Leaderboard

A warm, charismatic, 60-something Black woman, a hard news guy with a long European name and a great head of hair, and a cool, younger, former NFL player who also appears on a Sunday morning football panel show, all broadcasting from Times Square, in a studio with gaudy exterior signage, but seemingly doesn't like showing off the iconic views. Don't know where you got the idea that they're ripping off GMA.

Graphics aside, CBS This Morning was fine especially when it was more hard news oriented. Nora, Gayle, and Charlie were a solid team. All they needed was a solid replacement for Charlie and the anchor line up would've been fine.

That was when CBS This Morning launched nearly 11 years ago. They slowly moved away from that with more celebrity interviews. I think one reason they relaunched it as "CBS Mornings" was to signal that they were no longer as heavily focused on hard news. It's softer like CBS News Sunday Morning. I'm not a fan. And I still don't understand the purpose of putting them in Times Square if they're not going to use a real window or make use of the location.

CBS Mornings is just a toned down rip off of Good Morning America at this point, right down to the talent selection and their professional and personal backgrounds.

The hard sell of "CBS Deals" is really not helping. It's enough when your local advertorial show is doing it, but when a national morning show is pushing Wish refuse, it's absolutely intolerable. It might be making some money, but it's doing cheap and dirty damage to a brand that certainly doesn't need more.

Not usually around a TV during the morning news- but some time off this week gives me the opportunity. Landed on CBS Mornings. Wasn't the whole point of this show to "put the news back in morning news" and differentiate themselves from Today and GMA? The time I spent watching was just a store-brand version of the other two shows- Same gossipy host-chat, "CBS Morning Deals" giving some paid-placement to product no one really needs, using songs like "Bye Bye Bye" as the closing bumper music, and that was just the 15-20 minutes that I caught. I feel when the show was still CTM before moving to Times Square, they had a solid, and reasonably unique product, despite still being in third place- what happened?

You're exactly right! And I'm a Social Democrat agreeing with you. So you know this is cold water on the subject. A few thoughts that I will add: As many pension accounts tie themselves to PE, returns are not as strong as they would be using the stock market or index funds. The only people who make out well in Private Equity are managers at the top. That industry itself is a sham. Also, given the debt/equity ratio, companies like Sinclair, Gray, Scripps and Nexstar are known as zombie companies. When the debt comes due in the next few years, these businesses will not be able to refinance at a low interest rate and they will default. They have sold their shareholders a bill of good, mainly in economies of scale, that they cannot live up to. Tegna is one of the few groups of their size that can survive because they've intentionally been structured to pay down debt (the balance sheet transfer made when they split with Gannett).

Ion Plus (which began as Ion Life, and now exists as a streaming network carried on a few AVOD streamers like Samsung TV+ and is soon being added along with the mothership and five other Scripps diginets to FuboTV) was the one that carried drama reruns (and lifestyle shows, most of which were also Cancon in nature, before that). Shop Ion (which used that branding only as an identifier for program listings, never on-air) was the “infomercial farm”.

Looking at the drone footage again, that beautiful drone shot flying away from the red 13 transmitting tower (with the Houston skyline in the background) would make a great ABC13 news close. All KTRK has to do is throw in the copyright tag in the lower 3rd, and they have themselves a news close.

I stand by my post. End of story. I was merely putting my two cents worth in.. I wasn't meaning to start an "affiliate-by-affiliate thread". Sometimes the moderators get power hungry on here and I believe this was the case.

Missing the point. "Action News" and "Eyewitness News" are extremely dated brands, and are more or less cliché at this point. It's nearly 2023, it's time to find new ways of branding local news outside of two 60's era news formats. The formats themselves are barely even used anymore. I sure don't notice any difference between an "Action" or "Eyewitness" newscast and... every other newscast out there.

It's 28° where I am. I'm already chilled enough. Too many folks take the opportunity to pile on with that kind of stuff, making up speculative demos, showing what their home stations would look like. And you're right, a few are fine, but there's enough of a track record for me to know that if I checked back a few hours later, there probably would've been a dozen more. I only meant it as a casual reminder to all.

Honestly, I feel that the logo would be more effective if each individual feather was outlined with a VEEEEERY THIN white border. Emphasizing the feathers, but still keeping them separate.

I just saw on Facebook that Ashley Baracy is headed back home to WDIV. https://www.clickondetroit.com/weather/2022/12/27/local-4-news-expanding-4warn-weather-team-with-additions-of-ron-hilliard-ashlee-baracy/?fbclid=IwAR3HQp5M31UIs31diGl4AXFOICct6ZuzZrtSAq5IbN4iI4m4f3eyIrvz6xc&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

I personally like CBS Mornings more than CTM. The flow is better and it's less boring... it feels fresh and less stuffy.

