So Much for Protected Identities

An alert reader sends us this:"At 5 p.m., Kathy Sarantos-Niver of KMTV interviewed the girlfriend of the homicide victim from last night. Kathy said "she asked us not to show her face" yet we kept seeing shots of Kathy and the woman standing next to each other. There was one shot of the woman's hands, but the other four times they showed the pair, you could clearly see the woman was a 20-

Google TV giveaway update

Last week we announced that we'd be giving out 10,000 Google TV devices over the course of the next several weeks. As part of those efforts, today we sent an email to thousands of U.S.-based web developers in the Google Code community to offer them a free device. This program, combined with last week's Adobe MAX Conference giveaway and our Google TV Giveaway Contest for Web Developers, is going to allow us to realize our goal of getting these devices into the hands of web developers so they can start building optimized websites for TV.

We're also excited to share that our Google TV Giveaway for Web Developers had an overwhelming number of entires prior to last night's contest expiration and we'll be reaching out to notify winners soon.

Thanks for your continued interest and support of Google TV.

Posted by Amanda Surya, Google TV Developer Relations Team

And You Thought Your Job Was Depressing

Imagine being in charge of programming at a television station and thinking that Travis Justice is the answer to your problems. Or knowing that he is you best hope. Then again, when you've been recruiting your talent from KPTM, it all probably just seems like one really long bad dream. Honestly, can you imagine how weird this meeting must've been? "Umm, yeah, I've decided that what people really

Thurfathe Featureth (Surface Features)

It's a question as old as Barbara Walters: Why do TV outlets hire people with speech impediments for on-air positions that involve speaking? In a medium where image and appearance are supposedly so important, there appear to be a disproportionate number of local reporters and anchors who exhibit lisps. We'll avoid naming names, but it brings up two questions: (1) What makes someone with a lisp

Things We've Been Meaning to Post

• KMTV unveiled its new "weather lab" last week. It's an improvement over the old "weather center," if only because the meteorologists no longer appear to be working in a windowed broom closet. The "lab" also appears to have a ceiling that's more than six feet high. (If only they could apply this principle to the rest of 3's claustrophobia-inducing set.)Perhaps it's just the camera angles, but

Buy

In addition to using its online chats to avoid covering news, WOWT is now using commercials disguised as news. Two great examples showed up on Monday's 6 p.m. broadcast.First, Tracy Madden gleefully informed us that Omaha again has a Mitsubishi car dealership after a grim two-month drought. There was b-roll and interview clips with a salesman about how great the new outfit is. How much do you

Vacation Mail

During our four weeks away, we received dozens of emails about this, that, and the other.For example, one alert reader tipped us off to the fact that KPTM's Calvert Collins does not appear to have majored in theology:On Sunday, July 31st, Calvert Collins of KPTM did a report on a reunion of Boystown alums and noted that Father Flanagan's great grandson was in attendance.Another fills us in on

Rate your favorite Super Bowl ads from yesterday's game

If you're an American, you probably know that there was a rather important sporting event that took place yesterday --  the Super Bowl. 

Everyone knows that half the fun of watching the game is watching the commercials. That's why this year we've partnered with our friends at YouTube to optimize the infamous Ad Blitz site so that you can re-watch and rank all of your favorite ads right from your TV. 

Just visit youtube.com/adblitz from the Google TV browser and follow the prompts to rate the best 30-second spots as you watch them in HD. May the best ad win!

- Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google TV Product Marketing

A Mighty Wind: Blowin' You and Me

Saturday evening's severe weather outbreak, which featured a tornado touching down at 180th and Harrison, gave Omaha's three serious TV stations the opportunity to put all their personnel and gadgetry to work, and what a show it was.KETV found itself in the unenviable position of having to alert viewers to the storm dangers while simultaneously broadcasting the Nebraska-USC football game. Except

Judgment

Do you suppose anyone at SuxNews thought it might not be a good idea to have your personnel grinning beneath this headline on one of the station's Facebook pages?























Apparently not.