It's still April, but that won't stop the onslaught of May sweeps, which began yesterday.

The good news? Prime-time TV finally recovers from the effects of the writers' strike as fan favorites return with original episodes.

The not-so-good news? Local TV stations will be more tempted than ever to indulge in "highly promotable" sweeps stories to get your attention. While some of these may be newsworthy, precedent shows many will not be.

It seems as good a time as any to revisit the "What do you want in local TV news?" column of viewer gripes from March. After that column was published, Rachel Stahle, 38, of South Park, e-mailed to say she wanted to hear what local news executives thought of the viewer critiques.

I took viewers' concerns to local news directors, who offered explanations, justifications and even some welcome mea culpas.

Too much news time: Viewers, and not all of them elderly, yearn for an era when TV offered news of the day in a concise format, not a 90-minute or three-hour nightly marathon.

In part, this is an issue of viewers needing to simply turn off the TV. TV station executives don't expect viewers will watch from 4 or 5 p.m. until 6:30 or 7 p.m. They figure viewers will dip in and out. Stations run promos for upcoming stories to try to keep viewers hooked.

Ratings show that the approach works. Local news ratings in Pittsburgh, though declining in most time periods (morning is the exception), continue to be higher here than in many other cities. As KDKA news director John Verrilli accurately notes, for the past year KDKA's 4 p.m. news has been beating "Judge Judy" on WPXI and "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on WTAE.

"I think there's an appetite for it," Verrilli said of the ever-increasing amount of time devoted to news.

This isn't the last time that I'll note that if viewers didn't tune in, TV stations wouldn't continue to do the things viewers complain about.

Too many teases; too much hype: Too often viewers make the mistake of thinking the people who produce newscasts don't know the effects of what they do, but the opposite is true. They know exactly what they're doing and some will even own up to their fallibility.

WPXI news director Corrie Harding acknowledged there's a term for teasing stories that don't deliver: "anticipointment."

"If we make a story sound like the second coming and tease it four times and it's really nothing by the time we get there" that leads to anticipointment, Harding said. Stations don't set out to aggravate viewers, but as WTAE news director Bob Longo notes, TV is also a business.

"I watch the news and I produce the news to be informed," Longo said, "but I also produce it to see if viewers could stick around and watch the entire production."

One viewer complaint was about teases that ask a question (e.g. "As gas prices rise, how will grocery prices be affected? Channel X investigates, coming up") but don't answer the tease question until 30 minutes later. Longo said his newsroom has made a concerted effort in recent months to reduce or eliminate question teases.

As for the duration between the tease and the airing of the story, Harding said there are discussions daily about how much time should elapse. Sometimes if a story gets teased too often, it's because producers have doubts that reports airing between the tease and the story it teases will not be as likely to prevent viewers from changing channels.

As for hype and hyperbolic language, news directors said that's a challenge they face every day, and although they may get it right most of the time, viewers will only notice when they fail. One example: A WTAE report on a car fire in a parking garage described the vehicle as "charred beyond recognition" even though the car was clearly recognizable in the video accompanying the report.

"That's unfortunate," Longo said, "and the viewer is right."

Too many Steelers stories as news: Many viewers, who always prefaced their complaint by saying, "I'm a huge Steelers fan, but ...," are tired of even the most picayune bit of Steelers trivia leading a newscast or interrupting as "breaking news."

"There is no better example in Pittsburgh of, 'If the viewer didn't want it, we wouldn't do it,' " Longo said. And again, ratings prove Longo's point.

"We try to balance that out and we get feedback on both sides," Verrilli said. "The ratings feedback certainly gives us the belief that there is an appetite for it."

Verrilli also notes that Steelers stories don't air during a sports segment in KDKA's 5 p.m. newscast because there is no regularly scheduled sports block at 5 p.m.

Too much weather: Viewers complained about an abundance of weather coverage, and while they are largely correct that stations go overboard, it's also worth bearing in mind that just because conditions aren't bad outside your window doesn't mean that's the case in another part of the large viewing area local stations serve.

