Mike Sechrist has a great post up today talking about his life (so far) after WKRN. It includes the following tidbit about how he perception of network TV has changed now that he is no longer a network station manager:
I have learned a lot during this downtime. I have rarely watched any broadcast news since leaving Channel 2. I get most of my news off the web and for the first time since coming to the lake don’t even drive to the local market to get a newspaper in the morning except for Sunday’s. If it’s a rainy day and I’m not in the middle of a book I’m usually watching TLC, AMC, The History Channel or A&E. I don’t hold myself out as a “normal” viewer of TV but I’m amazed at how the traditional networks have slipped off my radar screen.
The irony for me here is that I used to view network TV the way Mike views it now. It wasn’t until Mike et al launched that site about local blogs that network TV became relevant to me. That was the great coup of the new media experiments at WKRN that Mike made happen. All of the sudden, a network TV station mattered; I even made it a point to watch WKRN news on occasion because I knew that on some level, the station and I were on the same wavelength. It will be interesting to see if WKRN stays relevant to me.
So what’s next? What will a new media guy with decades of network TV do next? I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be both relevant and digital.
