CBS Takes Heat For Using A Digital Slight of Hand

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Jan 22, 2000

Viewers watching the CBS Evening News on December 30th and 31st were treated to some "virtual remodeling" of New York City by CBS and many people are not pleased. The uproar has to do with a creative use of the new virtual technology that CBS uses to place artificial first down markers on television screens during their NFL coverage.

During the nights of December 30th and 31st the CBS Evening News broadcast from Times Square. Turns out that NBC has a giant billboard located in Times Square which would have appeared in the background each time Dan Rather was on camera. Not wishing to give rival NBC any free publicity, CBS executives used the new technology to digitally replace the NBC billboard with one that advertised CBS.

The new technology is so good that viewers were unable to tell that this digital manipulation had been done. CBS also failed to inform them of the manipulation during the broadcast. Some people in the industry are charging that CBS broke journalistic ethics and intentionally mislead viewers.

CBS news anchor Dan Rather has publicly called the digital manipulation of the NBC billboard "a mistake." He also went on to say that he was, "not satisfied with how we met our ethical responsibility to viewers."

CBS President and CEO Les Moonves defended the practice during a recent press gathering of television critics. Said Moonves, "Anytime there is an NBC logo on our network, we'll block it again."

However, Moonves stopped short of saying that such a logo would affect their coverage of news. "If somebody used an NBC logo to commit a murder, we wouldn't cut it out," he said.

Ratings Update:WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE? Apparently almost everybody if you believe the latest Neilsen Ratings. Here are the top ten rated programs for the week for the week of January 10 - 16:

10. 60 MINUTES 09. MILLIONAIRE (Saturday edition) 08. FRIENDS 07. MILLIONAIRE (Friday edition) 06. MILLIONAIRE (Monday edition) 05. MILLIONAIRE (Sunday edition) 04. MILLIONAIRE (Thursday edition) 03. MILLIONAIRE (Tuesday edition) 02. E.R. 01. MILLIONAIRE (Wednesday edition)

Next Week:A look at some of the special programming coming up in honor of Black History Month.

Here are my television viewing picks for the week of January 22nd:

Saturday, January 22nd I SPY RETURNS, BET, 8:00 - 10:00 p.m., PST Bill Cosby and Robert Culp reprise their roles from the classic 1960s I SPY series in this 1994 tv-movie update.

TRUE HOLLYWOOD STORY, E!, 9:00 - 10:00 p.m., PST A look at the life of actor Jay North (Television's DENNIS THE MENACE).

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