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The meltdown of this forum over this whole thing is just absolutely sad.

They put up a SIGN too for this "win"? From everyone's favorite site:

I think the more confusing thing (at least for me) is why they aren’t calling it “CBS News Los Angeles.” I get that KCAL gets viewers and KCBS doesn’t, but when the whole point is to unify the branding and put CBS News at the forefront, this doesn’t exactly help. You’d think they’d at least do what KPIX is doing and cobrand the newscasts, but they’re not even doing that. I haven’t seen any mentions of CBS News Los Angeles outside of the website and references to the streaming channel. It’s all “KCAL News.” On the last CBS2 Morning News, they introduced the entire KCAL morning team. At one point, one of the anchors said something to the extent of “it’s a little confusing, we’re trying to get used to it ourselves.” When even the on-air talent is confused by the arrangement, and most viewers won’t find out until tomorrow because of a lack of promotion, I don’t think they’re setting themselves up for success. I like the overall strategy given the ratings mess at KCBS, but I don’t like the implementation so far.

KCAL could run the CBS Evening News live. KCAL no longer has any sports obligations (other than maybe some preseason NFL football) so making them the news brand makes sense.

I agree. Outside of news, there's no need for CBS News branding nor call letters. But the thing is that the reason why they may use the name of newscasts like you exemplified is for TV guide listings only. There's no way people are actually going to say long names like that.

The placement of the word "news" affects how smoothly the brand rolls off the tounge. Example, KPIX. "CBS Bay Area" rather than "CBS News Bay Area" allows the branding's use outside of newscasts, without having to cluster in the call letters. "CBS BAY Area News at 5", "CBS Bay Area News at 11". If we are de emphasizing channel numbers, I'm sure call letters don't really matter either on an o&o station. "CBS News Bay Area Evening Edition: 6PM" is a paragraph. *KCAL is a different story as CBS is the secondary brand*

Now it says KCAL NEWS / CBS LOS ANGELES. Let's cram a few more brands in that bug? KCAL NEWS / IN-N-OUT BURGER / DISNEYLAND / CBS LOS ANGELES

KCAL has been having issues with the time and temp/ticker all day today. They’ve been using the outgoing CBSN ticker most of the day. I trust they’ll sort it out.

It's ironic that in the writeup linked earlier, CBS claims that they're being minimalist and not wasting screen real estate, yet the bug is perhaps one of the largest bugs in the industry.

MTV Live also hasn't strayed from MTV's original purpose, except it also shows music-related programming in addition to a constant cycle of music videos, so there's a bit of variety, at least. After all, aside from FAST channels like Vevo Music, a traditional channel devoted to music videos only wouldn't fare too well nowadays, and that's what's causing MTV Classic to perform so poorly. But that's beside the point. What mrschimpf said is right. Nowadays, it's the norm to put on whatever programming you could and call it a day. No care. No variety. Nothing. Diginets are showing cable how it's done, and that should be the wake-up call for television itself. Forget the rerun farms. How about the channels basically running on autopilot? How many people would want to watch Science Channel anymore besides "How It's Made?" Exactly. And how about speeding up any pre-2014 program to the point that they're PAL-pitched? Yes, it's syndication, and yes, you have to attract those advertisers, but at the cost of just trying to watch the show normally? Paramount Global is the only company I know that is a huge offender of such a practice. Ever wondered why the "Everybody Loves Raymond" episodes sound a bit off on TV Land? This is why.

It's only the first day. You're going to see old logos here and there. Just like when the graphics launched this morning, we did not see the time/temp ticker on the bottom of the screen. Let them take the time to change the logos.

Uh-huh... They picked a really good time to do this, didn't they? A powerful winter storm is pummeling California, and we have to take a break from this coverage to take a group selfie? Of all the days, this is the one they pick? Look, I'm all for letting them have their fun, but please, any other day but a "Storm Alert" day. Same goes for the promos they shot in Studio W.

Not sure which "she" you're referring to, but if you're talking about Wendy McMahon, she was head of Creative, Marketing, and Community Engagement for KABC for several years so it's safe to say she knows the market inside and out.

Yeah. They should also consider bringing back the 2-3:30 news block that they used to have. Or at least reenter 3pm.

It’s the same music as KPIX. With the new graphics being rolled out, they’re discontinuing use of Enforcer at the CBS O&Os.

