News Alerts!!!!

was listening to the the Jerry Doyle show on the way home, and like that he talked about this:

6/22/06 Hour 3: Inane News and Youth Both Fox and CNN wasted America's time by getting helicopter shots of a busted fire hydrant!

He played a clip or something, I think he said it was an interview with the guy that designed the Fox News Alert back in 1999. How it was meant to get people's attention, yeah, it still does, but for me it makes me look at the clock, cause it comes up EVERY HALF HOUR!!!!! I'm not the only one to notice this, from wikipedia:

Fox News also created the "Fox News Alert," which interrupted regular programming when a breaking news story occurred. Each News Alert was designed to be attention-catching with a swooshing graphic filling the screen and a piercing chime instead of the regular news music. At the beginning of FNC, the Fox News Alert was used fairly rarely, giving the chime more cachet, but currently it is used regularly to announce scheduled events or repeat existing news instead of only breaking news stories, with Fox News Alerts sometimes several times each hour instead of just a few times a day.

so yeah, it gets annoying when i'm trying to sleep. I guess i could change the channel, but there might be that one time it really is important. (insert wolf and crying boy cliche here) FNC is the only news channel we receive here, though i think the local cbs station starts running some weird headline news kinda thing about one thirty. anyhoo, glad i'm not the only one annoyed by what's considered "breaking news"