WGME-TV Trips Badly With “Road Trippin’”
by Al Diamon
In the ditch: WGME-TV, Channel 13 in Portland, airs a regular segment in its newscasts called “Road Trippin’” that seriously blurs the lines between journalism and advertising.
Sorry, let me correct that. “Road Trippin’” obliterates the boundary separating the two. The pieces, hosted by sports director Dave Eid, are unabashed infomercials.
Take, for example, the piece Eid did on the Ramada Inn in Lewiston. If this wasn’t something the advertising department dreamed up, then perhaps someone can explain why a perfectly ordinary chain hotel merits this kind of alleged news coverage.
Eid begins by gushing (the only appropriate word) about the hotel’s “new look.” As he travel through the banquet room (“just a beautiful banquet room”), the conference room (“really impressive”), the recreation facilities (“gorgeous Olympic-size pool”) and the restaurant (“you’ve done wonders for this place”), the camera reveals amenities that look pretty much like those in any similar hotel. If there’s anything unusual about this particular Ramada, it’s not apparent. The piece ends with Eid telling viewers that if they want more information about the hotel, they can go to WGME’s website. At least he stopped short of giving the Ramada toll-free number.
Other “Road Trippin’” segments are equally over the top. On the website, an upcoming visit to a Bath restaurant describes the place as featuring, “Elegant dining at reasonable prices.” It also displays the eatery’s logo. While interviewing a marina owner in the Sebago Lake area, Eid runs footage from a boat manufacturer’s promotional video showing happy folks enjoying its products. Eid’s “must see” site in Old Orchard Beach: a gift shop offering the usual assortment of souvenirs. In Portland, Eid tells us a charter boat service is “ideal for families, large parties and business gatherings.”
Even in a local TV scene overflowing with tripe, there’s no excuse for this slop.
Not moving after all: For nearly a year and a half, MaineToday Media has been trying to sell the office building it owns in downtown Waterville, where the Morning Sentinel has its offices. It’s finally succeeded.
After failed attempts to convince the city to buy the site for a police station, MaineToday found a buyer in a local doctor, whose name it isn’t revealing. It’s also not saying how much the sale price is (although all that information will become public when the deal is final, so I wonder if the Sentinel will report it then). The building is assessed for just over $1.2 million, but the company had offered it to Waterville for $550,000.
The sale doesn’t mean the Sentinel is changing its address. The paper will consolidate into the building’s first floor this fall, where it’s negotiated a five-year lease. The doctor plans to use the second floor for a family practice, according to information released by MTM.
This transaction, coupled with earlier sales of the Press Herald’s building in Portland and the Kennebec Journal’s home in Augusta, means the newspaper company has now shed itself of all its real estate except its printing plant and distribution center in South Portland.
Soft-news Sunday: I finally got a look at the Journal Tribune’s new Sunday paper. The first issue on June 16, in spite of publisher Jim Freeland’s front-page promise it contained “something for everyone,” carried not a single hard news story. Page 1 is heavy on light features, including two articles with the word “inspired” in their headlines. There are a couple of whimsical columns, but no editorial. Even the sports section is all fluff, lacking even the previous day’s scores.
It looks like the whole thing was put together several days before it was distributed. But even the average Maine weekly paper has more solid content than this thing.
On the plus side, it’s free. And if you live in Biddeford or Saco, it gets tossed in your driveway wrapped in a plastic bag. Of course, in some places, they call that littering.
Third and long: WMTW-TV, Channel 8 in Portland, has traditionally finished third in the ratings for its newscasts. Since only three stations in the market do local news, that’s the equivalent of last. Stations no longer release Nielsen ratings publicly, so there’s no fresh information on whether that’s changed in recent years, but there was a very strong indication last week that the situation at Channel 8 hasn’t improved.
The station fired morning anchor Shannon Moss, one of its few well known on-air personalities. Moss had been at WMTW for six years and spent the eight years before that on WCSH-TV, the Portland market leader.
Channel 8 gave no reason for the move, but in local TV it’s always about ratings or salary, so it’s safe to assume one was too low or the other too high.
Al Diamon can be emailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
