TV Q&A with Rob Owen

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This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "Family Jewels," "House" and murder-minded ice storms. As always, thanks for reading, and keep those questions coming.

-- Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV editor

Q: Will new episodes of Gene Simmons' "Family Jewels" return to A&E?

-- Mary Jean, Pittsburgh

Rob: Yes, the new season premieres at 10 p.m. March 11.

Q: I'm wondering if Susan McGinnis has been permanently replaced on "The CBS Morning News." I have enjoyed waking up to her broadcasts at 4:30 each morning for years, and I haven't seen her in a while.

-- Susan, Pittsburgh

Rob: According to a CBS News spokeswoman, McGinnis left CBS News and no replacement has been named.

Q: Is Lifetime's "Army Wives" going to return to Lifetime and, if so, when? Were they affected by the writers' strike? I really enjoyed the series last year and was looking forward to seeing it again.

-- Charlotte, Pittsburgh

Rob: As we noted last month in an interview with the head of Lifetime programming, "Army Wives" has been delayed by the writers' strike. But if the strike ends soon, as I expect it will, new episodes may be able to air this summer as planned.

Q: The last couple of episodes of "House" have been promoted as all new. A number of Dr. House's group have been replaced with other actors. I don't remember reading anywhere that the cast was being changed. Is this permanent? Why is it that when they have a successful show they just can't seem to leave it alone? The "new and improved" versions usually spell the end of the series most of the time.

-- Dorothy, Brentwood

Rob: This was widely covered in the press last summer and in the fall. None of the old cast members has left "House." They have added some new cast members to shake up the show, but this was decidedly not a case of cleaning house. All the show's original cast, though they may not appear in every episode, are still listed in the opening credits.

Q: What happened to "Blood Ties" on Lifetime? It seems it disappeared long before the strike would have affected it. Now I see something about it being on the Internet. What's going on?

-- Audrey, Pittsburgh

Rob: The show was canceled, but because of fans flocking to MyLifetime.com, the network premiered the final two episodes of the series on the Web site.

Q: Who can I write about bringing "Cane" back to television? There is a very large group of us that were really looking forward to the new episodes.

-- Mary, New Braunfels, Tex.

Rob: In e-mail and phone calls, I hear this all the time: "There are a large number of us ... ," "Everyone I know ...," "We're all ..." Sorry folks, unless you are in frequent communication with at least 7 million other viewers, your desires/firm convictions mean squat to broadcast network programmers.

Everyone I know watches "Friday Night Lights," but I recognize that tonight's episode (9 p.m., NBC) is likely the season finale, especially after reading NBC boss man Ben Silverman's most recent comments.

As for "Cane," the show ran out of episodes due to the writers' strike, but the ratings were so bad I'll be surprised if it returns. As always, you can write a letter to the network. Addresses are here.

Q: I wonder when I see the commercial from the WPXI news staff that states that Pittsburgh is a wonderful place to live and don't really see the reality of what has been taken away from the public, as in transportation and the stores downtown. I work Downtown and feel like the city is in a bad place and won't recover. Downtown has fallen to an all-time-low ever since it's dedicated to either the business executives or school students and have taken away transportation that the public needs. Why doesn't the news staff see the truth!

-- Debbie, Millvale/Shaler

Rob: Ah, a missive from a negative native. I'm always astounded by people who claim Pittsburgh's Downtown is in the doldrums. Have they looked at other cities? I lived in Richmond, Va., and Albany, N.Y., prior to Pittsburgh and I can assure you those two cities are in far worse shape. The issue isn't so much "the truth" as it is a matter of perspective. Pittsburgh's Downtown has changed and Pittsburghers do not like change, ergo, it's at "an all-time low." But it seems to me with new building, new housing and an influx of students and new student dormitories that Downtown is on the upswing. Yes, it's different. No, Pittsburgh will never be the same, but that's not cause for despair.

As for the TV component, news outlets love to be cheerleaders for their hometown. Consider it a bit of over-compensation for all the bad news they have to deliver.

Q: I have often wondered why the local news stations have always put reporters outside the studio on assigned stories that have either A) nothing to do with the story; or, B) if something happened six hours earlier at the spot that they are doing their "remote" broadcast from.

Do they think the viewers are stupid enough to believe that the reporter on the scene is scoping for information at 11 p.m. at night on a dark street?

Last Tuesday's night's shooting in Homewood at the KFC was the first time in YEARS that my wife and I noticed that a reporter "needed" to be on scene because breaking news (or just simply more news) could possibly be collected by the reporter being on the scene.

I think that maybe the news directors must think that we are impressed by these "remote" stories which shows their "tenacious" reporting.

I just think that it really makes them look silly.

-- Rob, Jefferson Hills

Rob: We've answered this question many times and I'm sure we'll answer it many more as long as TV stations persist in this silly practice.

TV stations send reporters out in the dark to locations where the story happened hours ago in a vain effort to give the report a sense of immediacy. If news executives think they're pulling the wool over our eyes, Rob's e-mail is proof that viewers are not as stupid as news executives think we are.

