Where has the May Sweeps Been

With probably about a week or 2 left of the May Sweeps Woody Warning, the razzle dazzle and in-depth, on my side investigations, normally associated with Sweeps, have been missing. Obviously the Greensburg tornado forced stations to alter their Sweeps plans, and for good reason. It makes one wonder if all three would have continued the month without any Sweeps planned promotions and pieces, would the ratings have changed at all? Unfortunately the stations have started back in the Sweeps fray to bring us over hyped stories such as KAKE's installment about Wichita BINGO parlors and their future if casinos come into the county. As I wrote in a past entry, I challenged KAKE to prove me wrong as I said the story would be all hype and little substance. They didn't. If I were to write a list of things I knew about the topic before the story, watch it, and write a list of things I learned after watching, the list would be blank. The story told me nothing, other than things I think most people would say would be common sense. Casinos come into town and surely charities benefiting from BINGO parlors are hurt. Enough said, but KAKE found it necessarily to spend several minutes on it all to pull in the viewers from the BINGO game show. If Sedgwick county was the first county in the area to possibly bring in casinos, then it might be a story, but many other communities have had simmilar issues and have seemed get around it. I am still waiting for that Sweeps story on the Greensburg tornado. I had mentioned in a previous blog I was waiting for the stations to alter their Sweeps plans and do a story off of the tornado. I had said this was a chance to really put together a piece that could be the best of the month. Correct me if I'm wrong, I haven't seen one yet, nor promoted. I will say there have been some good pieces out of the storm from all three stations. I think KWCH's story on people getting sick from other storms in FEMA trailers was one of the best as a hard news, non-tribute story. It was timely, airing the first day the trailers were being given to victims in Greensburg. -Hal