STRETCHING

Raise your hand ...stretch your limbs...if you see the need for a newscast that's 1.5 hours long! Anyone?

Well CNC 3 has captured that slot easily. While TV6 goes to Smallville or some other American show and CNMG goes to CMC's Regional Roundup, the good people at TV3 find it necessary to hand Shelly Dass' baton to sports anchor Roger Sant at 8pm.
Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea if there was some fresh content. But on day one of the consultation on food prices, CNC's first story at 8pm was a piece from farmer Norris Deonarine; that's ok you say, but the exact same piece was used at 7.55pm while Shelly was anchoring. He was eloquent five minutes before, so we guess that was the logic in using it again?
And they also used the same two soundbites from Hazel Brown at 8pm that were used in the earlier newscast. We had to hear Hazel asking a second time, in the same way, why women aren't breastfeeding their babies.

Well we guess the extra half hour is just CNC's way of trying to hang on to viewers who switch off at 8pm or change to less dramatic fare. But really the 8pm news is just ten minutes of rehashed local news, then 10-15 minutes of international sport, then "Weather World" with Eric Mackie. Anyway, the half hour is just enough time for Shelly to go powder her nose before "The Big Story" at 8-30pm. We've heard that name before on one of the American networks Shelly. Where's the creativity?

And on the issue of weather, CNC Media Watch actually likes Eric Mackie's interpretation of Tropical Storm Dean rather than the presentation by TV6's Joey Stevens. Eric was much more indepth.