Christmas TV telethons

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Doug Eastick

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Dec 8, 2021, 11:48:24 AM12/8/21
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It is tradition in my home town that the local TV station holds a telethon to raise funds for a children's charity.

LIONS - CTV CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS TELETHON (ctvlionstelethon.ca)

It was held last Saturday from 2pm-11pm.    It is classic local-tv fare, with the local news hosts, and any other on-air personalities doing duties.   Also included are various local radio personalities (from co-owned radio station).

Paraphrased typical quotes:
* Let's go to Tony for another cheque presentation (enter local org rep with an oversized cheque)
* Here's (local singer) doing her own rendition of Silent Night
* Let's go to Will to give us an update on the total board!
* We have a $500 donation from Frank's Plumbing putting out a challenge to all other local plumbers to match or better this donation.

Wondering if anyone on the list can comment on how prevalent these local seasonal telethons still are in other areas?     



Kevin M.

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Dec 8, 2021, 12:01:47 PM12/8/21
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I don’t think they exist in any major market in the US anymore, except in the form of occasional PBS pledge drives 

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Jim Ellwanger

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Dec 8, 2021, 12:25:51 PM12/8/21
to 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV
I would cite the Chabad Telethon, although since it airs on both KDOC-TV in the L.A. area and on the national Jewish Life TV network, I'm a little unclear on whether the organization considers it "a local telethon that happens to be broadcast nationally," or "a national telethon." The fact that one of their major sponsors is Ralphs (as opposed to the Kroger corporation as a whole) kind of argues for it being a local telethon.


Diner

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Dec 8, 2021, 1:22:52 PM12/8/21
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CBS3 Philadelphia does an annual telethon for Ronald McDonald House Charities in November. But it's barely a telethon. First of all, they run it on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, from 6am to 8pm. The main telethon consists of a one-hour segment at 9am, another one-hour segment at 7pm, and a one-hour segment on their CW sister station at 10 am. The rest of the telethon consists of break-in segments on their newscasts, plus webcasting.

Mark Jeffries

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Dec 8, 2021, 1:43:55 PM12/8/21
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Telethons in the U.S. have become pretty much a dead issue since Muscular Dystrophy ended the Jerry Lewis-less and much shorter appeal some years ago.  There's the cost of doing them and the fact that they do disrupt programming, weekend sports programming in particular.  Which is why PBS stations stopped doing fundraising auctions some time ago, despite the problem of offending the volunteers who put worked on them--program disruption when people started actually watching PBS.  Although, of course, pledge drives already do program disruption for the regular PBS viewers who are not happy about seeing the classic rock concerts and Suze Orman infomercials that pop up during pledge drives and pre-empt "Frontline"/"Nature"/etc.

Mark Jeffries
spotl...@gmail.com


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JW

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Dec 9, 2021, 5:50:53 AM12/9/21
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My impression is that what usually passes for a telethon now is putting appeals for donations into commercial breaks, rather than actually pre-empting programming for an evening (or more).

Bob Jersey

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Dec 9, 2021, 6:49:53 PM12/9/21
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Mark just brought back a harrowing memory from many moons ago, when some of my fellow "Dr. Who" fans goaded me into going with them to "vol" at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Peeb WVIA. (WLVT didn't carry the Time Lord, ISTR... I watched enough episodes in 'movie' form on WNJT, which lucked its way onto the Easton-Phillipsburg cable)

B
"...we like Jersey... best!"

Mark Jeffries, to Diner and Doug Eastick, Dec 8th:

Kevin M.

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Dec 9, 2021, 7:02:27 PM12/9/21
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On Thu, Dec 9, 2021 at 3:49 PM 'Bob Jersey' via TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Mark just brought back a harrowing memory from many moons ago, when some of my fellow "Dr. Who" fans goaded me into going with them to "vol" at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Peeb WVIA. (WLVT didn't carry the Time Lord, ISTR... I watched enough episodes in 'movie' form on WNJT, which lucked its way onto the Easton-Phillipsburg cable)

I didn’t discover the UK series Red Dwarf until I went to college in Washington state and saw Lister and Kryton flown to Seattle to help with the pledge drive… they were clearly given access to somebody’s liquor cabinet and their antics and improv made me a lifelong fan 


B
"...we like Jersey... best!"

Mark Jeffries, to Diner and Doug Eastick, Dec 8th:
Telethons in the U.S. have become pretty much a dead issue since Muscular Dystrophy ended the Jerry Lewis-less and much shorter appeal some years ago.  There's the cost of doing them and the fact that they do disrupt programming, weekend sports programming in particular.  Which is why PBS stations stopped doing fundraising auctions some time ago, despite the problem of offending the volunteers who put worked on them--program disruption when people started actually watching PBS.  Although, of course, pledge drives already do program disruption for the regular PBS viewers who are not happy about seeing the classic rock concerts and Suze Orman infomercials that pop up during pledge drives and pre-empt "Frontline"/"Nature"/etc.

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Kevin M. (RPCV)
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