Why did CBS exploit the kidnapping by running a very similar tv drama Monday night?

[graham4anything]

(another poster mentioned this in a post Tuesday morning...I watched this Monday mostly to see guest star Mare Winningham and could not believe they ran it. And many times there were promos in the NY/NJ area for the 11pm news talking about the real life kidnapping horror.
(for those that don't know this is a reboot/continuation of the original 1970s show.)

================================================================

'Hawaii Five-0': Kidnapping episode parallels real-life Cleveland case

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2013/05/hawaii-five-0-kidnapping-episode-parallels-real-life-cleveland-case.html


Monday's (May 6) episode of "Hawaii Five-0" featured a story line that played out with uncanny parallels to events unfolding in real life.

The episode, "Ho' opio," centered on the discovery of a teenage girl's body, and the subsequent information that she had been abducted 10 years earlier. It aired just as national news was picking up the story of the three women who escaped from their abductors in Cleveland after a decade.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer posted its first story on the abduction just after 7 p.m. ET Monday. Cable news networks picked it up soon afterward, and the story dominated coverage for the rest of the night.

The story did not, however, cause the broadcast networks to interrupt their prime-time coverage. CBS aired the "Five-0" episode (which was based in part on a real abduction case in Hawaii in the 1980s). Guest stars Henry Rollins and Mare Winningham played a couple who had been holding a girl captive for 10 years and claiming she was their daughter in order to collect extra welfare benefits.

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. Probably because...

"It aired just as national news was picking up the story of the three women who escaped from their abductors in Cleveland after.."

[graham4anything]

6. It was 3 hours prior. It is sweep May and the upfronts are next week.

CBS was running promos all night for the 11pm news

and not to mention, west coast was 3 hours more lead time.

Anyone in California know if it ran?

[ScreamingMeemie]

13. To be honest, I thought that show was cancelled.

The article you cited makes it sound as if it ran concurrent with it breaking on national news.

[graham4anything]

16. Hawaii 5-0(reboot) was renewed for 2014 along with 17 others last month.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/21812635/hawaii-five-0-among-18-prime-time-series-renewed-for-next-season-on-cbs

CBS has been dominant in the ratings this year and lately has taken to predating the annual release of its fall schedule in May with an announcement of mass renewals earlier in the spring. The renewals include news shows "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours" and reality shows "Survivor," ''The Amazing Race" and "Undercover Boss."

Dramas back on the schedule next fall are the top-rated "NCIS" and its spinoff, "NCIS: Los Angeles." Other returning shows are "Elementary," ''CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," ''Person of Interest," ''Hawaii 5-0," ''The Mentalist," ''Blue Bloods" and "The Good Wife." Renewed comedies are "The Big Bang Theory," ''How I Met Your Mother," ''2 Broke Girls" and "Mike & Molly."

"How I Met Your Mother" will have its final season and, presumably, answer the mystery of who the mother actually is.

[Common Sense Party]

2. Sounds like you are getting your thread ideas from Rush Limbaugh now.

The episode was already scheduled to air weeks in advance.

[Junkdrawer]

3. Well, I doubt he'd get any thread ideas from DemocracyNow.....

You are what you consume.

[graham4anything]

4. What does Rush have to do with this? Many programs are switched at last moment

7pm eastern was 3 hours prior.

They easily could have switched it.

TV stations do so many times when current events has something too similar.
Someone was asleep at the switch and should be fired for this.

but of course, it is May sweeps

[Renew Deal]

5. Your concern is noted

[Common Sense Party]

12. Limpballs was going on ad nauseum about Hawaii 5-0 the other day

or so I read here. I didn't even know Jack Lord was still alive, much less still on TV.

