All the News for Now Written May 6, 2024   In my youth, the evening newscasts on network television always seemed to be brought to us by headache remedies.  And by cures for anemia, which was caused by iron-poor “tired” blood.  Those commercials appeared between roughly-equal “acts,” and generally one sponsor was not paired with a different one. Nowadays the news is still sponsored mostly by big pharma.   But I've noticed that the distribution of their ads is somewhat different.  To quantify this, I recorded ABC World News Tonight on May 3, 2024. During the half hour, there were 16 commericals.  Nearly two-thirds of them (marked ™ below) were health-related, in most cases promoting prescription brands I've never heard of.  And there were 11 news stories:    1   Floods and tornadoes in Texas    2   Trump testimony by Hope Hicks    3   Home explosion in New Jersey    4   Protest demonstrations at NYU    5   Congressman indicted    6   Pennsylvanian caught with ammo in Turks and Caicos    7  Three bodies found in Mexico   W  Student hit by stray bullet    X  Presidential Medal of Freedom for Medgar Evers    Y   Bird flu in milk    Z   Repairs to Interstate 95 David Muir began with apparent urgency:  “Tonight, breaking news as we come on the air this Friday night!  Authorities just moments ago ... extraordinary images coming in ...”  Glimpses of the first three stories took 26 seconds, depicted by a thin red line on the chart below. Then, depicted in blue, it was time to tell us briefly about the first seven.  These headlines totaled 2½ minutes, an average of a whopping 11 seconds per story. Then came the formal 13-second show open with its title card graphic. During the next 14 minutes, depicted above in gold, we revisited those same seven stories to give them the detail they deserved. More than halfway into the program, it was time for the first commercial break.  “When we come back,” David told us, we would learn about stories W and Y.  But first we had to watch 2½ minutes of ads for: Axonics™ Prevagen™ LDL-C Tests™ Chewy Farxiga™ When he did return, David took 32 seconds to tell us about W and Z.  The promised story about Y was delayed until “when we come back” from an additional three minutes of ads (ranging between 15 and 90 seconds each): Enterprise Mobility Dupixent™ Neuriva™ LifeLock Camzyos™ Then David spent a mere 19 seconds on the Y story.  This time, “when we come back” we'd hear about X, the Person of the Week.  But first, more than another three minutes of commercials: Ultomiris™ Allstate Insurance Red Lobster Dupixent (again)™ The Farmer's Dog Xiidra™ Promo for 20/20 later tonight Finally, because it was the last show of the week, we got 2¼ minutes on story X. Why was the program formatted like this?  I assume it was for ratings.  The network must catch the viewers' attention with Important Breaking News!  Images from only moments ago!  Then a jumble of fast-paced headlines and a title card, followed by actual news stories averaging two minutes in length with no commercials to break the spell. Now the viewers are hooked, and they'll probably stay tuned for the rest of the half hour.   Tease them about upcoming stories, then run five commercials, then half a minute of actual news.  Tease again, commercials, news.  Tease again, commercials, and finally a feel-good feature. This method seems to work.  ABC World News Tonight is the top-rated newscast in all of broadcast and cable, averaging eight million viewers. Barney Google and Snuffy Smith