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I watched some of their newscasts yesterday. As @ThunderJay27 pointed out, they’ve already eliminated all verbal references to the “Eyewitness News” name (except for the intros). They’re ditching the brand, and it’s for the best. It may be associated with the station’s early history, but it’s also associated with a long period of low ratings, as well as the racism of the Dunn/Friend era (see this article; viewers even referred to the newscasts as “White-Witness News”). The name doesn’t carry the goodwill that it does in NYC, for example, where the “Eyewitness News” name actually fits the newscasts WABC puts out. I know KYW wasn’t successful the last time they dropped the name, but this rebrand is nothing like the last one. They aren’t completely retooling the newscasts with people nobody knows. The anchors and reporters are all the same. They’re even making a conscious effort to heavily promote Ukee Washington. The only thing that’s changing is the presentation.

There was a point in time in 2018 or 2019 that I thought to myself and realized....there's hardly any scripted TV shows on television that people want to see, mainly because, as someone alluded to earlier, these companies put their money where their mouths are, and that's with the streaming services. I mean...is it safe to say all these big 4 networks have outside of reality, news, and sports are their legacy shows? NBC with their Law & Order trifecta...ABC and Grey's Anatomy...CBS continuing on with NCIS after all this time....Fox with two Sunday night animated comedies in Family Guy and The Simpsons, I guess? One thing's for sure, nobody I know is flocking to the TV for the newest ABC drama or CBS' next big comedy led by a well-known actor. This leads me into my next point. Appointment television. I miss the hell out of it, or at least what comes with it. When I used to watch Chuck on NBC, I had quite a number of days where I'd hop on Twitter and follow along with everyone watching the show at the same time. I did this with a few other shows and a quite often once I found subreddits in Reddit for my favorite shows. That level of camaraderie is something you can't replicate with a Netflix or Disney+ show that rolls out new episodes at 3am on a Wednesday or Friday. While this isn't going to take away from whether or not people enjoy a series, appointment TV is something that'll rarely be seen, or at least not in the droves that it would lead to if you had to tune into a show at 8 or try and watch a DVR recording a week before the next episode.

Actually Schitt’s Creek originated on Canada’s CBC. Pop! just technically picked it up in foreign syndication…

It wouldn’t make sense to use black/gold in a newsroom shot and blue elsewhere.

BECAUSE CONSITENCY! /s

Why would KGO ever want to use the former brand that one of its competitors used for decades?

True… KYW was hardest hit by those racism allegation I’ve never seen Ukee (who deserves and now is the chief anchor) even get that emotional. I’m glad he’s the face of the station. Eyewitness News Is now an ABC since all there O&O are most-watched or #1 outright.

Right now, the main advantage I see with free streaming is that the picture quality is generally better than OTA. The main OTA Channel may look good, but subchannels tend to be fuzzier. ATSC 3.0 is supposed to alleviate that. If that's what ends up happening, I don't really see what you need cable TV for. Just program the sub channels better and put everything up on there and make it easy for people.

I like that WSVN repeats their 11pm at 4:30am. WNBC might as well do that at 4am. I hardly saw any live field reports until about 4:30am. I question if there is enough of an audience up at that 4am hour to justify a live newscast. As someone who used to dread going to work at that hour, I also wonder about the crew and talent having to wake up that early every day. Just like the scripted cable series, soap opera and talk show bubbles, news overload is going to burst eventually.

Where are we drawing this conclusion? Because there's a gold ring around the transitional logo in that first picture that can be easily excised?

If you're a station, you need a whole crew of people even if you just have a single half hour 6pm newscast. Making them work harder by doing more live news doesn't cost anything. You can expand that half hour newscast into an hour and not have to pay anybody extra or hire any more people for it. If you cared about quality, you might, but that would also cost money. An extra half hour of news will get higher ratings and be easier to sell to advertisers than almost any syndicated show these days or informercials. Now keep doing that several times over. This has been the sad reality of local TV news economics for the last decade, and I expect it to continue. We're going to keep seeing this industry do more with less. It's happening everywhere at every station in every market to some degree.

KYW didn't use the EWN name from 1991 until 1998, reclaiming it two years after Group W ceased to exist.

Firstly, CBS owns the trademark to "Eyewitness News". Secondly, no. Both "Action" (which is owned by Cox!) and "Eyewitness" are cliché and ancient brands that do not need to be picked up by anyone not already using them.

I think they might have actually managed to out-happy WPVI's "happy people" open.

I never really understood why the black and gold color combo generated such passion on either side of the debate, but then again, I’m the most pedantic person I know, so who am I to judge? I wasn’t a huge fan of how it looked on the outgoing package, but I could see that color combo working well with the new graphics. Just as long as they don’t do something stupid, like gold text on a black background (or vice versa). Also, the new newsroom looks fantastic.

They could simply do a non talent open on days when those anchors are off.

Like I said yesterday, the black and gold is probably being relegated to the new flash-cam monitor in the newsroom.

Why are stations like KTLA airing so many hours of news on in a single day? I understand that it is supposed to be cheaper than airing a regular hour or half hour TV show, but you are still paying people to sit there to read the news to viewers and have people behind the scenes editing and so forth. Plus, other stations are also airing news at similar times. How much are they stations actually saving and how much are advertisers actually paying each station, since many of the stations are showing the same thing - news at the same or similar times. Plus, with so many stations airing so many hours of news, especially in Los Angeles, how do you expect viewers to tune in if all the stations or most of the stations are airing news at the same time? At 5 and 6 pm, ch 2, 4, 5, 7, and 11 are showing news at the same time. There's basically nothing on TV to watch besides news. Ch 9 is showing funny you ask and family feud, while ch 13 is showing reruns. In my opinion, many viewers would just tune out or off and not watch at all, since many people can get their news online or later on in the evening.

