Larry Beil of KGO-TV ABC Channel 7 has an anti=Hope Solo bias this blogger had to challenge.
The daily anchor of several news programs on the local affiliate, Beil has a weekly ‘Dancing With The Stars Update’ segment that’s presented on 7 Live, their daily pop culture trends show.
Larry bet against Hope Solo, and lost, as did Scream Movie Series Actor David Arquette, who dissed her on The Late Show With David Letterman before Dancing With The Stars Season 13 started. Both Larry and David
(Ha, Larry David!) lost.
After seven long weeks of drama, it came down to Hope Solo and her partner, the demanding Maksim Chmerkovskiy, versus David Arquette and his partner, the lovely Kym Johnson. As show host Tom Bergeron announced, Hope survives, and thanks to a combination of their score (24), the team score (26) – and their dance was just awesome – and votes from fans like this space, Hope moves into DWTS Week 8.
But David Arquette could not resist leaving without yet another dig at Team MaskSolo.
As he was giving his final speech to the audience, David said “This is my show!” mocking Maks’ outburst of the week before. But fortunately it was done in fun, as Arquette later said to E! Online “I was just ribbing Maks. I know what it’s like to say something silly and so you have to have fun with it. It was all really loose and fun for me.” It didn’t bother Maks, either, who remarked “I’m flattered, it’s funny, he’s a cool guy.”
He’s also out.
Now, the established stars are falling off DWTS, but what those who are crying about it, like Larry Beil, miss, is that Hope Solo scores higher in Internet search results than any other Dancing With The Stars contestant. Hope also has more Twitter followers (332,290) than any other person on Dancing With The Stars.
What this shows is a total disconnect between how Hollywood measures who’s popular (word of mouth and PR representation) and how popularity in the media is measured, and right now that points to the Internet. Over 74 percent of persons between the age of 18 and 64 use the Internet, and the percentage is over 87 percent for those below 49 years old.
Moreover, and anecdotally, since good research on this is hard to come by so far, what is watched on television impacts Internet search. Google Trends regularly reflects what’s watched on television at any given time, and Twitter Top Trends reflect this too, though far less so of late.
Still, the highest tweets-per-second events were all presented on television, proving TV’s influence on the Internet, be it desktop or mobile platforms.
And all of that reflects favorably on Hope Solo, which in turn shows up in constantly high fan votes for her.
That’s why this blogger picks Hope Solo to win. That, and the Internet is kind to hot women athletes.
Sorry, Larry. You will lose and owe me lunch, too! And Lizzie Bermudez, who’s the show contributor alongside host Brian Copeland, said she didn’t understand why Hope was “still around.” Well, now she knows.
Watch 7 Live on KGO Channel 7 in the San Francisco Bay Area, starting at 3 PM daily. See Larry whine about my win!
Stay tuned.