That said, do TV stations really need to pre-empt the national morning shows when there's only three or four inches of snow in Pittsburgh? Really?

"Some markets do more for even less," Longo said, justifying local coverage. He also noted that the rise in the number of cameras that have been set up around the region -- by TV stations, by PennDot -- has made weather a more visual story that TV stations are now better able to cover. (Thanks, technology! Or not.)

Too many references to Web sites: Some viewers don't like to be told to go to a station's Web site "for more information," but all media outlets, newspapers included, are making greater use of the Web. In recent months, WPXI has done the best job of telling viewers specifically what they can find on the station's Web site, a move that may snuff out many of the complaints that arise from the nebulous "for more details ..."

"It's not about trying to push, we're not trying to make people go back and forth from the TV to the Web," Harding said. "Folks who like to use the Web will do it. Folks who don't want to won't do it. We have sports in our newscast. A lot of people don't care about sports. There are people who do care. For people who do care about having extra stuff on the Web, we want to serve them as quickly and specifically as we can."

Verrilli said KDKA uses its Web site strategically for details such as the serial numbers on recalled items.

"People don't watch TV with a pen or pencil to write down a number," he said. "We think it's a great service to provide people extra added information besides the short amount of time [we can devote to it] on TV."

Too few stories on the arts: Viewers wanted to know more about arts events happening in town, something local stations generally shy away from covering.

Verrilli said KDKA covers arts stories regularly on "Pittsburgh Today Live" (9 a.m. weekdays) but that broadcast is low-rated compared to the evening and late news, so most KDKA viewers aren't seeing arts coverage except when feature reporter Dave Crawley focuses on something artistic in the 6 p.m. news.

"[Coverage of the arts] is always worth examining because the arts play such an important role in the identity of a city or metropolitan area," Harding said. But WPXI is more likely to report a newsier story (e.g. the economic impact of a recession on museum attendance) than a soft feature on an actor coming to town in a play or musical. "People's time is limited now and people are telling us, just by the ratings we see, that if we go soft, it doesn't feel like stuff they need to know and they'll find something more important to do with their time."

Again, if viewers watched arts coverage on local news, stations might provide more of it.

WTAE's Andrew Stockey offers a weekly feature, "Check It Out," during the 11 p.m. news Thursday nights. It's basically a roundup or calendar listing of arts and cultural events and dining.

Channel 4 has always done a better job of covering popular culture than its competitors. I remember seeing a report on the arrival of Sonic, and as a fan of that fast food chain, I was thrilled to learn it was now in Western Pennsylvania. I'm sure some viewers saw it as nothing but free advertising, but the chain does have a following.

"There was a heated discussion in the newsroom about covering that," said Longo, who was against reporting on the opening. "I said, 'Give me a break, how is it cultural?' But a lot of other people argued, 'You didn't grow up in an area where there was a Sonic.' "

Fox has renewed "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" for a second season, with recurring guest star Brian Austin Green joining the cast as a series regular. ... Showtime has renewed "The Tudors" for a third season to air early next year. ... The fourth season of British drama "MI-5," which A&E aired late on Friday nights with little fanfare, will join the BBC America lineup at 9 p.m. May 21. ... WPXI news anchor and Marquette University graduate Peggy Finnegan will be recognized for her achievements in broadcasting and community service with the school's James T. Tiedge Memorial Award in a ceremony tomorrow. ... Poet and Carnegie Mellon University English professor Terrance Hayes will be featured today on PBS's "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" (6 p.m., WQED).

This week the podcast went on the road to WQED Multimedia in Oakland to chat with "On Q" reporter/managing editor Michael Bartley about covering the Pennsylvania primary and working with PBS's "The NewsHour." Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "Eli Stone," "The Inspector Lynley Mysteries" and digital signals. Read it at post-gazette.com/tv.