You're Tuned To "The Tiger Channel": All Tiger, All the Time
So it's the week of The Masters golf tournament, and of course the major story is Tiger Woods and his return to competition after his much-publicized hiatus due to his martial issues and "sexual addiction" treatment.
One of the most anticipated events of this week is today's news conference with Tiger. This was announced a few weeks ago, and of course it has received enormous coverage. But ESPN has dedicated three of its channels to covering the press conference live! ESPN, ESPN-2, and ESPN News all have the press conference in its entirety, with ESPN and ESPN-2 preempting normal programming (i.e. opening day baseball games) to carry the press conference live.
I have no problem with ESPN News having the press conference live. However, why must all of the ESPN networks carry it? Even if you make the argument that ESPN News isn't on as many cable systems as ESPN or ESPN-2, why do both of those channels need to simulcast it? Never mind that the press conference was also on MSNBC, Fox News, CSNBC, CNN, and The Golf Channel simultaneously. Heck, I think it was also carried live on Animal Planet. Overkill, anyone???
The whole point of ESPN having multiple channels is to carry more programming. What is the fucking point of simulcasting the press conference and the mind-numbing analysis that followed by Tirico & Co.?? You have two channels so you DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS, yet you do it anyway.
Critics of media convergence and the current state of media ownership cite a complete lack of diversity as one of the problems when huge media conglomerates own multiple media outlets. Those critics are speaking more of diversity of viewpoints and ideas rather than simple sports programming when they make those arguments, but I think it applies here. ESPN is doing no one a service by carrying Tiger's press conference live on three networks--and ESPN doesn't care. Having the press conference on multiple channels makes ESPN feel like it's more credible, when the opposite is true. The funny thing is, in the next few days some people on ESPN will start complaining about the fact that people won't let the Tiger story die--when they're very network is on of the big reasons these types of stories get overhyped in the first place.
One of the most anticipated events of this week is today's news conference with Tiger. This was announced a few weeks ago, and of course it has received enormous coverage. But ESPN has dedicated three of its channels to covering the press conference live! ESPN, ESPN-2, and ESPN News all have the press conference in its entirety, with ESPN and ESPN-2 preempting normal programming (i.e. opening day baseball games) to carry the press conference live.
I have no problem with ESPN News having the press conference live. However, why must all of the ESPN networks carry it? Even if you make the argument that ESPN News isn't on as many cable systems as ESPN or ESPN-2, why do both of those channels need to simulcast it? Never mind that the press conference was also on MSNBC, Fox News, CSNBC, CNN, and The Golf Channel simultaneously. Heck, I think it was also carried live on Animal Planet. Overkill, anyone???
The whole point of ESPN having multiple channels is to carry more programming. What is the fucking point of simulcasting the press conference and the mind-numbing analysis that followed by Tirico & Co.?? You have two channels so you DON'T HAVE TO DO THIS, yet you do it anyway.
Critics of media convergence and the current state of media ownership cite a complete lack of diversity as one of the problems when huge media conglomerates own multiple media outlets. Those critics are speaking more of diversity of viewpoints and ideas rather than simple sports programming when they make those arguments, but I think it applies here. ESPN is doing no one a service by carrying Tiger's press conference live on three networks--and ESPN doesn't care. Having the press conference on multiple channels makes ESPN feel like it's more credible, when the opposite is true. The funny thing is, in the next few days some people on ESPN will start complaining about the fact that people won't let the Tiger story die--when they're very network is on of the big reasons these types of stories get overhyped in the first place.
Labels: Animal Planet, ESPN, ESPN News, ESPN2, media convergence, Overhyped Stories, overkill, Tiger Woods
posted by Slut Bunwalla at
2:29 PM
1 Comments:
Does it really matter who Tiger screws at this point? Did it ever matter? Truly?
I understand why we imortalize our icons, but I do not understand why we feel that these icons have to have pristine images or meet a certain criteria created by others. If Tiger is into mutant mascot sex, who cares! So he chose to sleep with 10, 20 or 100 different women while married, who fucking cares!!!!
Yes, it is immoral what he did and his wife, Elin, has every right to put his crotch under lock and key or divorce his ass, but does that really require coverage by every single network? NO!
Just let the man play golf and stop all of the useless coverage.
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