local TV station, I'd recommend spending money with the other two stations. When I pick which station to watch, I'll always flip over to any other station simply to get away from the needless graphics and out-of-date information that ruins my viewing. Think I'm the only one?

Robert Neff

Vinton