Q: Has KDKA switched its weather affiliation from AccuWeather to WeatherBug? Do the other local stations have an affiliation? Does KDKA gain money from the WeatherBug people or do they pay WeatherBug for their service?

-- Mike, Lawrenceville

Rob: No, KDKA still uses AccuWeather and has added WeatherBug as an additional weather tool.

"I would rather not get into the financial details of our relationship with WeatherBug," said KDKA general manager Chris Pike, "except to say that this service is exclusive to KDKA-TV in the Pittsburgh market."

Q: I gather that some time ago KDKA did away with their on-air mention of AccuWeather as being their forecaster of record since we began seeing the "KDKA Local Forecast" branded above every weather slide rather than the AccuWeather logo. I suppose that was all well and good since Jeff Verszyla is a degreed weatherman and nothing really seemed to have changed (for good or bad). KDKA now seems to have teamed up with something called WeatherBug.

To me, this new development is nothing more than a juvenile distraction more befitting a high school science project than a professional weather forecast. Does the typical viewer really care what it's doing at 10 area middle schools let alone want to see live blurry feeds from the parking lot cam of said middle schools? Just gimme the weather; I can do without a time lapse shot of the school busses lining up to take the kids to and from home! Am I just being a 40-year-old crank or is this annoying to anyone else? This really is distracting.

-- Brian, Shadyside

Rob: I can't say it bothers me. If it adds time to the weather segment as additional filler, that would annoy me, but I haven't put a stop watch to it.

I think WeatherBug is an attempt to get hyper-local, thinking it will appeal to viewers who can tune in to see what's happening in the weather at little Johnny's school.

It's certainly true that local TV stations go overboard on weather, but it must help drive ratings or they wouldn't do it. And if it drives ratings, then Pittsburghers are lapping it up no matter how much they complain to me they hate the abundance of coverage.

Q: Channel 4 led at 6 p.m. Jan. 31 with the approaching ice storm calling it "potentially deadly." It must be sweeps time. Heaven help us! You have got to be kidding me with that phrase!

-- Mike, Beaver

Rob: Though I hate to defend the hyperbole of our local TV stations, the fact is people have shown in the past that they can act like idiots by driving fast on ice and they wind up getting themselves killed. So I understand why the script used that description, but Mike does have Channel 4 on a technicality: Unless the storm was expected to deposit ice chunks large enough to kill a person on impact, it's not the storm that was "potentially deadly" but the conditions it created.

Q: I thought WPXI's decision to cut out the first hour of the "Today" show on Feb. 1 was completely over the top. There was no new information after 7 a.m. that they hadn't already been reporting since 5 a.m. and they could have used the news scroll or the sidebar to report anything they deemed newsworthy. Viewers lost the entire analysis of the prior evening's Democratic debate that is reported in the first hour of the "Today" show. We're devoted fans of the "Today" show, but when WPXI did that, we switched to CBS's "The Early Show." So if their intent was to keep viewers, it didn't work with us.

-- Carole, Point Breeze

Rob: It wasn't just WPXI. WTAE also made the bone-headed call to pre-empt "Good Morning America." Like Carole, I high-tailed it to "The Early Show."

Q: What was the purpose of WPXI's Friday piece regarding the distance one can drive after their low-fuel light activates on their automobile? This was the worst journalism I've seen in a very long time. It never even touched upon the differences between makes and models, your driving speed, city vs. highway driving, and any of the other variables that should have been mentioned. Perhaps most outlandish, ABC's "20/20" did this very same piece only weeks before. Can't WPXI come up with anything better?

When Gordon Loesch finally ran out of gas, he was in a traffic lane on 376 ?? not even off to the side! WPXI cameras showed Gordon reporting and filling up in a lane of traffic in the afternoon where 376 splits to three lanes from two. What if an accident had occurred? I'd think that a camera crew doing a report in an active lane of traffic would be distracting to other drivers to say the least. How asinine would it have been had Gordon run out of gas only a couple miles back in the Squirrel Hill tunnels? Would WPXI traffic cams and reporters have mentioned that it was their own reporter doing a report that was the cause of a serious delay?

-- J.T., South Side Flats

Rob: J.T.'s last point is the most intriguing one to me, but that situation did not come to pass.

Contrary to J.T.'s assertion, the report did include the suggestion of all the variables that go into determining when a vehicle will run out of gas as part of an interview with a AAA spokesman.

"I hope this helps explain it, but it appears that J.T. has already made up his mind," news director Corrie Harding wrote in response. "The story was based on the desire to deal with something that has always been a hot topic of discussion, 'How much farther can I go?' We actually decided to do it well before '20/20,' and we looked at several different models of car, although we obviously couldn't do them all.

"The car ran out of gas on the exit ramp to Squirrel Hill from the Parkway East, and it was a bit of a surprise, but Gordon was well into the shoulder of the road by the time he stopped. Could we have done it differently? Sure."

Harding said that if Channel 11 had caused a backup in the tunnel while producing its report, the station would have acknowledged its role in on-air coverage of the traffic jam.