She's already admitted she doesn't understand Los Angeles. There is a reason why KTLA is dominant in Los Angeles morning news. It's a family. It feels like a family on air. It was built as an answer to local radio morning shows. It's why there was so much reaction in the community to the circumstances surrounding Lynette Romero & her exit. Thinking putting your assignment editor on the set (and hilariously having a graphic in the back that only says ESK because his head is blocking it) isn't going to win you viewers. Too much corporate research & not enough gut knowledge about L.A. sums up this bland KCAL News Mornings.

Rough start in the 4 a.m. hour with lots of technical difficulties. Anchor microphones didn't work, reporter microphones didn't work, they were unable to cut to the weather anchor. Yes, I know it's their first day but not really -- they've been rehearsing for weeks. Good news is that not 4 a.m. isn't the most watched hour. I'm still surprised that they didn't launch new weather graphics yet, and the old full screen was used for traffic. After all this time the graphics were still not ready for launch. I'm not a fan of how they use the same full screen animation for things like Live, Team Coverage, Weather, Traffic, etc. It gets old when the same thing is used every other minute. Otherwise, this is an interesting idea using KCAL News as the overall branding and doing something different in the morning. I've always thought it must be weird for West Coast viewers to get a three-hour-old national news broadcast. We shall see.

See, this is the kind of promo they should’ve been going with a month ago. I know not everything was ready yet, but you have to give people something to look forward to. I don’t think making KCAL the primary station is a bad thing at all, but *if* the goal is to build around CBS News, that should be indicated on some level in how they advertise themselves. Yes, KCBS is a ratings trash heap compared to the more stable KCAL, but this is still the nation’s #2 market. CBS will have to make its brand more prominent at some point (especially with the streaming component factored in).

This spot kind of explains why KCAL is now the unified news brand, with Pat Harvey bringing up Jerry Dunphy with two vintage Prime 9 News opening clips (the first with Dunphy and long-forgotten 10pm anchor Kate Sullivan; the second with her successor, Tawny Little). It's telling that they're evoking Dunphy's KCAL history as opposed to KNXT; it goes to show how *long* ago the CBS affiliate's news heyday was, while KCAL has been fairly consistent in reputation/perception over the last 30+ years, even with the ownership changes since then.

Crossposting my comments from CBS O&O Graphics topic: This is what you call: "How To Act Like an Independent Station, Though You're Still Affiliated," not to mention...O&O. My comments best fitted here. My bad.

It may be its first attempt one of these multi-hour morning shows, but KCAL did have a half-hour 6am weekday morning newscast that ran for about a year or so during the Disney era, whose March 1990 premiere was on the same day as launch of the flagship 8-11pm Prime 9 News block. The morning newscast, anchored by Paula Lopez and Jim Murphy (the latter later replaced when Kerry Kilbride arrived) was titled "First 9 News." If that name sounds familiar, KCAL used it again a couple of years after the 6am show was dropped, but this time for their half-hour 6:30pm local newscast alternative (anchored by the Dunphy + Harvey duo) to the national network shows. It was also short-lived, morphing into an hour-long 7pm show retitled "9 News Live at 7," anchored by Harvey + David Jackson, which also didn't last very long. Re: the intro clip, I noticed beginning on Monday's 8pm show on KCAL, the main anchors have been regularly been throwing it to the assignment editor in the newsroom, which I'm not sure I quite like, but we'll see how this new wrinkle/angle evolves.

It's not about cost-cutting, it's about more effectively using the power of owning two stations. By putting different and better programming on both stations, they can sell ads on both stations. Right now, they're trying to sell ads on a newscast nobody watches on one station, and infomercials on another. There's no guarantee that people will start watching right away, but there will now be more reason for viewers to linger on both of the stations CBS owns, and it's at least a more compelling sell to potential advertisers.

