My Television Buzzword Collection

In television news, we have a lot of exciting (read: ridiculous) ways to say things. For example, who calls a fire a “blaze” besides Ron Burgundy?

And there are equally strange ways to describe what happens behind the scenes of a newsroom. Here are a few of my favorites collected from my experiences and a few colleagues:

• Critical creative control – Awesome alliteration. All it means is that we in the ‘biz’ are responsible for our products.
• Time starvation – Concept that people are busy and we have to be worth their while.
• Being necessary – Fake it till you make it, baby.
• Functional teases – Teases that interest and inform the audience without giving them too much.
• Uncovering the news – Sigh. Enterprise reporting.
• Making a promise – Teases that leave a question to be answered “when we come back.”
• You value/you factor – Convincing the audience there is a value for them AND convincing the audience there is a value to getting it from a certain person/source.
• Producing against the remote – Convincing viewers not to change the channel.
• TIWPATA – This is what people are talking about.
• BOPSA – Bunch of people sitting around.
• New, now, next – Very silly way to talk about news value and consider show stacking.
• Time approximate news – Evaluating news based on recency.
• Sideways ahead – Just to point out the oddity of saying “Straight ahead.”