Information Wants to Be Pleasantly Disoriented
The New York Times reports that, notwithstanding the passing of ABC News anchor Peter Jennings, and the steady slide of other early evening news graybeards into their dotage, that advertisers find evening news viewers an attractive demographic. The reason isn't that they're savvy, well-informed consumers. It is, rather, that they're reliably in the bag:
There is still a generation served their news nightly with their cocktails, and they like it," said Bill McOwen, executive vice president and managing director for national broadcast at MPG in New York, a media agency owned by Havas. "And till that generation moves on, there will be clients who want to reach them.
We guess that also explains why so many viewers slosh over into the Access Hollywood-Wheel of Fortune hour: their vision is too bleary to locate the remote. And this would also at last supply the reason behind the persistent view shared by majority of Americans that Saddam Hussein was instrumental in the 9/11 attacks. To say nothing, of course, of why Hussein got so many audience votes on American Idol. --HOLLY MARTINS
