The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You know you're screwed when...

Sarah Palin wants to be your biographer.

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

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It's Not Fair About CBS News

It's Not Fair

In college, my mentor presented me with a paper titled, The Seven Ancient Truths Nobody Wants to Hear About. Being young and stupid, I didn't realize how important number 3 was. Through the years, I have learned this the hard way. It's Not Fair. Once you figure this out, life becomes a lot easier.

Hypothetically, let's say you have a father who periodically storms into your room, knocks over everything, then he takes a sledge hammer and bashes holes in your walls, then knocks out the windows. He slaps you around, but he doesn't kill you. Then, in tears, you thank him for sparing your life. I think most people would say you were in an abusive relationship, and would recommend leaving your father. Now, let's change some words. Change room to house, sledge hammer to tornado, and father to God/Jesus. I'm watching a lot of people on television thanking God/Jesus for their survival.

I'm thinking they're in an abusive relationship with the creator of the universe. The tornado was "an act of God". God/Jesus is being blamed, at least by the insurance companies. He just killed your neighbors, and destroyed your house. He even wiped out a few churches. So why are you thanking him? Why isn't God/Jesus ever held accountable for his destructive acts? Instead of thanking God/Jesus, why aren't people looking up and shouting, "What the hell was that for?" I mean, shouldn't God/Jesus be called on the carpet for mass-murder, arson, abuse to animals, destruction of public property, and demolition without a permit?

If God/Jesus was really behind this, what has he got against the Southern Baptists? Maybe they aren't living up to God/Jesus's standards just as Glenn Beck said about the Japanese after the earthquake? Maybe God/Jesus wants the Baptists to dance more.

Now maybe I'm wrong. Maybe God/Jesus had a real good reason to drop a dime on those towns. Maybe the neighbors down the street had a different imaginary friend, and God/Jesus needed to defend his turf. Maybe he spared you because you are truly devout, and he decided that you, your dog, and your photo album should be spared. Aren't you kind of conceited? Do you think God/Jesus wiped out your town but spared you because... you're... you? Do you also believe, as many football players appear to, that God/Jesus is the source of all touchdowns? Stop kissing the mirror and answer me.

It's time to stop groveling and realize that It's Not Fair. Did God/Jesus send the tornado? No. Did God/Jesus aim it at you, or aim it to miss you? No. It's a random act of nature. It's called weather. You live in the wrong place and the wrong time. It's that simple. The tornado landed where it did and took out your house, but not your neighbor's because it's not fair. If you don't like the weather, move. There is a land where nothing happens. No tornados, no hurricanes, no earthquakes. It's called East Nevada. It's the most boring place on Earth, where no national newscast has ever been anchored.

It's time to stop thanking God/Jesus for sparing you after he's done his big bad wolf imitation. You're not the center of his attention. He's got to deal with a large gas cloud in the Magellan Nebula that "doesn't feel like" becoming a stellar system. Your complaints, whines, and general pissing about are too small for him to work on.

It's not fair. Deal with it. Open a Diet Coke, and relax.

Saving CBS News

Very few people have sat in the anchor chair of the CBS Evening News. All of them have served the same people that Walter Chronkite announced the death of President Kennedy to. The trouble is that group of people is dying off. I think it's curious that the news division of CBS is trying to connect with its audience via iTunes, Facebook, and Twitter when their primary audience is over 55 and mostly doesn't know anything about these technologies.

Broadcasting is a business of building audiences so you can play ads to them. (Sounds like the web, eh?) As I said, the primary audience for the CBS Evening News is over 55. You don't build this audience. You go to its funeral. The evening newscast is 22 minutes long, and has very few stories. That's because as the audience has been dying off, the ratings have died too. The large budget Chronkite had has been cut. The bureaus around the world have been shutdown. The evening newscast is much less than it was. Once the audience have dwindled enough, the ratings won't justify the expense of a newscast. This is not a growing business.

The desirable audience for a broadcaster is much younger. For news, the audience really starts at 21. These are people who are becoming established and start needing to know just what the hell is happening beyond MTV. This audience also has money to spend, and is attractive to advertisers. It blows me away that CBS is sticking with the old dying audience, and not going after the new younger audience.

The new audience is plugged in. They want everything now, on whatever device is near, and where ever they are. Broadcasters need to think bigger than their transmitters. Many people are already speculating that the days of over-the-air broadcasting are numbered. Eventually, everything will just be dumped onto the internet. Your TV, phone, computer, etc, will pick out the media you want from available catalogs. The 20 somethings aren't really interested in waiting for this. They want it now.

There are billions to be made by the company that figures out how to provide a newscast to the new audience. The first lesson is that the newscast must start in the morning and be updated frequently. I'm not talking about the CNN-style of doing three stories over and over again for 24 hours. I'm talking at least four news feeds a day, at least five real stories per news feed, and no more doctors explaining geriatric diseases. No more doing 22 minutes on a single natural disaster. There's more going on in the world. The audience wants a lot of news, and they want it now. Putting it on the internet after the one 22 minute newscast has been broadcast on the Pacific coast doesn't attract this audience.

There are new media outlets who understand the new audience, but they don't have the budget to do a national newscast. Oddly, CNET is now owned by CBS Interactive, but CNET is restricted to tech news. The network calls on CNET reporters and editors when a big tech story happens, but the network ignores that this subsidiary is building a valuable audience completely differently than the news division.

To be sure, CNET's audience is much smaller than the current audience of the evening news, but CNET is building in a new medium which threatens to crush the old medium. (This may be why CBS bought CNET.) The CNET audience is growing as the evening news' is getting smaller.

CBS needs to stop thinking of the evening newscast on the internet as a throwaway. It's obvious the Big Three networks think this way of the internet. They are not running ads on the internet feed. ABC has stopped their internet feed altogether. Instead of seeing the internet as their new frontier, the Big Three see it as an infertile field. Many networks haven't even posted their newscast everyday. CNN Daily isn't, and even CBS has been three days behind at times. This behavior tells me the networks don't understand that it's time to transition.

The current audience erosion nose-dive will continue. Given the younger audience is the most profitable, it's time to discard the current audience and follow the money. Build four real newscasts a day. Put the last one on television for the old farts, but put all of your audience-building promotions into the 20 something audience. Don't riddle the newscast with commercials for geriatric medicines. Sell products the audience you want to have would find useful. You're not going to build an audience trying to sell a 20 something heart medicine.

I just saved your ass, CBS News. You're welcome.

This Issue's Headline submission to the National Daily World Enquiring Globe.

This Summer's Big Blockbuster Spoiler!

Who Are We Kidding? It's Explosions.

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"Humans are three genes away from throwing feces out of their cages."

"This is not a meritocracy."

"I'm supposed to be writing my Will, but I'm putting it off until the last minute."

"It smelled before I got here."

"SSDD - Same Shit Different Developers"

Excuse Me

I have to see if there's any candy left.

Fek'Lar
They pay me to think. These are my thoughts. Do you think they are getting their money's worth?

Remember: The Crapolla contains my personal opinions. That's right they're mine, so get your own! And you kids get off my lawn!

Although written with the software professional in mind, my mind tends to wander all over the place, and I sometimes write about politics, mass stoopidity, dumb things I saw, and whatever else comes to mind.

From time to time, I use salty language, thus The Crapolla is not intended for children, or certain people from the Christian Right.

feed available from http://www.lowcomdom.com/crapolla/index.xml

EOJ

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