I spent this morning with my students on a field trip to New Bern, North Carolina, to visit the Tryon Palace. The rain poured as we walked around the grounds and from the museum to the palace. Eventually the rain gave way to a foggy mist on the return drive. Once home, I was looking forward to plopping on the couch and watching the UNC/NCSU basketball game.
Well, 4:00pm rolled around (game time) and the game did not appear on my ESPN channel. I texted another friend who told me the game was on ESPN News or ESPN3 (neither of which I have on my cable package). I rechecked the ESPN website to check their printed online schedule, and yes, it said the UNC/NCSU basketball game would be broadcast from 4:00-6:00pm on ESPN (not ESPN News or ESPN3).
Instead of the rivalry game, I was treated to post-race coverage from Daytona. It seems there was an accident at the end of the race and everyone was in "disaster news coverage" mode. For 55 minutes, roughly 4:00-4:55, ESPN interviewed numerous racers, staff people, perhaps even a concession stand vendor.
I ended up sending three emails to ESPN during this time when the game was not being aired on ESPN (in complete contradiction to ESPN's printed schedule, as noted above). All emails were answered - by humans? not really sure, as they had the same robotic answer (and also oddly, very jockish, waspish sounding responders..Brad...Brandon...Blake...I kept wondering if I sent dozens of emails would I get to Seth....Smithson....and Stone). The second email did have a phone number that it suggest I call if I wanted to log a more human complaint, which I did. Strangely, the phone representative provided the very same scripted answer as the first two emails. She noted that live national broadcasts sometimes preempted more local coverage. My response was that the race had ended by 4:00pm, and all ESPN was doing at that point was flittering around interviewing people and discussing the possibilities of the accident (how many people were hurt? do we have any news?) So, unless you consider chasing ambulances to the hospital a live national broadcast, the race was over and the UNC/NCSU game should have become the main national live broadcast at roughly 4:05pm. Update: After watching the ABC National News they led with the Daytona car crash story, perhaps emphasizing my point even more...that the post-race crash coverage should have been carried on ESPN News channel, not on ESPN, which mainly carries LIVE SPORTS COVERAGE.
The ESPN representative apologized for any inconvenience, but I responded that her apology could not get the first half of the game back for me....could it? Crickets on ESPN's end. In my last email I asked them to at least send me an ESPN cap for their messy scheduling. I'm not banking on that.
Here's the point. ESPN, if you printed your schedule, even if it was only online, FOLLOW THE SCHEDULE! I'm thinking about just dropping cable altogether. I have a limited package of 70-some channels, and still not much to watch. ESPN's actions today don't help.
Dr. James, you have officially inspired me to create my own blog. Whether I continually contribute or post onto my own blog is unknown to me but one thing is for certain, I have much to say in my head that I have not shared with many.
ReplyDeleteLOL ^^^^ I know these have me laughing at midnight when I should be sleeping getting ready for class tomorrow. Though I have done away with cable in the past with no problems due to the fact that there are limited choices and a waste of time. However, my husband decided he also "needed" ESPN and low and behold we must have the same package because he too can't see what he wants. HAHAHA like I said a waste of time.
ReplyDeleteLOL this is Tiff whittemore, not Troubled/happy...not sure where that came from.
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