While on the subject of TV crawlers and graphics… I wonder just what the people who run TV stations and networks are thinking.
I was watching the Bills game on TV today and – besides the listless play by the Bills – was irritated more and more as I watched by the endless clutter on the screen.
They have reduced the picture on a 27 inch TV down to the equivalent of a 19 incher.
Am I the only person irratated by the endless progression of graphics in football and sports coverage? It’s bad enough they have to eat up chunks of the screen with the score. That’s necessary, I suppose, but all the animations, sounds, and graphics across the bottom of the screen for every excuse just detracts – distracts, actually, from the program.
Today it was compounded by the storm cancellations the local station put up. They put the whole picture in a frame and chewed up not just the bottom, but both sides of the screen and shrunk the game into what was left in the middle, which the network feed reduced with all the football graphics. It was positively tiny.
I think it’s a case of people at the TV stations that, having spent money – probably a lot of money – on the equipment to make these overlays, now feel they need to use them to justify it. Either that, or they just want to play with their new toys.
Someone needs to get a memo out to them and have them use some restraint. The colors, shimmering backgrounds, fancy symbols and other gee-gaws just clutter the screen and don’t get the message across any better. They only irritate this viewer and I suspect many others.
