The Rules of Sweeps (There will be a quiz later on, class.)
04/24/2003
7:48 p.m.
Today is the first day of May Sweeps. "What are 'Sweeps', Miss Lys?" you ask. Well, four times out of the year all the higher-ups and advertising executives get together and decide which shows have made them a kajillion dollars and which ones stink. They do this with EVERYTHING that goes on the telly, including newscasts produced by local TV stations. So those of us that work at those stations, in turn, get to work our butts off and prove that "Yes! We can make you big wigs lots of money, so please, please, please don't take us off the air! We'll kiss your asses and not question why you don't watch our station for the other 8 months out of the year! We're really clever and creative! We promise!! Just don't take us off the air!" And this goes on for a month every time. Every year. Now there are a few rules for sweeps: 1. Sweeps months are always November, May, February, and July. That's also the order of their importance.2. Sweeps will always start on a Thursday and end on a Wednesday. That's why May Sweeps started on April 24th this year.(Don't ask me why they didn't choose May 1st instead.) 3. No vacation is to be taken during this time. Period. We don't care about Thanksgiving, your wedding, your nephew's bar mitzvah, your roommate's tattoo removal, nuthin'. The only month this rule can be broken is July('cause really the only things on are Big Brother and a bunch of reruns). 4. The management team will always, and I mean always, wait until the last minute to plan the Sweep's packages. It doesn't matter that we all know about rules #1 or #2. Hell, they could even plan in advance, but I guarantee that everything will change the day before Sweeps begins, if not the day of. (This, of course, makes things hard to plan when you're the only graphic artist and have to make graphic packages complete with animation for every single one of those Sweeps packages.) 5. Like I said above, you will work your butt off, but really only for about half of the month-the first half. Somewhere down the line, management kinda loses interest in Sweeps and starts twiddling their fingers again. Now you get to relax and catch up on all of the stuff you had to put off because of Sweeps. Now, after Sweeps are over, the station will generally have some kind of celebration. A cake is brought in, sparkling grape juice is poured('cause we're only drunks when we're away from the station), and management gets up and tells us how great we are. And then, later on, someone will have the real party at their house so we can get all liquored up like good little television people do. And then the cycle will start all over again. And again. And again. And again. Welcome to TV, friends.
Comments on this Entry (0 comments so far)
************************************
� Lysistrata 2003-2004
|
