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I'm the first to lament WABC's lack of aesthetics but the reality is that it works. New York is a tabloid town (in the Daily News / NY Post sense, not the WSVN sense), and it kind of makes sense that WABC's look emulates those visuals more than any other station in the city. Editorially WABC is toned down from the caustic irreverence and outright conservatism of the NY Post, but it shares the huge typography, bombastic/eye searing color contrast, and fundamentally human interest led approach. As I've noted before, there has been a shift with Bill Ritter's editorializing "Gun Insanity" rhetoric at WABC. I don't think you'd ever catch David Ushery or Kristine Johnson leading with such a framing.

It’s no surprise, but this might be the graphics package WVUE Fox 8 is getting. This was inside their control room.

https://www.facebook.com/100044407330467/posts/524312242392349/

I think they realize that no matter who they brought in as a replacement, it wasn't going to lift them out of third place. It makes sense to continue to strengthen the CBS News brand and devote both time and resources to that effort rather than trying to find yet another anchor for CBSEN. Sometimes you have to resign yourself to certain things (at least for the time being).

My issues are strictly with the news production, editorial and presentation. Outside of Bill Ritter and his old man rants, there’s not a single weak personality on channel 7 imo. Even Michelle can be difficult to watch present at times but is still a strong anchor.

For those of you unaware - both Jeff and Brittany work 5-day weeks. Jeff is in evenings 3 days with Lee and Brittany is in mornings with Sam 3 days a week (including Friday obviously). They work as backup and wx producers when not on-air. They also can be found reporting on human-interest stories on occasion. there is no such thing as a 2 day work week in television. As a matter of fact - there’s no such thing as a 5 day work week in local news either. You’re lucky if you have a couple of hours each day to sleep.

Really crazy lineup at Fox Weather today with Britta Merwin, Nick Kosir, and Marissa Torres all off. Katie Garner flew back to NYC to fill in for Britta this morning. Danielle Gersh flew in from LA to make her first appearance in forever, filling in for Marissa Torres. As for Nick's shift, they moved every other male OCM's shift down. John Marshall came in on his normal day off to fill in for Stephen Morgan on America's Weather Center. Stephen Morgan filled in for Ian Oliver on Across America, and then Ian Oliver filled in for Nick Kosir on America's Weather Now. When 10pm EDT rolled around, they continued special coverage with Ian and Danielle in a control-room-produced show for about 25 minutes. At around 10:25pm EDT, they went into automation, with Ian Oliver doing break-ins periodically to update on tornado warnings. As of this hour, Ian is still handling the break-ins, marking his 5th hour on the air. But they're not following their previous policy from a few weeks ago, which was to stay live with nonstop break-in coverage as long as there's tornado warnings active. The break-ins are rather infrequent tonight. On the other hand, TWC is staying fully live until 12am EDT. I guess TWC is edging out Fox Weather with their coverage tonight. But let's be honest, TWC would not have stayed live for a 10% hatched tornado risk a year ago at this time. It always would take a 15% hatched risk to keep TWC live for the past couple of years. So if there's one positive thing to make of this, it's that the competition from Fox Weather is forcing TWC to stay live and cover severe weather more than they've covered it in a long time.

Something tells me management actually likes having the anchors editorialize. I guess it’s supposed to make them more relatable, but it’s a bit condescending to those of us who would rather not hear opinion on a straight newscast. Reminds me more of Bill Bonds than Bill Beutel. That said, the format works for NYC.

Aside from the need to update the aesthetics, the music is fine. Actually I'd opt to return to the late 80s/early 90s version of Cool Hand Luke. In terms of news product I think WABC has the most recognizable brand but WNBC is my prefrence. WNYW has the weakest news product outisde of it's feature specials like Street Soliders. WPIX isn't strong either outside of the "Morning News". Overall News 4 and Eyewitness News are the strongest news wise. Is no one behind the scenes speaking to Ritter about his editorializing or does he have leeway as the station's lead newsman?

Constantly changing the anchors isn't ideal, but I can also understand the mindset of "We can pay someone much less to keep us in third place."

That's what I'm thinking... Nothing else seems to make any sense. I doubt they would schedule THAT many vacations / days off all at once. Nydia Han is currently on with Matt and Brittany is doing the weather.

WOW...I did not know he said that. Oh well!

Mark made it clear in multiple interviews he’s done with the biz, in addition to that he sent his message across stating that he will NEVER forgive her and forget what went down.