Not that I want to toot my own horn, but I redid the history of channel 23 on Wikipedia. @Samantha redid the history of WBPX in Boston (which as WQTV was an unprecedented financial failure for the Church of Christ, Scientist, and as WABU had a good amount of local programming attached to it; it just struggled to find viewership at any point in its existence). WPXN and those two stations—and to a lesser extent WOAC, which indeed was sold to “Whitehead Media” and LMAed to Paxson—are the only ones in the Paxson chain that genuinely had history attached to them. The others were struggling or failed U indies which never had a chance in their respective markets, but were bought … mostly for the broadcast spectrum and must-carry on cable, which in 1996 hadn’t been upheld yet by SCOTUS. Inyo is a shell operator that explicitly exists so Scripps can continue to operate at the 39% national ownership cap for OTA stations. Ion Media didn’t have to worry about an existing chain of network affiliates (having sold off WPBF in 1996) when they set up their chain that also corresponded to the 39% limit. It’s the only reason why WVPX-WDLI was “spun off”.

Scripps spent all that money for the broadcast spectrum, not the content featured. Replacing Ion Life (nothing but CanCon drama reruns) Ion Plus (an infomercial farm) and Qubo (the only Pax diginet that had some bit of care to it but ultimately felt neglected and didn’t have a chance) with Scripps’ Katz diginets absolutely constituted an upgrade.

I can see JHud being renewed looks like most of the shows from this year will get a second season from B&C article I read last week. I wonder if On Patrol in a 30 minute format will be in syndication like Live PD was for a couple of years ago with 30 minute block or an hour? Or if TV station groups don't want reality type cop show because of social justice and May 2020 death of George Floyd, WXSP did air Cops until the end of Aug 2020 when it was pulled.

A company that can't sell itself because the economy is in a limbo and interest rates are no longer dirt cheap is not a good thing. That it’s a company which is also too big to fail makes it even worse. (That being said, it IS a better position than seeing Apollo de facto run the company and controlling Soo Kim and Deb McDermott like a marionette, gutting the stations from the inside out and selling the IPs for king’s ransoms.) The so-called “M&A Rolling Thunder” cheered on in some places (cough Harry Jessel cough) was abject poison on the television industry, and now the consequences of that foolish mentality are coming home to roost.

That’s not really how it works. First, ABC doesn’t program sports just to “avoid having to get people to work on the holiday”. I’m hoping that was meant to be funny, but it comes off as naive. Second, the newsroom does not get the day off. It still has weekend staffing. That includes assignment editors, reporters and photographers working on stories for the late news. A skeleton staff of producers, editors, writers, directors, on-air talent and technical people will still be scheduled during the day, in case of an emergency or breaking news. They won’t have a lot to do, but they’ll still be there, just in case. Small market stations might not do that, but at WABC, and I’m sure most other major market stations, that’s the way it works. Newsrooms everywhere get a staffing break when Christmas falls on a weekend, because weekends always have skeleton staffs, compared to weekdays. So, Christmas scheduling on a Sunday is easier, even without sports to fill the day. By the way, the people who went to work at 11PM on Christmas Eve, in miserable weather, to put together the morning show on Christmas Day probably don’t feel like the newsroom got the day off. Neither will the people who have to go to bed at 3PM on Christmas Day, so they can do the Monday morning show.

Re: the idea of 10 PM news saturation, what if stations focused on a different area for a 10 PM newscast? Independent WFMZ in the Philly DMA has news at 10:00 that competes with Fox 29 and Action News on PHL17, but being the fact that it's based in the Lehigh Valley, serves an entirely different purpose than does the aforementioned. WFMZ also has the 10:30 "Berks Edition" which focuses mainly on Berks County, which is usually completely forgotten by the Philly stations.

Thank you for mentioning the atmospheric river term. It seems like in the past 1-2 years, everything is suddenly an atmospheric river or a bomb cyclone.

I've lived in California 40+ years and it's hilarious to hear the term 'FIRST ALERT ACTION DAY' on some rainy days... So much so, that I actually laugh out loud at the TV. What actions am I supposed to take? Make sure the car windows are rolled up because of the drizzle? Granted, there can be snowy conditions in higher elevations... But nothing that requires immediate 'action' of some sort. California is not hurricane/tornado territory and the 'FIRST ALERT ACTION DAY' terminology screams as if some clueless idiot from corporate back east came up with it. It just doesn't fit in this part of the world. And don't get me started on the term "atmospheric river". It sounds like I'll need a lifeboat if I'm gonna go skydiving or something. SMH. They're called storms... and used to be referred to as a line of storms. So tired of these gimmicky terms trying to sell me a forecast that I can instead bring up on my phone in half a second.

