This just in: a repeat of the same informercial that aired five weeks earlier on "The 33" news

Roni Proter in "The 33" news team picture and on her own website
By ED BARK
Little if anything is expected of "The 33's" 9 p.m. local newscasts. They're stitched together on a relatively dinky budget and seem to mainly exist as a nightly one-hour link to the Dallas-based station's remodeled website.

Attention should be paid on occasion, though, since this is, after all, the country's 5th-largest TV market. And we don't want to be completely embarrassed -- or do we? -- when strangers come to town.

Wednesday's one-hour newscast as usual included a segment by lifestyles/entertainment "reporter" Roni Proter, who joined the station in January as part of news director David Duitch's numerous additions and subtractions.

"Tonight we revisit Madison Avenue," Proter said, introducing her weekly "Up All Night" tie-in with Quick newspaper, a weekend freebie and satellite publication of The Dallas Morning News.

Apparently one infomercial wasn't enough for Madison Avenue. On Feb. 4th's 9 p.m. newscast, Proter cooed in exactly the same fashion over the McKinney St. bar. Everybody said it was a wonderful place, and Proter of course readily agreed. She ended her piece from the bar's "huge patio."

Because it was the "dead of winter," no one else joined her outside, Proter said. "But I bet when summertime comes around, this place is going to be packed!" she enthused.

The "dead of winter" reference was repeated Wednesday night, even though spring is just a week-and-a-half away. In fact, the entire piece was a word-for-word, video-for-video repeat of Feb. 4th's wet kiss. We all know about prime-time reruns, but this seems to be charting new territory. Gooey, uncritical infomercials within local newscasts are bad enough. But on The 33, they compound the original sin by repeating it in full.

Wednesday's 9 p.m. edition had a total of 33,215 D-FW viewers, a relative pittance in a market of more than six million people. So I'm probably just wasting my time being an occasional watchdog. The 33 "newscast" is going to do what it's going to do. And until the bottom inevitably drops out, no one's going to shame them into doing otherwise.