I agree! KABC has always been superior and just cleaner with their on-air look and presentation, graphics, music and etc. (All the California O&Os KGO ABC 7 in SF and KFSN ABC 30 in Fresno have a variation of the KABC graphics package.) KABC out of all the O&Os has arguably the best set, backdrop, on-air look (simple and clean but still elegant) and consistency in their music package which is also great. Honestly to me, KABC's package still works though they've adopted it in 2015. WABC is really just boring, overall with their overall on-air look. They adopted these subpar flat basic graphics which look like they were designed in house or something or by a cheaper company which in my opinion is worthy of a medium to small market. Complete step behind their previous package from the Giant Octopus update they had from 2011-2015. Their current street side set is nice, but their backdrop is just pretty awful. Its 2022 and yet they still are using a static backdrop and the music while iconic, should be replaced at this point. Over 20+ years with the same music package and theme, maybe they are holding off on updates till they move into the new studio and building in the West Village, and by then we'll see a complete overhaul. Maybe in May we'll see something new from that department? Since the sweeps are coming up? Fingers Crossed, I feel like its due time for them to change or update their appearance. Or perhaps we'll have to wait till they move to their new studio in the West Village later in the decade. https://abc7ny.com/wabc-west-village-disney-upper-side/3733784/

KSWO finally made the full switch

This Monday morning Jillian Mele and Alicia Vitarelli are in for Matt (who will be along later today) and Tamela. Also, Gina Gannon is doing traffic. Alicia also anchored the noon solo (but did say Sarah would be along later). I'm wondering if there’s been a COVID outbreak. There’s been way too many people off, with Sarah putting in a marathon shift Thursday (and was supposed to be on Friday), and Matt pulling a marathon shift on Friday.

Simple: he was caught with his pants down and moved to quickly scrub the use of the stuff ripped from News Music Now once it was exposed to the right people that he was doing that. He probably made it private hoping nobody else would see that he was doing that. I am going to go out on a limb and say that he had probably hoped nobody would ever catch him doing this, and it worked, almost. Kind of an odd logic to have when you boast about being seen in over 115 million households. He also started to scrub the NMN stuff from his other show, "The Reed Report" and now uses some random YouTube music: It looks like he was doing this with his other show too, "Valley View with Austin Reed" (how many shows does this guy have?). That one is/was using the old TXCN music and Impact in a sponsor bump. Again, I think once Austin realized what he was doing was not cool, he corrected this. That said, he shouldn't have been doing it in the first place.

Aside from all the other issues, I'm still confused about the music situation. So it seems to be confirmed that they're licensed to use News One, but that doesn't account for the other music packages that they used (though they all seem to be published through Warner-Chappell) which were also ripped from NewsMusicNow! Not to mention the video that Ianman linked to earlier (but now the video is private for some reason) where the intro used the "Community" cut from the 2000s Hearst-Argyle music (which last I checked was made exclusively for those stations). It's not even from the same publisher! (Newsmusic Central)

Agreed! KGO and KABC look much better. WCBS currently has the best set in the market and WNBC has typically been the market's visual presentation champion. Yes! I wonder if the talent ever pushes back against increasingly earlier start times? I suppose there's no money in going the WSVN route and re-running your 11pm newscast at 4:30am? Again, due to earlier start times, stations should have an AM team soely handle mornings, have a midday team for 11a/12p & 4/5 pm and an evening team for 6 & 10/11pm.

They are also cheap in terms of adding another meteorologist. They need it as Sam only works Monday through Thursday. I don't get why the biggest market and the strongest station can't have 5 meteorologists.

I'm surprised as well. Good luck continuing to be in 3rd place CBS as I continue to watch David Muir and Lester Holt.

I believe this was initially known as the WMC package. I couldn’t initially remember which station debuted them. It has been bastardized heavily since then. WBTV has the same opens as KPLC but different L3s. WBRC has different opens but the same L3s, just red instead of blue. So I guess we could still be somewhat surprised. We know based upon the weather graphics shown above that WVUE is going blue. So maybe a custom open and the WBTV L3s? That wouldn’t be too horrible. Still was hoping for more tho.

Not really, the WOIO and Meredith graphics are the most “large-market” looks they have.

I"m hoping the WBTV package is the one that WVUE eventually ends up with. It's probably the most "major market" look they have right now. Then again, it would look a lot like WGNO's package, especially with the way the lower thirds are designed. Graphic packages aside, as long as it doesn't look totally awful and makes the on-air product look like garbage, WVUE should be just fine.

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

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.

Agreed that Joe & Sandra are the strongest team and that Maurice & Kristine are strong at 5. I dont mind male anchors steping outisde the blue black gray suit monotony, so longs as its in the relm of business formal. ESPN anchors nail this. Sam's choices however sometimes look odd . EDIT: Overall I like WABC's team because it has the least reporter turnover and great, consistent anchors.

Really WABC’s actual news product is not very good either. It’s overtly sensationalized and editorial from the graphics to the on-screen commentary. Horrible horrible. Channel 4 and channel 2 are in a different league compared to 7.