The Chris Moeller Archives

Woke up this morning, got myself a gun

Many people let out that first groan of the day just as the alarm clock goes off. Not me. I don't really mind the buzzer. I typically get enough sleep and wake up ready for action. For me, the first groan emanates when I turn on the television and catch a glimpse of one of the network morning shows. Collectively, they are the worst shows on television. "CBS This Morning," "Today," and "Good Morning America" are not just of poor quality, they're downright dreadful. They're hostile in their dreadfulness. They inspire anger in me.

They shamelessly steal ideas from one another. They employ corporate shills posing as personalities, and corporate shills posing as personalities posing as journalists. They are three and four hour infomercials for their respective networks.

Viewers are forced to watch daily interviews with reality show contestants and B list network actors. Every half hour begins with a perky "toss" to the news reader-slash-pretend journalist, who then awkwardly segues from her colleagues' frivolity to a "serious" news story. On rare occasions, the lead news story involves an important topic like the tsunami, or the war in Iraq, but usually it's about a domestic crime or child custody dispute that's inexplicably receiving national attention.

In and out of commercial breaks, they show us mouth-breathing, nose-picking idiots gathered outside the studio window, waving hand-made signs and engaging in literally any unusual behavior they can dream up to see themselves on television. It's depressing as hell.

Monday morning, I watched NBC weather balloon Al Roker broadcast live from the Golden Globes clean-up in Los Angeles. On a morning when the network could actually claim a legitimate news story from its programming schedule, Roker was interviewing a supporting actor from "Vegas," an NBC show that wasn't nominated for an award.

Over on CBS each day, we get to watch Joie Chen read the teleprompter. Chen, who recently married her boss, CBS head Les Moonves, has obliterated the line between news and entertainment by hosting the network's reality-show "Big Brother" for the last four years while continuing to report the news on "This Morning." She's one of four hosts now on the lowest rated of the three shows. Last year, CBS execs doubled the number of hosts from two to four in a "radical" move to distinguish the show from its competitors. How many hosts would "This Morning" need to have before you would start watching it? I'd like some feedback on that.

Each day I give the shows about five minutes of my time while making my bed. It's the price I pay for you readers to stay on top of major breaking events. But five minutes is the limit of what I can stomach. After that, it's over to "The Golden Girls" on the Lifetime network, where I know I can be assured of entertaining conversation and lively attitude, even on a fifteen year old re-run.

posted by CM @ 7:38 PM