With the CBS-mandated Next/First alert, it seems a 'yellow alert' is issued for weather that will have some form of impact on a person's routine, with a 'Red alert' as weather having a major impact on a persons routine. I would like to think that it's the meteorologist/weather producer who issues/decides these and not the ND, because otherwise they would totally overhype the yellow/red alert days for rating purposes (next thing you know there would be green alert days for good weather days ). From what I've seen so far, WCBS (at least here in NY) doesn't 'over-issue' these alert days and they do seem warranted. The 7 day then just gets colored red or yellow on that day. Hopefully people are able to recognize that a "red alert" or "yellow alert" is not an actual government warning lol. But yeah I've definitely had this thought in my head about it confusing people with actual necessary government alerts (and I definitely wonder what the NWS thinks of this new trend and if they also share this fear of confusion).

It's marketing. That's it. An attempt to make them look like they're way ahead of the game with weather. An argument can be made that they're beneficial in the sense that it's very visibly labeling a day as one to be aware of because inclement weather may be a problem.. There has been a push among meteorologists the last few years (in conjunction with NWS) for the public to be more "weather aware." The problems with out some TV stations do it, however, is it's often subjective and sometimes not even a decision made by the meteorologist. NDs will hear a forecast for rain on Tuesday and might decide it needs to be an "alert day" even though it's just plain, normal rain. No thunder, nothing severe. Hearst does this under "impact days" which is supposed to be super broad - weather that's different than dry and temperate. They also run the risk of being over used. Like breaking news, if every drop of rain is an alert day, nothing is an alert day. If you're in a market where more than one station does this, Station A might say Wednesday is a whatever day because of x forecast, but Station B might have nothing because it's nothing dangerous. "So how important is it?" a viewer might ask if they see multiple forecasts. Another big problem is that they have to be explained. Hearst stations have a label on their 7-day to explain what each impact icon is supposed to mean. I've had people ask me what they mean. If you have to explain it or the viewer is confused/distracted by it, it's too complicated and not serving a purpose.

I noticed one of the stations (market #35) issue a weather impact (alert) day in early May. I believe it was because of the heat/air quality. It was the first time I had heard of such a thing. One would assume no station (regardless of market) has the authority to ‘issue’ a weather alert. No doubt the station could say they’re doing so under the guise of a ‘public service’ to avoid getting in trouble. It appears that there’s a loophole/grey area some stations are taking advantage of by issuing weather alerts. You’re correct that this can become very problematic.

And Shop 'Til You Drop. I didn't mind that one either.

Here is last night's Gardner retrospective:

Even in the 1980s there was minimal difference between the two brands. Look at Bill Bonds at WXYZ with Action News, and it was basically all centered around Bill Bonds and his on-air presence. Ditto with Irv Weinstein at WKBW; they used the EWN name but it wasn't anywhere close to the Al Primo EWN. The brands were never uniformly applied and mean different things to different people. @HulkieD has brought up how CapCities slowly (even if unintentionally) morphed WABC into... if not a Xerox of WPVI, then obviously a station with WPVI's Action News in its' blood. It still used the EWN name, but it wasn't the EWN pre-1986. WOIO's usage of Action News is mostly associated with the "last-place, last-chance news" uber-populist format that Bill Applegate---the same person who presided over WABC's late-80s changes---put in, almost out of desperation by Raycom, having admitted to overpaying for WOIO/WUAB when they bought out Malrite. It is a tainted brand in the market. EWN means nothing in Cleveland and hasn't meant anything since WEWS gave it up in 1990, and even then, NewsChannel 5 meant nothing when they gave it up a few years ago, aside from people likely confusing WEWS with WPTV on social media. If WOIO used EWN, it would feel tacked on and meaningless. (Yes, channel 3, then KYW-TV, originated EWN from 1959 to 1965 but it predated Al Primo or even Westinghouse's full treatment of the brand. Because of the passage of time, few are alive to actually remember when it debuted in Cleveland.) It actually says a lot that none of the stations in Cleveland have a so-called "brand" for their newscasts: 3 News, News 5, Fox 8 News and 19 News. But does it matter? I'm from Cleveland and I can tell the four news operations apart fairly easily.

