Dear Editor,

TVJ thanks all our viewers and your readers who watched the Smile Jamaica feature that was broadcast on NBC Today Show last Thursday. Feedback on the feature is overwhelmingly positive though most people would have preferred a longer segment. Today Show hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb along with the NBC producer and crew have commended the Smile Jamaica hosts and production team’s professionalism and the show’s interesting content that showcased Jamaica. In fact, NBC promoted the Smile Jamaica feature as the grand finale of the Today Show’s Anchors Abroad series which is quite an achievement for Smile Jamaica’s relatively small production team and great exposure for Jamaica. For those who might have missed the feature, visit the Today Show’s website where it’s posted.

For the record, the production and broadcast of television programmes and features are fraught with uncertainty that results from numerous intervening factors. This is why, for example, NBC twice postponed the scheduled broadcast of the Smile Jamaica feature before finally broadcasting it last Thursday. On each occasion, intervening events caused NBC to postpone the broadcast shortly before the feature was scheduled to be aired. On confirming last Thursday’s broadcast date, Today Show producer Jennifer Long said the broadcast was again subject to postponement should there be intervening factors. Fortunately, this time there was no intervening event so the feature was broadcast as scheduled.

Intervening factors also influence the timing of the appearance of guests and hosts on television shows and the Today Show/Smile Jamaica programme was no exception. Though the show started exactly on time at 6:00 am, the Today Show hosts’ scheduled 7:00 am appearance was delayed by three minutes as a result of two intervening factors – a last-minute segment change resulting from onthe-ground weather conditions and an additional minute commercial break, neither of which is especially unusual anywhere in the world. These kinds of issues cause CNN’s Wolf Blitzer or Anderson Cooper to tell viewers, “We’re not yet ready (for this or that feature), we’ll go to the break now and will rejoin later.” On-the-spot content changes will also cause big-budget, American television productions like the Academy Awards to routinely run late by much more than a few minutes.

Kathie Lee is well known for her on-air quips that are not meant to be taken seriously. They’re meant to be funny. This is why Kathie’s comment that her appearance on Smile Jamaica was delayed because people were in the bathroom is not at all offensive. We understand the comment for the joke that it was meant to be. You should have heard her other hilarious comments, some of which can’t be broadcast on TVJ. Maybe one day Simon and Neville will repeat the more family-friendly ones on air, so stay tuned.

Kay M Osborne

General Manager

Television Jamaica

Kingston 5

kay.osborne@rjrgroup.com