Here in Los Angeles the use of “hot babes” to generate short-term ratings and bring in the “eyeballs” as the news executives like to call it is nothing new. The practice is as old as “live, local and late breaking” or “team coverage” or the oldest one in the book, “breaking news.” Which as most everybody knows is used most these days for something that happened a couple of hours ago! These tried and true programming gimmicks in local TV news are to be expected. The world of news isn’t what it use to be. Yes, long ago beauty queens became so called journalists with either no experience or what most would call on the job training. The laundry list of past examples is too ma ny to list here.
Although the practice of bringing in the “talent” has risen to new heights recently, having models, former actresses, and even the occasional soft porn star make the jump to the world of “broadcast journalism” seems to be an escalating “babe-war” that has been taking place in recent years. ERS believes this new “babes-race” was launched in the last 5-7 years when the notion of hiring attractive women to bring in the male viewers took a turn towards the racy and hyper-sexual. From our perspective; there is no looking back now.
In Los Angeles, where the “babe” factor has always been a key ingredient in the local news scene, the escalatation seems to be most noticable. No doubt, men who watch local news can‚t really argue with the practice, unless of course they might be actually tuning into the local news for news. Which as the ratings in recent years have shown that although a “hot babe” will get you more “eyeb alls” in the short term, the viewers are abandoning local TV news in droves.
Here is LA in late October of this year, a new “weather-babe” came to town. This one is named Elita Loresa and although we know she has all the “serious weathercaster” credentials she needs, we also know that a 50 year old fat guy (and for sure no 50 year old woman was on the list as well) was not seriously in the running for the job opening when LA’s KNBC-TV was filling this opening! You can get all the background you need on Ms. Loresa on the local KNBC affiliate website (embed link) what you won’t see there, we’ll show you here.
Elita came to LA from Miami, where she was able to forecast everything from Hurricanes to sunshine, she also found time to tell FHM magazine how she really likes to shed her clothes in the hot steamy sun of South Florida and prefers "short shorts and bikinis". Can we blame her, its humid and sticky down there; here in LA we have the “dry heat.” We’ll have to w ait and see how that part of her experience works out. In addition, she found time to pose for a few “steamy” shots we think may (just may) has played a part in her being brought into the LA babe wars! This is what a government spokesman would probably call an “escalation of hostilities” between rival LA TV stations. All we can say is, coming soon “ladies night” and wet t-shirt news. You scoff! ? Well when we’re proven right in 10 years you can Google this story and say we told you so.