Another noteworthy example is when WXIA debuted their new logo and this forum attacked it harshly. The 1993-debuted serif 11 with the blue boxes needed to go, it didn't fit the design language of neither the G3 graphics package nor the current TEGNA package. Plus, it was a change in direction for 11Alive; you could tell they wanted to target more urban, more city and more underserved neighborhoods, and be more activist journalism. Where Atlanta Speaks isn't just a slogan, that is a philosophy. Theoretically, this format is a modern day Action News or Eyewitness News, in that it is intended to be different than what the other stations are putting out. The problem is that their target audience isn't watching the local news. But, back to the logo, it definitely is not as inspired of a design as the 1993 logo, but it holds up really well given the autonomy that WXIA has been given to modify their graphics and opens to take advantage of the 11 shape. They couldn't have done any of that with the 1993 logo. That 11 can be scaled up, scaled down, and people would still recognize it. Honestly, it did what it was meant to do. And as far as still branding as "11Alive," they learned in 1993 that if you have a unique brand, don't fix it. Don't break it. It makes them stand out from every other "Channel 11" out there, it's been tested and futureproofed.

I agree with @MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie, who isn’t harming anyone. When people post these types of things, it’s not like the sky is falling. Everything in moderation, including moderation. Take a chill pill.

Nicely said. Things change, just gotta get with the times. These news organizations are struggling (most don't even look for sweeps periods anymore) - who really watches the news anymore? We get our information from social media. I would side eye an organization if they weren't making changes right now...

This forum is very nostalgia heavy, and most here have an extreme attachment to graphics and their local stations (see the argument about Pittsburgh needing everything to be black and yellow) Nothing new will ever be ok unless it keeps the same colors, names, numbers, style, anchors, sets, bumpers, idents, while also being new, fresh, exciting, up to date, and representing their area with little call backs and touches that bring a tear to your eye and you can say "That's my station". It's pretty funny when you look at it objectively. Times are changing, get over it. Apparently the point is to show headlines, which is what it does.

I guess intelligent morning tv would be like the Bryant Gumbell/Jane Pauley years on Today as the best example. Extended interviews, news magazine type feature pieces and conversations with people like military generals, foreign policy experts, and introspective authors. Dumbed down would be modern GMA. Stories on some former Power Ranger actor caught up in a murder mystery or secret recordings of dentists’ snarky side comments while the patients were under anesthesia (ACTUAL stories that they have done). CBS Mornings on the other hand would be focusing on millennial home buyer-ship rates, climate change’s threats to Florida’s oyster population, and pandemic exoduses from cities to the rural areas (actual stories they’ve done). They borrow some bits from the competition but the positives outweigh that for me.

Are you all watching the same show that I am? The reporting is in depth and layered and smart. They have great chemistry and the set is stunning.

Top Ten things we copied from our competitors... 10) Giant video walls 9) location, baby! 8- Giving former Co-Anchors the "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" treatment 7) A newfound appreciation for Smooth Jazz 6) Outdated references to bits from retired CBS programs 5) That DJ we found leftover from the TRL days at Viacom 4) Paint everything orange- that got the Today Show 5 points, right? 3) Hey look! We got an couch from IKEA too! 2) Retired NFL players make great anchors! 1) Sure Willard wore a dress, but we gave Tony a fun hat! All possible sarcasm in the jokes is implied.

In their defense, people don't exactly jump online to praise anything that they like.

I came THIS CLOSE to rechristening the thread as CBS Early This Mornings News Show. Oh, and the lower thirds suck. The rest of everything is solid.

Can't forget The CBS Morning News with Sally Quinn and Hughes Rudd from 1973.

Or it will be renamed "The Early Show" in 3 years.

Just leave it. History proves that CBS will circle back to "This Morning" in 10-12 years. We will be ahead of the curve.

Didn’t they do that in early 80s? What they should do is rename CBS morning news to cbs early morning news and changing cab this morning to cbs morning news. That why it’s closer to their other broadcasts and still ties into Saturday and Sunday mornings

That’s what they did in 1979 but it only lasted for two years.

That or they'll decide to give CBSN its own dedicated set (or tear down the wall and expand the Studio 57 Newsroom).

Also …. CBS now has a Black woman, a Greek man and Black man who was a former NFL athlete all anchoring a morning show in Times Square. Sound familiar?

Also interesting when you realize she’s technically been host longer than Savannah has been at Today. Certainly doesn’t feel that way.

There's a lot of people at a TV station who don't work in the "newsroom". Engineering, Production, Marketing, Sales and all sorts of other positions that aren't considered "Newsroom" jobs. Anyone who still thinks this transaction would be a "good" thing for misguided reasons like "mAyBe tHeY'Ll rEpLaCe c-cLaRiTy" should realize that Standard's targets for cuts will ensure that these stations have zero "local flavor" ever again.

I just don't understand who watches TV today. It seems like there are a multitude of 1.0 rating shows, of no interest really to anybody. It's a miracle that can make all the numbers work and make a profit.

They're airing a Yule Log today!

Are people in Philly that bored?