There's a well-known slogan pioneered by New York radio station WINS in the '60s and soon exported to fellow Westinghouse station KFWB in Los Angeles that goes like this -
You give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world
- the idea, of course, being that in those 22 net commercial-free minutes per half-hour of broadcast time, the station would impart to you all of the news worth hearing from around the globe (an idea absurd enough on its own that it was subtly mocked in the 1987 movie
Robocop).
However, a recent study by the USC Norman Lear Center finds that that assessment is off by a factor of about 60. That is, local TV news provides not 22 minutes of substantive news, but rather -
An average half-hour of L.A. local news packed all its local government coverage – including budget, law enforcement, education, layoffs, new ordinances, voting procedures, personnel changes, city and county government actions on health care, transportation and immigration – into 22 seconds.
- and, based on my watching, that 22-second estimate may be high.
Commenting on the study, Los Angeles Times media columnist James Rainey brilliantly tossed a jab at the proclivity of local (well, local Los Angeles, anyway) TV stations to hire buxom weather reporters whose main assets are obvious in profile as they helpfully wave their hands in front of a map of Southern California, as he writes,
Still, the tabulations provide a stark reminder of what happens when news directors run after bigger ratings, casting other imperatives aside. The sports guy gets ever more jocular. And the weather gal never wants for time to show the latest cutoff low on the map in her latest low-cut top. (KCAL's Jackie Johnson, not to worry, you still clearly lead the pack.)
In other words - You give us 22 seconds, we'll give you the globes: