TV Q&A with Rob Owen

Friday, July 04, 2008

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "American Chopper," "The Sopranos" on A&E and WTAE's weather coverage. As always, thanks for reading, and keep those questions coming.

-- Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor

Q: I know that on "American Chopper" Vinny left the shop, but do you know what happend to Cody and the other older guy who he worked with? It also seems to me that the series is becoming more comical and less about bike building.

-- Tony, 48, Pittsburgh

Rob: According to a publicist for the show, Cody moved on to explore other professional opportunities.

"Regarding the story lines, the backbone of the series is the bike building; just as important [are] the colorful personalities of the Teutuls and other guys in the shop," the publicist explained. "That balance isn't intentionally shifting and we look forward to bringing more great bikes, and stories, to viewers."

Q: Is there any indication how long TLC plans to follow the series "Jon and Kate + 8"? The show has been filming them for about three or four years and I wonder how long such a personal production may take place.

-- David, 33, Shadyside

Rob: It only seems like it's been that long.

"Actually 'Jon and Kate + 8' has only been on the air as a series for a little over a year, although there were two specials two years ago," a TLC publicist noted. "The show will continue as long as the whole family wants to participate in sharing their lives."

I give it four more years tops, unless Ann Curry gets involved -- she'll drag it out for many more years to come judging by her McCaughey septuplet coverage.

Q: When will A&E air the remainder of season six of "The Sopranos"?

-- Diane, Arlington, Va.

Rob: According to an A&E spokeswoman, the remaining episodes will air this fall. No air date has been set.

Q: During the telecast of the Euro 2008 Finals soccer match between Germany and Spain on Sunday afternoon, WTAE Channel 4, June 29th ... there were bad storms in the viewing region, but the WTAE weather wonks overdid a good idea & service. They constantly scrolled the weather warnings during the first half of the match along the bottom of the viewing screen. After 45 minutes, I think I had the information pretty well down. During the intermission, the warnings stopped, then started the second half again, but thank goodness were only on for a few minutes, unless there was an update. ... I sent them [a] complaint, reminding them that soccer or football to most of the world is played primarily with a player's feet and the weather scrolling on the bottom of the screen was annoying ... and whether or not that helped, it was better the second half. Other local stations did not keep their updates up as much at the same times.

-- Gene, 57, Moon

Q: Why did WTAE feel compelled during the Euro 2008 finale on ABC on Sunday to run a thunderstorm watch/warning ticker for almost the entire first half and much of the second half -- the ticker obscured or hid the ball and cut players in half? I'm OK with the ticker running intermittently for a few minutes during the broadcast (the approach WPXI and KDKA used), but for 42 of 45 minutes in the first half and probably 25 of the 45 minutes in the second half? Overkill to the nth degree.

-- Mike, 43, Homestead

Rob: Many viewers don't seem to care about these weather interruptions until it impacts their shows, and then someone must pay. We've been writing about these incursions for years and it's clear that 1) Viewers don't understand that just because there is no severe weather at their house doesn't mean there are not potentially harmful conditons elsewhere and 2) TV stations are going to keep showing these warnings no matter what. When there's a tornado warning, a brief interruption and continued crawls seem warranted. But taking over the tube until the warning expires strikes me as showboating.

"One of our most important duties as broadcasters is to inform the public of potential danger in a timely manner," wrote WTAE news director Bob Longo in response to the letters Mike and Gene sent in. "We have a many people and mechanisms in place to do so and as technology improves, we are able to do so in an ever increasingly simple and easy to understand manner.

"[Sunday's] storms carried with them a history of damage and as they entered our area, our staff and equipment -- along with information from the National Weather Service -- showed a very real threat. Severe thunderstorms rolled through and, for a time, a tornado warning was issued for our core viewing area in Allegheny and Washington counties. We delivered that information as quickly and as accurately as possible with on-screen crawls and full programming interrupts, as is our policy and duty to do so.

"Of course we're sorry if some of our viewers were upset, but we're sure in hindsight they understand that [Sunday] presented special, important challenges."

I asked Longo if it was possible to move the crawl to a different part of the screen depending on the programming, since that seems to have been a big complaint in this instance.

"We are currently transitioning weather crawl systems," he said. "In the very near future moving a crawl to the top ... or bottom ... to be program specific ... is something we are looking at and will consider."

Q: We currently have Standard Cable with Comcast and before we accede to any upgrade to digital we wanted to explore alternatives.

We are unwilling to give out our social security number to DirecTV and to Dish. We simply cannot understand why they are the only merchants we have dealt with in the last 10 years who demand a social security number before they are willing to give any firm information (or, much information at all). We have lived in the same house for 33 years and have a super credit rating.

Can you do something about their policy? It boggles our minds that there is ostensibly no way around their demand and there is no way we will share that info with some telemarketer (we were informed they work on commission, so I assume they are telemarketers).

-- Carol, 70, Pittsburgh

Rob: There's nothing I can do about the policy except ask the companies to explain it. A DirecTV spokeswoman did not respond by deadline, but DISH Network corporate communications manager Francie Bauer did.

"It's a safeguard against fraud, as we've encountered people who aren't who they say they are," she wrote in an e-mail. "But do know that we do have a non-SSN option where a customer can purchase their equipment and pay a one-time fee of $200 upfront."

Q: I did already ask Verizon this, but got the usual cable company response for questions they don't feel like answering: "[Insert cable company. name here] strives to provide the best service and we continue to enhance our product offerings." So I am hoping you can get a better response.

I would like to know if Verizon could begin showing the program air date/year on their interactive guide. For example, I'm a huge "Law & Order: SVU" fan. On my old Comcast guide, before the program description, it would say the year it was made (2005, etc). Can't Verizon do this? They use the same provider for the data (TV Guide).

-- Tyler, 17, Penn Hills

Rob: It does seem like some minor tweaks could get that information to appear.

"Verizon is looking at this for future enhancements to the program descriptions provided through FiOS TV's interactive media guide," said a Verizon spokesman. "Typically, the year a movie is released is already included in program descriptions, but we are looking to expand that type of information (i.e. original air dates) to more programming down the road."

First published on July 4, 2008 at 12:00 am