EXTRA HELPINGS

Media Watch has been looking on at the new elections fare on the various stations and we hate to say we told you so, but...we told you so! A few weeks ago Media Watch predicted that the powers that be at TV6 were waiting to reveal Bobbi Jeffrey-Hicks' role during the elections. Well her time has come with the TV6 Extra at 8pm. Interesting concept. Not the usual hard news, interview style of Campaign 41 over at C News. But Bobbi here are a few observations.

First, the focus of your show is ambiguous. Is it serious? Is it a 'dramedy'? Elections is serious business, and you need to move beyond conceptualisation and get a clear idea of what you want to do with that half hour of precious and expensive air time.

When you are introduced at the top of the 7pm news, why don't we get additional notice/teases of your show during the rest of the newscast? If some of your viewers tune in after the first five minutes of the 7pm news they will have no clue TV6 has additional fare at 8pm because no one says so until 7.59pm and there is not even a recorded piece during the commercial breaks. You are doing your show a disservice.

Your 'exclusive' story at the top of Extra is very interesting. On Monday you had information on Kamla Persad Bissessar's choice of music for the UNC rally, then you had the revelation about Jack Warner running for the Chaguanas West seat. But something is amiss here. Are you working in a parallel newsroom at TV6? How come the political guru Sasha Mohammed did not have those stories for the TV6 news? Anyway there is no evidence to show that anyone in this country tunes in to news at 8pm to get exclusive stories, so you are actually better off teasing your exclusive in the main newscast at 7pm then fleshing it out in Extra.

You also need to separate the editorial from the news. Case in point on Monday when you said, "Well hopefully a day will never come in Trinidad and Tobago when we assassinate our politicians."
Hmmm. Well Bobbi, when the Jamaat al Muslimeen stormed the parliament during the 1990 attempted coup and Diego Martin Central MP Leo Des Vignes was killed, technically that's an assassination. And when former Attorney General Selwyn Richardson was gunned down outside his home in 1995, again that's an assassination.
You also said, "When it comes to voting, teachers aren't that special (PAUSE)." Then you went on to say that TV6 thinks teachers are special. The scripting needs some work.

The soundbites for 'Coming of Age' and 'On the Money' are a bit too long; they seem to drag on and you could end up boring your viewers (and yes Sharmilla Persad, people who sit in front of television sets are VIEWERS not LISTENERS as you referred to them).

Whose idea was 'Vote for Me Too'? You ask the candidates what they think their chances are. Do you expect them to say they think they will lose? It's better to ask them a different question and just ask the constituents what they think the candidates have to offer.

The piece on the vendors was quite interesting, as well as Media Watch's favourite piece, 'Hook, Line and Singer'; that actually gives your show a light feeling after close to two hours of heavy news.

Your wardrobe is refreshing, especially the red jacket. The fit and the colour were good on you, but a bit overpowering with the background. And you wave your hands around too much. We know the entire show is scripted and you probably have to use your hands for punctuation, but not for the entire half hour!

So overall on a scale of one to ten, Media Watch gives you a six, more for effort than content.