Q: On WPXI's 11 p.m. news after the Super Bowl, Channel 11 played footage of interviews with people in bars commenting on the game. The footage appears to have been taped at halftime since Tom Petty was playing in the background, but the people were commenting on the Patriots victory. Some were saying the victory was tainted because of spygate.

Would WPXI, in the interest of time, ask people to comment at half time so they can play it even though the winner was not determined? Did they play the interviews in error or did they have Giants winning comments that should have been played?

-- Shawn, McCandless

Rob: Harding said the station did go out prior to the game ending and asked the questions this way: "If the Patriot's win ???" Or "If the Giants win ???"

"Our intent was to represent fans' feelings either way, as we gathered the news that night," he said. "While I understand where the confusion could creep in, that was not our intent."

Q: Why does Comcast run previews of violent or sexually explicit nature in the corner of the On Demand menu during daytime hours? The system reverts to this menu when an On Demand program ends, even after a children's program. Just yesterday my 4-year-old got an eyeful of a "Saw" trailer before I was able to turn off the TV. I have no problem with these trailers being shown at night, but midday, when many users are families with children, the trailers should be family friendly.

-- Marie, Pittsburgh

Rob: According to Comcast spokeswoman Jody Doherty, that was a mistake.

"Comcast's goal is to deliver our customers with maximum choice and control of their viewing experience. We encourage parents to control what their children are watching and give them the information and technology to do so," she wrote in an e-mailed response to your query. "While all preview content is cleared for a general viewing audience, the trailers that air prior to 11 p.m. take into consideration a younger viewing audience. In this instance, the movie trailer in question should not have been previewed during the daytime hours. We apologize for this and have taken steps to remedy it and ensure it doesn't happen again."

Q: I recently switched from Comcast to Verizon FiOS TV service. While I am mostly happy with the switch, there is one thing bothering me. Verizon will cut into a program to show Verizon related commercials -- usually for their on-demand movies. I mostly notice this on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption." And they don't back the show up so you can see the missed programming, you just miss it. Do you know why this is happening and what can I do?

-- Chris, Ross

Rob: According to a Verizon spokesman, the problem was related to a piece of equipment used to place local ad insertions.

"The equipment appeared to trigger the ad insertions late, causing it to override programming only on standard definition ESPN," explained Verizon's Lee Gierczynski. "That specific piece of equipment has been taken offline to resolve the issue."

In the Feb. 1 edition of the TV Q&A, a reader submitted a question about the "Iron Chef" series. To expand upon the Food Network publicist's answer, according to a Food Network program dedicated to a behind-the-scenes look at the "Iron Chef" show, about 15 minutes before the battle begins, the two battling chefs tape the opening with the Chairman, including the reveal of the secret ingredient. The chefs then have 15 minutes to plan their menu. It was a very interesting program.

-- Eric, Bethel Park

Rob: Interesting. Thanks for sharing, Eric!

Not a question but feedback related to a question in last week's TV Q&A regarding set-top boxes for Comcast and Verizon.

People who balk at the monthly fee should be aware that Motorola boxes which are compatible with the Comcast (and I think Verizon) signal are available online through both eBay and Craigslist. This includes both the base digital cable box and the HD boxes. The prices I've seen for the base digital boxes are enough to make purchasing one worthwhile after just a few months of use. A buyer just needs to be careful to match the model numbers.

-- Mike, Pittsburgh

Rob: According to Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski, rental of the FiOS TV set-top boxes is the only option for its customers.

"Verizon activates the boxes to work with FiOS TV when someone subscribes to the service, so a box that someone purchases online from a third-party (regardless of the models) would be useless because it would not be activated to work with FiOS TV," he said.

Comcast spokeswoman Jody Doherty cautioned, "Comcast digital converters offer the consumer the best value as we are continually upgrading to the latest technology for no additional charge, therefore protecting our customers from technological obsolescence. There are a limited number of compatible digital converters available for retail sale. Many of the digital converters that are sold on the Internet are actually the property of the cable companies. Comcast cannot support equipment that is lost, stolen or missing from our system or that of any other cable company."

Don't you think these TV stations carry this weather crap far enough? People that are working are already gone. They don't need to take off the "Today" show. At least Channel 2 put the ["Early Show"] show on and have stuff flashing on screen for the school dismissals or whatever. This gets ridiculous; it's just so repetitious.

-- Female caller, rightfully complaining about WPXI and WTAE pre-empting the first hour of the national morning shows last Friday for the-world-is-coming-to-and-end coverage of an ice storm

Female caller: Do you know that guy running for president, that guy running with Hillary?

Me: Barack Obama?

Female caller: How come he don't wear an American flag pin?

Me: Uh, I don't think there's a rule that a candidate for the Presidency has to wear a flag pin.

Female caller: Yeah, but if you're running for President you have to wear our flag. Quite a few people are talking about it. I don't think it's right that he's running for President. He's gonna be commander of our flag? He ain't gonna be a good President by not wearing our flag. He ain't much of a man.

Me: OK, have a nice day.