Matt Buckler: East Hartford shooting is top story on newscasts
Oct. 19—There seems to be one common denominator in the evening newscasts on our local TV stations.
Most of the time, the lead story is a shooting.
Sometimes the shooting takes place in Hartford. Other times it takes place in New Haven.
Wednesday the shooting was in East Hartford on Hillside Street, where a man was shot in the chest. It was the lead story on WTNH-TV8, WFSB-TV3 and WVIT-TV30, and in the opening block of the newscast on WTIC-TV61.
Details were limited, but the details are never good when a shooting is reported. If you watch the late local news, they seem to be happening quite often, including Tuesday.
Local news spent most of the newscast time Wednesday in Bristol where two police officers were shot and killed last week.
On Tuesday the newscasts were concentrating on the funeral services for both officers which will be held Friday at Rentschler Field in East Hartford. Police estimate that as many as 50,000 people could be in attendance.
That means it will be a busy day for local stations which will be covering the services.
WFSB-TV3, for example, announced it plans to start its coverage at 9 a.m. Friday, two hours before the funeral gets under way. The entire state is in mourning and the entire state will get an opportunity to see the service.
Wednesday was also a busy day in sports. The Big East men's and women's basketball media day was held at Madison Square Garden in New York, which always is of major interest to state basketball fans.
The most complete coverage was by WTIC-TV61 with sports anchor Joshua Karp compiling different reports on both the station's 10 and 11 p.m. newscasts.
There's no such thing as too much UConn coverage as far as UConn fans are concerned.
'Catch' continues
When you think of the Discovery Channel's "Deadliest Catch," you automatically start thinking of red king crab and snow crab.
According to Deadline Television, however, that is about to change.
Foe the second straight year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has canceled the winter snow and red king crab seasons in the Bering Sea because of dwindling populations.
That means the captains on "Deadliest Catch" will have to concentrate on something else, such as Golden King Crab, Bairdi, and Cod.
Despite the ban in snow and red king crab, "Deadliest Catch" will return for its 29th season in 2023.
It really doesn't matter what the captains try to fish for — as long as they have to battle severe weather conditions, it makes for compelling television.
'NCIS' rates
"NCIS" no longer packs the rating chart as it used to, but it's still the top scripted show on Monday nights.
"NCIS" attracted 6.9 million viewers Monday to squeeze past "The Voice," which pulled in 6.2 million.
"The Voice" made a loud statement in the adult 25-54 bracket, finishing No. 1 in that category. "NCIS" is a show that simply refuses to die.
The "Monday Night Football" game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos was the most watched show in all of television with 12.1 million viewers.
There was a time when "NCIS" used to even beat football in the ratings, but those days are long past.
Sports programs took the top 9 spots in the cable ratings.
The only intruder from outside the sports world was VH1's "Love & HipHop: Atlanta" which finished 10th in the 18-49 demo.
Perhaps its not a mainstream show, but it still remains popular.
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Matt Buckler is television and radio editor of the Journal Inquirer.
Follow Matt Buckler for more television, radio, and sports coverage on the JI's Twitter @journalinquirer, and see his articles on the Journal Inquirer Facebook page.