I think the block that used to be "The '90s Are All That" which eventually became NickRewind was the only reason TeenNick existed in the first place. It was the saving grace for the channel when everything else around it just screamed "A channel that exists only for filler." Even NickRewind succumbed to decay in its final year or so, to the point that the block - which was what got me interested in the '90s and the '80s in the first place - was a sad shell of its former self. Now, TeenNick is the home of "Henry Danger" and "AFV" reruns. Sad, but not surprising, considering MTV has basically inserted itself into a pattern of show "Ridiculousness" almost entirely on loop when nothing new is on, pretend to care when a new episode of a show other than "Ridiculousness" is on, and repeat. No music-related programming at all. This is what television as we know it has come to. Back in the day, you'd have a wide variety of programming to choose from on a wide variety of channels. Now, it's reruns, reruns, reruns. It's crass and exploitative shows posing as inside looks at child pageants or dance teams. It's actively spitting in the faces of viewers who long for the days gone by and showing no remorse for it. It's true crime dramas when there are already too many of them to go around. (Apparently, we haven't learned our lesson with oversaturation, which is what caused The Great Video Game Crash of 1983.) Channels have lost their plot altogether. No care or thought is put into making a good programming lineup anymore. And somehow, TCM remains the shining example of a channel that actually cares about its viewers in the modern age (a trait that has become all but extinct now). Rewind TV, Antenna TV, and MeTV don't count, since they are diginets, but they also show more care than just about the entirety of cable barring live sports.

Sure! When TEGNA split with Gannett, Gannett was saddled with a lot of debt and at the time of the split, Gannett would not have been able to pay it down given the meager success of their newspapers. The television group, on the other hand, had the ability to pay down that debt if they were structured effectively. This structure separation would help the papers survive as a pure-pay business. So when the split happened, TEGNA, which is technically the original Gannett (same business license) with a new name kept the debt tied to that legal entity, and new Gannett (new business license) kept the papers, their debt tied to the legal entity that is now Tegna.

SkyCAL isn't a terrible name. It's different. 2/9 and KTLA had "Sky XX." Plus "Chopper XX" or "Air XX" is a little stale. Lest we forget 7 SkyForce down in Miami?! There's mixed emotions as it relates to the new brand. I like it personally, as someone who was raised in SoCal. KCAL was definitely the stronger brand. Anyone remember when KTTV did KCOPs 11pm news with Carlos Amezcua and Christine Devine? The FOX management knew the FOX11 brand was stronger compared to KCOPs historically dead branding. KCBS/KCAL is doing something similar. Although the KCAL to KCOP comparison is apples to oranges as KCAL has historically had the stronger brand recognition.

KCAL: CBS Los Angeles:

Article says WWJ is next and the others will be in the spring.

At the end of the day, I have a feeling layman viewers are going to be saying "I saw it on Channel 2 News last night" whether they watch the news on TV or online.

I mean, the News Organization brand is KCAL News. As I read in the article of the website I guess folks don't like saying, KCAL is a popular brand in the California region, according to CBS brand researchers studying viewership for the rebrand. I'm pretty sure the reason why CBS Los Angeles is in the bug is for when KCAL NEWS airs on the channel, formally known as CBS2 (KCBS). Personally, as I preached in the CBS O&O graphics topic, all stations should be streamlined with the CBS News brand, but it may not be the case for every station. Some may stick with the channel numbers, others may stick with the call letters. Definitely, that's the case with KCAL and their news operations in California.

Yeah, but Liberty Mutual got to air "Limu Emu...and Doug" another two more times! All thanks to TVLand pitching and speeding up actual television programming! Another one of those crappy channels now is Logo. What used to be a network for the LGBT community is now tons of old sitcom reruns, probably pitched and sped up for commercials. Very few BBC-sourced shows on BBC America nowadays, it wasn't that way 20 years ago. FYI runs The King of Queens and Storage Wars reruns instead of what used to be biographical shows.

They're partying like they just won that crisp $50 bill on Bozo's Grand Prize Game, that's for sure!!!

Ugh, I saw this too and was afraid this might be the case. Not sure why they didn't just put "Afternoon Edition" or "Evening Edition" in there, but guessing it's a hard-coded element that can't be easily changed on the fly. It's a total waste and looks terrible. This graphics package is highly templatized, and every other O&O will have the "CBS News [City]" lockup in that blue rectangle, a la KPIX. But since the CBS LA duo wanted to do their own thing and adopt the "KCAL News Los Angeles" brand, they had to put something in that spot. Creative director: "...so that blue box can't go away? Should we just stick 'LOS ANGELES' there?" Designer: "Yeah, sure, that'll work. Done."

I scanned by Great American Family one day during one of their Who's the Boss marathons done to waste time because they only care about existing during Christmas and Valentine's Day and Sony is happy to give them reruns for a pittance. The theme song was pitched to the point that Steve Wariner sounded like a eunuch, Tony, Angela and Samantha seemed to be on what Jessie Spano took for that one test and burning holes in the carpet as they did their scenes, and I could not understand much dialogue as even the captioning track was rushed. My spectrum brain noticed immediately and wished for everything to slow down. It was so disrespectful to the show, the actors, and the viewer, along with the creatives. All this...to shove in more ads.

