Thomas Gray |
Last week, we learned that KNWS Channel 51 was being sold and would soon be converted to a home-shopping channel. This is unfortunate, considering that this city needs no more obnoxious home-shopping channels.
When KNWS began broadcasting a few years ago, it was intended to be a Houston-area all-news service - a smaller, local version of CNN. However, the station never lived up to its potential. Its ability to put together competitive news programming was hampered by a shoestring budget, and over the years KNWS trimmed its own production such that viewers were more likely to see an infomercial or a syndicated news program than they were to catch up on local events.
The demise of Channel 51 will especially be felt by local sports fans. John Granato's Sports Night Live was the station's most popular program, and his Friday-night high school football review was the most comprehensive and interesting of any such broadcast in the city.
KNWS also picked up Rice, Notre Dame and University of Houston football, Aeros hockey and Texas Rangers baseball when no other local station would.
KNWS was a good idea that, unfortunately, never developed. Its presence in the local media pantheon will nevertheless be missed.
Another spring has passed, and another Houston International Festival has come and gone. I was lucky to have gone the one day it didn't rain.
I like the International Festival. I still think the organizers should provide a ambient/trance/ techno stage featuring area rave DJs, and the city's flourishing ska scene could also be better represented, but otherwise the music was good and the food was excellent.
It is a travesty that the festival recently began charging admission. Not only does it trouble me that people are being forced to shell out six bucks to attend an event held on publicly owned streets and parks, but the practice of chain-linking thousands of people into a few blocks dampens the festivities by making everything seem claustrophobic. It is especially annoying that they fail to provide a sufficient number of Port-O-Lets.
One wonders why the HIF's myriad corporate sponsors can't cover the admission revenue.
A couple of weeks ago, the Elyse Lanier-led Houston Image Group launched a new campaign aimed at augmenting the city's somewhat lackluster national image. The campaign's slogan, "Houston: Expect the Unexpected," seems like a toned-down version of the "Houston: Anticipate the Anarchic" or "Houston: Beware of the Bizarre" aphorisms that the marketing group probably originally proposed.
The campaign, in touting this city's many virtues, points out that Houston's much-maligned weather is, in fact, very mild because the city's average yearly temperature is 70 degrees. Well, duh! If the temperature is a chilly 40 degrees in mid-January and a withering 100 degrees in mid-August, guess what happens when you do the math? Lies, damn lies, statistics ...
Frankly, I don't really see why this city feels the need to enhance its image. Who cares if somebody in Missouri has a low opinion of Houston? There are a lot of people who don't like New York or Los Angeles, but that hasn't kept those places from becoming the two largest metropolitan areas in the country.
Hey - I like Houston, and that's all that matters.
Gray is a UH alumnus.