Hope Springs Eternal for Fox News

I like reality TV...probably too much reality TV. I also like cooking shows. Put the two together with some spice and what do you get? Hell's Kitchen. It's on our must record list on the DVR. He'd be a bugger to work for, but it's entertaining watching Gordon Ramsey yell at the chef contestants.

After Hell's Kitchen comes our early local news broadcast on Fox. I don't know why I watch it, except that it comes on early. I don't care for the anchors, the weather lady has an odd delivery, and the timing and production quality isn't the best (rolling the wrong film, cutting off anchors, etc.). I guess I watch hoping things will improve.

Last week the local Fox news had a national feed story about a real-life Hell's Kitchen. Of course that caught my interest. An L.A. restaurant called The Foundry on Melrose has (according to the Fox L.A. reporter Gina Silva) put web cams in their kitchen. According to the story, you can go to their web site during dinner and watch the head chef talk or yell to the cooks as the orders go out the pass through.

Wow...who wouldn't want to take a peek that every now and then? Well the answer to that is Gina Silva. Although she suggested going to the web site to watch, she didn't give the URL (I rewound the story on the DVR to listen again just in case I missed it). No big deal in the Google era. I went to The Foundry website and saw the live feed near the bottom of the page. I clicked on it and a new window opened. Instead of a video feed, I got a "coming soon" message. So Gina was touting something that isn't available!?! What a lame 'news story'.

Finally, the end of the local Fox news broadcast has a quick recap of tomorrow's forecast. That's OK, except that they don't plan the time to finish in the 10-11 time slot. Therefore, the weather summary actually talks over the beginning of The Simpsons episode that follows. What is bad is that they shrink the start of the Simpsons into a tiny window so you can see the weather person and the forecast graphic. I don't want to see that! As a Simpsons fan, I want to see the start of the show what Bart writes on the blackboard and how they end up on the couch. However, in the tiny picture-in-picture window you can't see anything!

Ideally they should cut 20 seconds out of the news cast so they don't run over into the Simpsons. Not too hard for a 1 hour news cast. If you're doing a picture-in-picture, shrink the weather person and make the Simpsons full screen. Hello...Fox 19...are you listening?