Channel 39 Maybe Doesn't Want You To Watch Mia Gradney

Don't listen to the billboards!!!!

​You know all those semi-sultry billboards with Channel 39's Mia Gradney asking you to watch her?

Forget them.

As we noted a month ago, Channel 39's owners, The Tribune Company, were looking to "bust the TV cliches" on its chain of local stations.

And Houston gets to go first. And, as first reported by Isiah Carey's Insite, the big game-changer will be.....No anchors!! And not really any reporters!!!

Sounds...odd? Not silly at all?
Nah, it sounds pretty damn silly.

The Wall Street Journal talked to Tribune's CEO, who said this:

We are about to launch a TV newscast in Houston that has no anchors, that has great pictures and great writing, but doesn't involve a set or a desk or anyone standing in the way of the picture. Now is it going to work? We're going to find out.

Our guess?

It's not going to work. Not that anyone will notice, given the anemic ratings Channel 39 gets.

The idea will be to use a lot of ambient sound, witnesses telling their story to (presumably) a one-person shooter/reporter/editor who is a college intern possibly a well-paid, experienced professional boldly breaking hoary TV-news tropes.

The experiment is due to start in the fall. Until then, the billboards are still operative, we guess.