[graham4anything]

14. I don't listen to Rush. I watched the show. Jack Lord is dead.This is a remake

Jimmy Caan's son stars as Dano and Alex McLouglin stars as McGarrett's son

and someone else posted Tuesday morning, but I just saw this article reading IMDB

[graham4anything]

7. Why the ad-hominem?

[Common Sense Party]

8. What ad hominem?

[graham4anything]

9. REM bashed Dan Rather,CBS fired him & CBS exploited the kidnapping.

[Common Sense Party]

11. I crown thee, Knight of the Kingdom of Non Sequiturs!!!

You may kiss the ring.

[Common Sense Party]

15. You do realize that R.E.M.'s song is not about Dan Rather, right?

I realize that the title is taken from Rather's bizarre attackers, but the song has nothing to do with Rather or CBS or that attack.

[graham4anything]

17. bizarre attack? The extremist who did it shot and killed an NBC employee later on

[Common Sense Party]

18. Link? I never heard that.

But the R.E.M. song has NOTHING to do with Rather. THAT is the point. You realize that, right?

Edit: I found it: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/opinion/l05rather.html?_r=0

Yes, I'd say the attack was bizarre, wouldn't you? Mr. Rather was lucky he was only beaten. Tager was a real nutcase.

[graham4anything]

20. Here is another link (I see you edited it.)

and remember- the right wing and other did not believe Dan and made nasty insinuations about him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Rather#.22Kenneth.2C_what_is_the_frequency.3F.22

"Kenneth, what is the frequency?"On October 4, 1986, as Rather was walking along Park Avenue in Manhattan to his apartment, he was attacked and punched from behind by a man who demanded to know, "Kenneth, what is the frequency?", while a second assailant also chased and beat him. As the assailant pummeled and kicked Rather, he kept repeating the question over and over again. In describing the incident,[when?] Rather said, "I got mugged. Who understands these things? I didn't and I don't now. I didn't make a lot of it at the time and I don't now. I wish I knew who did it and why, but I have no idea."

The incident and Rather's account led some to doubt the veracity of Rather's story, although the doorman and building supervisor who rescued Rather fully confirmed his version of events. The story entered popular lore and remained unsolved for some time. The incident inspired a song called "Kenneth, What's the Frequency?" by the band Game Theory in 1987. In October 1990, the phrase "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" appeared in an issue of the Daniel Clowes comic Eightball[65] as part of the serialized graphic novel Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron, and was revealed in a later episode to be a key part of the Mister Jones conspiracy theory.[66] Also in 1990, Scott McCloud used the phrase in the first 24-hour comic. In 1994 the band R.E.M. released the song "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" on the album Monster. The phrase became the subject of many jokes over the years and slang for a confused or clueless person. Rather was a good sport about it, and actually sang with R.E.M. during a soundcheck prior to a gig at Madison Square Garden, New York, which was shown the following night on the Late Show with David Letterman before their performance of Crush with Eyeliner.

In 1997, a TV critic writing in the New York Daily News solved the mystery, and published a photo of the alleged assailant, William Tager. Rather confirmed the story: "There's no doubt in my mind that this is the person." New York District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau said "William Tager's identity as the man who attacked Mr. Rather was established in the course of an investigation by my office".[67]

Tager was sentenced to a 25-year prison sentence for killing NBC stagehand Campbell Montgomery outside The Today Show studio in 1994. He was paroled in October 2010 and is believed to be living in New York City.[68]

[Common Sense Party]

21. Yes, that's where I found the link about Trager. But the song has nothing to do

with Dan Rather, okay? It's not about him. So stop saying R.E.M. is "bashing" him and making fun of him. R.E.M. did no such thing.

[graham4anything]

22. The title is because of Dan, and Dan good naturedly sang with them

But without Dan's event, there would be no title.
Perhaps REM should have given Dan royalties, they could afford it.

[Blue_Tires]

10. I hope none of the movie channels show the Red Riding trilogy in the near future

[ananda]

19. My thinking is that the show was actually made well before..

.. the real life incident.

I really think it was just a very weird coincidence.

[alphafemale]

23. Why should they not have shown it?

Most people have no problem separating fiction from reality.

Or....

How long must broadcasters appease pearl-clutchers and prevent stories depicting kidnapping from being aired?