Wednesday 10 September 2008
Morning Television... do we have a winner?
Tuned into the vast array of quality morning television today and was left missing the fact I don't have Foxtel in my office.
Now before I rip into the three major Australian free to air television stations for their post-9am variety shows, I'd like to make the point that I understand there is an audience for these infomercial vehicles but I fail to see how there's a large enough market to keep three budget shows on the air Monday to Friday.
So onto the ripping!
Firstly I tuned into Mornings with Kerri-Anne on Channel Nine and got exposed to a chat session with her right hand man who is personable in his presentation but I can't get by the bondi bronze tans on both of them while they talk about... Tommy Emmanuel's history as a backup guitarist for a mum and pop band and a previous musician's inability to put on a bra before performing on the show. In short - gripping stuff!
CLICK!
Channel Seven's 'The Morning Show' - wow I'd hate to think how long that think tank too to come up with that name - is cooking up a dinner party feast. Now whenever there is food on the tele I'm in for as long as it takes for the final dish to be served up - so it should come as no surprise that the Lifestyle Food channel is locked in on the favourites list on the remote - but this time I saw the chef serve up salmon with asparagus... mmm not my favourite food combo but I gave the Price is Right Alumni and former Sports Presenter a chance to keep me interested with their throw to a break (well an infomercial) and I got 15 seconds of hair touchy feely and quite frankly SP didn't rough up Larry's hair enough to keep me around. The price is wrong sir!
CLICK!
Last stop on the morning show circuit to nowhere is the 9am with David and Kim effort on Channel Ten. They're talking to Kenny the Toilet entrepreneur and for the first 3 minutes I was genuinely interested in their conversation... then the graphic advertising the new show Kenny's made for 8pm tonight on Ten pops up and the cynic in me cries out against the shameless self promotion of the network!
But having evaluated the other two station offerings in the previous 10 minutes - all of a sudden the seemingly normal way David and Kim talk to their guest (albeit in the classic interview seat arrangement) instead of the staged format you get overwhelmed with on most shows - is watchable.
And that's the operative word for mine - watchable. You're not going to expect a brilliant mind nourishing show at 9am in the morning at the best of times but for those TV addicts out there who can watch during the week - the least the major free to air television networks could do is try a little harder to make their shows more watchable in between the infomercial segments that plague the morning show genre.
How do you do that?
Well that info’s not completely free like the criticism above. Ask and you shall receive TV producers…
Warrick D Nicolson has worked in Sports Media since 1999 and currently drives social and digital strategies in sport.
He can be contacted via email here.