We are halfway through the November TV sweeps period when stations traditionally roll out their biggest stories of the year.
Stories such as we have ”An exclusive interview with KC Chiefs’ General Manager Scott Pioli” are teased for days as some sort of breaking news.
How silly can sweeps stories be? A TV reporter in Cleveland posed nude for a photo shoot and her station held the story for months to roll it out during sweeps. It reportedly delivered the highest ratings ever at the station.
And when the interview is to actually air it is always teased at the start of the broadcast. But it will always run in the second half of the half hour to try to get the ratings up for the entire newscast. It’s a trick all the stations do with their top stories.
So when KCTV’s veteran reporter/anchor Carolyn Long, who joined the CBS affiliate in 1996, unveiled a “KCTV5 Special Report” Thursday night titled “Kansas City doctor discovers ‘milk & cookie disease” it almost seemed laughable.
“Oh no!!” many viewers likely thought. “The dreaded “Milk and Cookie Disease!”
But Long’s story (Kelly Just, Special Projects Executive Producer) was not a fluff piece.
It was a serious look at local physician Dr. Julie Wei’s groundbreaking work that suggests longer nights and later dinners are to blame for a new illness affecting kids. It was a serious look at some factors that were causing young children some very serious complications.
Sometimes sweeps stories may seem a bit silly because of the way they are over-hyped. Sometimes they deliver important information for viewers.
This is one that could be very valuable to viewers:
BALANCE IS NEEDED
Unfortunately, that’s all far too many children have to eat these days - milk and cookies - because their parents can’t afford much of anything else. Late dinners? That’s the result of a society in which the not-so-poor parents allow their children to be involved in too many extracurricular activities. Where’s the sense of balance here?
KUDOS
Kudos to Carolyn and the producer for this piece. If I see another “sexting and your child” story during sweeps, I’m gonna scream.
STORY WAS NOT VALUABLE
Why is it very valuable to viewers? It created undo worry for many parents - more hype and pointless journalism. Milk has been a necessary staple in many children’s diet - it provides essential nutrients and vitamins. I have had four children - now adults that successfully had a bottle before bedtime. So let’s quit lumping nutritious milk with made up diseases that may or may not ever affect a child.
SON HAS DISEASE
The doctor that discovered the “milk and cookie disease” diagnosed my son as having this. After a few times of me being very, very adament something else was wrong, another doctor did more tests and my son had SEVERE obstructive sleep apnea.