OMG, yes! BET has the longest commercial breaks on TV, I swear. I can’t even enjoy a movie when it airs on there. I think the block that used to be "The '90s Are All That" which eventually became NickRewind was the only reason TeenNick existed in the first place. It was the saving grace for the channel when everything else around it just screamed "A channel that exists only for filler." Even NickRewind succumbed to decay in its final year or so, to the point that the block - which was what got me interested in the '90s and the '80s in the first place - was a sad shell of its former self. Now, TeenNick is the home of "Henry Danger" and "AFV" reruns. Yup. The “90s” block and Degrassi was TeenNick/The N’s bread and butter back in the day.

It's great to see Jerry Dunphy in a promo but since he's been dead for nearly 20 years & Los Angeles has had major population/ethnic changes during that period and if you are looking for a younger demographic, it's going to be meaningless for most viewers.

I was wondering if KCBS doesn't intend in the future to do like KNBC and KABC and broadcast the CBS Evening News at 3:30 pm. It was just to advance Dr Phil and pass a part of Drew Barrimore to KCAL.

This smells like NewsCentral all over again. Looks like KCAL News will be the primary local news brand, @cbsla is no more on Instagram. This news station will be confusing many viewers as I don't think it the public will realize that "CBS 2 News" is obsolete.

This is my confusion as well. Did KCAL have a morning product before this? If not, then it’s hardly a cost-cutting initiative either. The real struggle is how saturated that market is for the AM - KTLA, KABC, KNBC, KTTV all have established local morning institutions even if some are weaker than others. That doesn’t even include the national competition.

KCAL News Mornings I suggest you look at KCAL's ratings & CBS 2's ratings before making statements. KCAL is perceived differently in the community despite its duploy. If you lived in Los Angeles, you'd understand.

Still think it’s silly to run CBS Mornings (east coast feed) on KCBS 4am-6am. Just simulcast the local newscast on both channels from 4am-7am and then exclusively on KCAL from 7am and on. That’s the best way to build ratings for it. The argument that KCBS is in the basement ratings wise and that’s why we are moving the newscast to KCAL doesn’t quite hold. What’s switching channels going to magically do for ratings?

Probably doesn't mean much. Both "kcal9.com" and "kcalnews.com" redirects to "cbsnews.com/losangeles".

In the age of streaming, the majority of networks have declined. Only a few have increased.

And one would think an abundance of choice would make tv better but it's had the exact opposite effect. Something left out of my earlier essay, lol. Cable channels rerunning the same thing ALL day long. I'm looking at you Rediculousness MTV, or SpongeBob Nickelodeon. Does Rediculousness even do that well in the ratings to be rerun that often? I wouldnt even mind an endless array of cable channels playing movies if said feature was inline with it's niche. Example: a movie like Notorius (about the music industry) on VH 1.

I don't get why Paramount Global doesn't move some of their lower-watched, nothing but reruns channels like MTV2, Teen Nick, Nicktoons, and MTV Classic to Pluto TV. We know the way retrans works is that all the big conglomerates want ALL of their channels carried on a provider, and if not, channels that people actually watch will get blacked out. Paramount and WBD seem to be the worst when letting minimally watched channels survive. Even NBCU has shut down channels that had almost no viewers. I think MTV2 and MTV Classic have long been among the lowest rated channels overall.

Given the crap on TV these days, I just don't see much of a future for the business until they can figure out a way to provide something unique. I just don't see who would watch most of those shows other than low income, less than intellectual types. At least the fighting on Jerry Springer and Richard Bey was funny. There's nothing funny or entertaining about any of these shows.

I remember when KMEG TV was affiliated with both CBS and FOX.

Rabbit ears analog was way better. I preferred the static over scratching and glitching from digital.

It looks like when it launches this week, KCAL News will not use CBS News LA Branding, but the graphics will have the CBS eye elements. But this set looks nice. https://youtu.be/SzQoL76hWQY

Honestly, I hope this is just for the (hopefully, mercifully short) remainder of his contract, because there'd be more dignity in just letting him go.

If it wasn’t clear through their commercials who they were targeting, this seals it.