Friday, September 30, 2011

Crowded TV Screen

I have a confession to make. I don't watch a lot of TV. In fact I don't have cable or satellite, getting my signal instead from rabbit ears. I also watch the odd show online. Frankly I'd rather curl up with a good book than watch tv or put on a movie.

One of the few programs I do regularly watch is Canada AM for the news, weather, sports and business news. If they're going to be talking about something that interests me I'd stick around longer, otherwise I only watch the first 20 minutes. I especially like seeing the weather across Canada and the business news with Michael Caine.

Another thing I like about Canada AM is the fairly clean screen. In the upper right corner is the time. At the bottom is the Toronto weather, followed by a moving line with more detailed Toronto weather, along with traffic conditions and, when appropriate, transit delays.

I used to get up half an hour earlier to watch CHCH Morning Live, but they cluttered up the screen too much. On the left side of they have show promos with photos, while on the right side they have two traffic cams, temperature and time. At the bottom they have show promos with words and underneath a moving line with sports scores and stock quotes. That leaves only a small box with the show itself for which you need a big screen tv just to see it.

Personally I'd like to see them replace the talking heads with headline news, local weather aroung the region and local events, with a spinning globe, a twirling line and an interactive ticktacktoe thrown in for good measure.

Seriously I've come to conclusion that the redesigned show was created by someone with too much time on their hands. I highly recommend the people at CHCH Morning Live watch Don McMillan's Life After Death By Powerpoint at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbSPPFYxx3o as the principles definitely apply here.

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