Underplayed Gems

The Ten O'Clock News (1976)

The Ten O'Clock News poster
Country
United States
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This is a local news show that aired weeknights on a Boston PBS station from 1976 to 1991. It covered city neighborhoods and local issues in more depth than commercial channels.

informativeearnestthoughtfulin-depthlocalcalmcommunity-focusedserious

What happens

The Ten O'Clock News was a weeknight local television news show, broadcast from 1976 to 1991 by WGBH, the Boston PBS affiliate. It replaced a pair of earlier news programs: The Reporters (1970-1973) and Evening Compass (1973-1974). The show premiered on Thursday, January 15, 1976. Christopher Lydon became host of the program in 1977; his co-hosts included Gail Harris (1984-1987) and Carmen Fields (1987-1991). It won its first New England Emmy Award in 1978. Ultimately, the show and staff would win eight, including three for Best News Program. A Boston Globe 1991 editorial viewed the program as distinctive among television news broadcasts: "The show produces deeper reports on the joys and hardships of the city's poorer neighborhoods than customarily seen on the commercial channels." A Globe editorial on the occasion of the show's cancellation wrote, "No other channel has approached the oddities and village politics of this city -- its cultural, religious and intellectual life included -- with more curiosity, energy, intelligence, and daring. The WGBH news audience . . . is diverse, cutting into gritty neighborhoods as well as upscale precincts of academe. Across the board it is an audience of thinking people." WGBH President Henry P. Becton Jr., explained the show's cancellation: "The downturn in the New England economy has finally caught up with WGBH, forcing us to make some hard choices about the way in which we serve our local community." The final broadcast aired on Thursday, May 30, 1991. From the fall of 1978 through May 1980, WGBY-TV, WGBH's sister station in Springfield, broadcast the program, opting in and out of the feed from Boston to insert locally produced news and features about Western Massachusetts. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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