This is something that’s bothered me off and on for several years, but this morning I finally reached my breaking point: what the hell is the matter with the audio mix on The Today Show?

Anytime they use background music for a segment — which is pretty much all the time these days on this increasingly fluffy and pointless “news” program — the music is so loud that it drowns out the voiceover. It happened this morning while Matt Lauer was reminiscing about his best experiences while doing his “Where in the World is Matt Lauer?” segments, which I still enjoy despite my general disdain for Today. The insidiously catchy and terminally annoying Outkast tune “Hey Ya” was playing over the story, cranked up to the point where I could hardly hear Matt at all, so what I ended up with essentially a music video with visuals of Lauer on an aircraft carrier, walking around Red Square, etc.

I’ve wondered for some time if the problem was with the TV in my bedroom (I usually half-listen to the various morning shows while I dress for work, so I can catch a weather forecast), but today, because I was actually interested in the story in question, I tried the HDTV in my living room; same thing there. Are the show’s producers even aware of this issue? Is it deliberate on their part? Do they think for some reason that viewers find it pleasant or exciting to have music drowning out the host personalities that we’re supposedly tuning in to listen to? Or are we just supposed to look at them? Why have the hosts at all? Why not just play music? Oh, wait, that’s what the radio is for, isn’t it? Idiots…

Oh, and as long as I’m bitching, I’d love to see all the national morning shows drop their outside “plaza” segments, too; listening to the screaming crowds of people who all seem to think that their Aunt Mildred in Peoria will somehow pick out their single voice from the cacophony is even more annoying than the nine-millionth play of “Hey Ya.” Not that the goofball weather-guessers who mingle with the crowd ever have anything all that important or amusing to say, I just don’t like all the noise. Arg…