Leaderboard

Thank you, @ABC 7 Denver. One thing I noticed is how absolutely hyper-critical this fandom tends to be without actually taking a step back and trying to understand the "How"s & "Why"s behind changes in news products. Are some graphics actually bad? Yes. Some are. Is EVERY SINGLE aspect of a graphics package bad simply because you personally don't like one aspect of it? No. That's absolutely not the case. These absolute statements and severe judgements based on a few minutes of witnessing something new just leads to drama, and I'm personally getting kind of sick of it. It's not everybody, but I just find the irony kind of amazing that the whole thing behind news is being objective, yet we let our personal feelings dictate definitively that something is "bad". Not everything is 100% "Bad" MY53's news department is a one-man-band with the budget of $12 and a ham sandwich. The product will get better over time. There will be a lot of testing & figuring it out, and he deserves our support for taking on a project like this. Bottom line is, Austin is one of us. He's a total news nerd just like we are, and he's a damn good journalist. He has a challenge ahead of him that he willingly took on. We really should, as a community, be in his corner to support him, and not completely rip apart his product on the first night. In fact, we really need to learn how to sit back and observe things for a few nights before we draw our conclusions, weighing all pros & cons of certain things instead of just crapping on something the first time we see it just because it's different. TLDR: Guys, we really need to step it up and do better, instead of turning everything into a bitch-fest.

I'm telling you guys, it's only going to continue to improve. It's not about ratings right now, it's about establishing a product, and allowing the audience to grow with that product. Hopefully this will continue to grow into competative news operation. In a time where big companies are shutting down newsrooms and outsourcing the newscasts to be produced from stations in neighboring markets (sometimes markets from all the way on the other side of the country), it's extremely rare to see a start up news operation, especially from a small broadcaster that doesn't have the resources that a big corporation does. Once again, there really should be nothing but support here. I think it's easy to forget that local news at its core is a public service, and that';s exactly what's being provided here; a public service.

I'm sure THIS is finally the time a WBBM anchor change will make them #1.

Called it in the NN thread when the departure PR came out, and am holding off my Brainy Smurf impression that he'd end up at 'BBM.

From FEDER. Joe Donlon moved from NewsNation to CBS 2. Effective May 2nd he'll anchor CBS 2 News @ 5, 6, and 10pm. Brad Edwards moves to CBS News Chicago streaming service and continues as investigative reporter.

The cold truth is that news is a public service, but broadcasting is a moneymaking profession. That’s why both have been at odds with each other since Edward R. Murrow interviewed celebrities on See It Now and chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs was a sidekick on Today. Look, maybe the program could improve. But there is no excuse in the world why that debut newscast should have made it to air in the first place. It set back whatever goals Austin wanted to meet, and needlessly so. Fresno is too big a market to have such a fiasco happen. Hell, Glendive and Alpena MI are too big a market.

Looks like it is the same package KPLC in Lake Charles (and others) have. Not very impressive, sadly. Considering how dominant WVUE is, you’d think they’d get something special.

It might be in everyone’s best interests for the program to be put on hiatus indefinitely and retooled outright. If it got canceled or ended by Austin’s volition, well, I again fault the station for not doing a darn thing to help the product at launch. They failed him.

"Business decision" sounds like either "too old" or "too expensive"

WPLG Channel 10 Eyewitness News 1990 Some WBFS and WPLG promos 1989. ( Including the majestic Movie 10 intro and bumpers, Now if only I knew the name of the "Movie 10" theme) WBZ Live on 4 1989 WCIX (WFOR) Promos, commercials and Action News at the end 1990 KTLA Channel 5 News at Ten 1985

In the interest of fairness, as the person responsible for posting the video that went "viral".... Austin Reed did post tonight's newscast and he did take everyone's concerns to heart. He has replaced all of the various music lifted off of News Music Now with proper News One tracks that he is authorized to use, downloaded directly from WCPM, and only that package. I think he did read the FTVLIve piece that was published this morning and got rid of the podcaster-hosted sports segment in favor of an extended interview. He also put a disclaimer at the end that it was recorded at CentralValleyTalk.com studios (an obvious swipe at FTVLive for claiming that it was shot in his basement). He actually did license it — he sent my friend the contract he has with WCPM, so it is legal. Mark Agent is a legitimate person, the licensing director for WCPM. Apparently he had difficulties downloading the audio tracks and resorted to NMN for the first show. Should he have done that? No, but give him credit for getting that rectified quickly. News Music Now is very much aware. He commented on my video: They are licensed, so nothing is going to come of this. At the end of the day, I do feel kind of bad that Austin has received some of the hate he's gotten. Some of it is rightfully so and well deserved: lifting others' news video (even if he gave a YouTube credit) is not acceptable, and is not fair use if he's profiting off of it (which he is, there's advertising, it's all direct response ads, but there's ads) and he does seem to be making some strides to getting things right. There was a fair amount of lifted video this evening so I think it'll take him a while, but nowhere near the amount that there was Friday. The presentation could use a lot of work, and he knows that. He is actively shopping around for a graphics package and has had interest from a couple of designers. Given the fact that is a one person operation, I will give him credit and I think this product is only going to improve over time. He had a week to launch (they were airing NewsNet in the timeslot the past three months after they declined to renew their outsourcing arrangement with KFSN at the end of 2021) and I guess they had to have NewsNet gone by the end of March. So I will give him a lot of props for stringing together what he could on such short notice.

This has become such a tired argument. GMA has always (but one period between 2007-2012) been the more lifestyle / entertainment focused show. It was introduced in 1975 to be that alternative to a more news focused Today. GMA’s entire first hour is solidly news and current events. It’s resonating with viewers and has been for the last 10 years. ABC has always had strong local affiliates yet still couldn’t top Today for 16 years. This argument also sucks because Today is equally as “tabloid” as GMA. They’ve just got two extra hours to spread it out. Surely you’re not praising the show that glamorizes 10am cocktails as some bastion of Cronkite-level journalism and expecting anyone here to take you seriously. CNN does a great morning show that may be more of what you’re after.

You're asking if anyone watches the morning show that happens to have the most total viewers? (Today wins narrowly in some demos). They must be doing something right... it's almost as if a majority of viewers don't care about news and would rather wake up to something softer and more digestible.

Ramadan has just started here in Malaysia, and typical to TV stations here is to show a list of break of fast/iftar times in various locations, from east to west, since all stations broadcast nationally. Not sure about other Muslim-majority countries though.

The Gray looks are so bad that WVUE looks good in comparison. I watched them again recently when tornados came through NOLA. Those ancient Raycom graphics still look better than WBTV does after having been “Gray-ified.”

From San Diego, a 1975 KFMB close with a theme not yet listed on the NMSA:

VERY WELL SAID