A Bit About Me

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Along with my daily duties as founder and head writer of HumorMeOnline.com, in 2003, I took the Grand Prize in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest (also known as the "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night" competition). I've also been a contributor to "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson" and the web's "The Late Show with David Letterman". I also occupy my time writing three blogs, "Blogged Down at the Moment", "Brit Word of the Day" and "Production Numbers"...and my off-time is spent contemplating in an "on again/off again" fashion...my feable attempts at writing any one of a dozen books. I would love to write professionally one day...and by that I mean "actually get a paycheck".

07 April 2006

Out With the Old...In With the News

Everyone gets to move up a notch come June. Well, not everyone, but everyone who falls below Katie Couric...jobwise. Sure...didn't you know? Katie replaces Dan Rather's stand in, Bob Schieffer; Meredith Vieira replaces Katie's old job at "The Today Show", someone's going to replace Vieira's job at "The View"...and so on and so forth. So, we all move up one place...except for Schieffer who has to go to the back of the line because he's too old. Too old...like Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw were.

Oh, c'mon...didn't you know? They probably spent millions of dollars doing surveys and paying those consulting firms whose only real job it is...is telling you how to do things "better". Of course, it's always just based on speculation...so if you want a dream job...become one of those. People pay to hear you tell them what to do. Not that you know...but you have scads of paperwork to back-up your analysis. I can get scads of paperwork to back-up nearly everything I say if I go on Google...but no one pays me for the privilege. So...Katie is demographically in a niche that hopefully is going to pull in younger viewers. Younger viewers who don't bother turning on the news anymore...they read it at their convenience online, get it from "The Daily Show", and read it on their iPods commuting to work. Most aren't even home by the time the national news comes on...and this is where they must figure Couric will excel.

Who watches "The Today Show"? People getting ready for their jobs? Well just snippets of it, but I bet most people who watch "The Today Show" are probably stay at home types, those getting their kids ready for school...those busy working from home...and/or those taking care of their parents...oh, there's a whole lot of those coming of age...it's true. These are then the same people who will be home in time to watch the news when it rolls around...so who should they trust but someone they've been watching for eons. Who even KNOWS Bob Schieffer? What did he do? Some White House correspondent? Some guy on 60 Minutes...Dan Rather's brother? But Katie is a household name...and product placement is everything...so let's place her in that slot.

Wait...isn't Katie too perky...she's been hosting the morning show for 15 years...how is she going to make the transition to evening news? Believe me...the woman is 49 years old...she's had two children...ain't too much perky on her any more...so I'm sure she can make the change just fine. And at 49, she should be getting ready for it any year now. But seriously...I used to find her exceedingly annoying...but I believe in the last few years she's mellowed...she's settled in and is more aware that she can be serious, and can be taken seriously...without having to resort to cheerleader-type enthusiasm. Sure, she's still a little quirky...but if I were making $14 mil a year, I'd probably be all loopy, too.

And so, we all move up a notch...which, considering that I'm unemployed...I'm not too sure where I fit in...but I'm still ahead of old Bob Schieffer. But I can't help but think CBS would be ahead if they just rehired Dan Rather...and NBC would be ahead if they brought Tom Brokaw back. Sure, they aren't as young as Couric...but I don't think I need to have a consulting company to figure out they'd pull in the figures they want. Go figure.

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