Aren't you getting REAL tired of local TV news? You can watch it for hours, and end up feeling that you know less than when you started.

Sure, they're great with the sensational material. This would include bank robberies, car chases followed by enthusiastic helicopter "news" pilots, and the ever-popular single-engine plane crashes. I'll bet that the little plane crash stuff is a holdover from the 1930's when aircraft were a novelty. Bad habits must just pass on from one editor to the next.

But what about events that might actually affect the lives of citizens and, uh, taxpayers?

Check out some of the cable stations devoted to politics. There you'll get to hear about "Bill No. 123-X, passed unanimously, without further discussion." The problem is--No one seems to know what this bill does. It could allow the mayor's favorite nephew the rights to collect all taxes on massage parlors. Or, maybe, it lets a big real estate developer buy up some disputed land real cheap. Who's to say?? One sure thing: Local TV news isn't interested.

If it doesn't have blood and guts, suitable for the attention span of a nine-year-old, they figure that no one cares. Thus, we get an endless parade of bank jobs, star-crossed lover slayings, drive-by shootings, and salacious gossip.

Give them this much: Local TV news plays no favorites. If there were ever blood and guts at City Hall, they would broadcast that in a heartbeat.

As it now stands, the decline in local newspaper readership has stopped. In fact, readership is now increasing (as reported in the LA Times, and elsewhere). People are also pulling news off the Internet--big time.

So what happens with local TV news? My guess is that they will continue to bottom feed for awhile longer.

Let's face it, the demographics of Network TV, except for sports and certain key shows have got to be pitiful! Who in the world would watch a three-year-old feature film, with scenes removed, and liberally spiced with commercials, when they could have rented the video, or have seen it on cable two years earlier? Well, some people do. Presumably, the advertisers have thought about this, but you shouldn't assume too much.

The networks will always say that they are giving people what they want. But here's the question: Do the demographics determine the content, or does the content determine the demographics?