When KYW dropped EWN in '91, they were NewsDay (Morning), NewsBeat (Noon, 6pm), and The News Tonight (11pm) from 91-94 and then they were KYW News 3 from 94-98 and 3 brought back EWN in '98 and it stuck.

From what I've seen so far this week, the reporters are transitioning to the CBS News Philadelphia tag. So looks like the end of an era may be on the horizon.

Very small and slightly ridiculous nitpick but I really wish they’d do a Friday alternate 6pm open that features Sam and similarly one featuring Ryan for Sundays. It’s always annoyed me that Sam is in the talent open morning and noon talent opens on Fridays despite technically having that day off every week.

I hope CBS gives KYW some permission to keep “Eyewitness News” as a secondary brand, hopefully reporters still say it at the end of live shots.

They can stream all they want, but they're never going to get me. And to be honest, I don't really miss anything they're not offering anymore enough to pay. Pretty stupid and shortsighted to give up the biggest platform they have. If anything, they should augment it with social media, sending texts, reminding people to go into their TV set to watch a show. I use the free streaming plenty, so I'm not just some old guy who refuses to try something new. I just think the free OTA platform is easiest and most convenient for people. I pay for the local newspaper and the Wall Street Journal. Anything else I have to pay for, I can live without.

Newsroom looks nice, but is it never going to be seen on camera? The flash cam position looks to be in front of a monitor. What's the point of going live to the newsroom if it's just another reporter in front of a monitor?

Goddammit.

I believe they are debuting next week. Their Westmoreland County reporter tweeted that he was leaving that post to report from the new desk next week.

They've getting a new newsroom. I have a feeling whenever they publicly reveal the new newsroom is when the rebranding will take place.

The new look for KD is coming sooner than we think. Check out this tweet:

WCBS, WBBM, and KYW should be next. KDKA is going to be in April or May. There is heavy speculation that KDKA and KYW will indeed, rebrand their newscasts as CBS News Pittsburgh/Philadelphia.

On top of all of this, cable companies have the nerve to charge into the hundreds for basic cable --while providing poor and slow customer service -- yet act puzzled as to why cord cutting is the new norm. Loved South Park's take on this:

When you see intros like these, you will know that Baltimore and WJZ are just not the same without the late greats Jerry Turner and Al Sanders.

KCAL/KCBS is an absolute disaster. I can’t bare to watch any of their newscasts. WWJ so far, is way better and CBS News Detroit just debuted 8 days ago. Obvious WWJ is somewhat modeling themselves after KDKA. Not surprising, since KDKA Pittsburgh is actually one of the better CBS O&Os.

Not too long, WSB's Newsroom became what is known as ACTION NEWS, which it still is today. As for the Newsroom branding, after a two-year hiatus, it moved to WXIA when it became 11ALIVE, which is also still is today. 1976 was the year WXIA resurrected the Newsroom branding to become 11 Alive Newsroom.

Excuse me?

What exactly does that mean? Houston itself is growing by leaps and bounds. The population growth is massive. #8 tv market has to be attractive to businesses.

I wouldn't say that, because rival Dallas is pulling in.

WBNS used to be tops in Columbus, but now that honor goes to WSYX.

I get it … FTV said today they’re down by half. The people left are probably burned out due to all the OT they’re being asked to work. Understandable in a small market, but not in Houston. Why the hell did they allow it to get that bad? Things aren’t anywhere as dire at any other large market station that I can think of. New ND and GM are both very experienced and have plenty of connections they could work to try to find people. They have (or had) one producer who arrived from tiny Lake Charles many years ago. Certainly there are others who would kill to make a jump like that. Better pay, larger city and a ton of fancy toys to make your shows better, such as their storm tracker and their chopper. Hopefully they can bring back the 4:30a show at some point. Dumping it makes them look weak and a bunch of people were complaining about it on social today, with some folks saying they were switching stations. You can’t help but think the numbers at 5a will drop at least some without local news as the leadin. If people get their start elsewhere each morning, many likely won’t switch when the clock strikes 5.

Well, there's another unlocked childhood memory I completely forgot about...

The producer brain drain is going to force stations to make a lot of difficult decisions moving forward. After I left my last newsroom to make a career change, I received so many unsolicited inquiries asking if I had any interest in getting back into the business. I was surprised we didn't hear stories of stations scrambling to keep newscasts on air or abrupt one-day cancelations of some shows when Southwest had its operational meltdown after Christmas. Staffing levels are already low, and at least when I got time off during the holidays, I did not book flights with any room for error.

CBS is moving away from Enforcer for exactly that reason. It’s dated and doesn’t fit the direction of the network/O&Os. It’s been around long enough. It’s time for something refreshing and new. The graphics are modern and clean. They look good on mobile and streaming, which is the future. They’re far better than the current iteration of the O&O graphics. Overall, it appears this is a solid upgrade for the CBS O&Os. Despite some stations keeping calls or channel numbers (for now), I think this is a step in the right direction. I for one am happy to see some of the nostalgia go to the wayside.

Appointment television was the best. The most recent instances I can recall were Empire on Fox, Shonda's TGIT on ABC and now the Dick Wolf blocks on NBC. Maybe this becomes the new trend: show creators taking over a single night on a network. We've probably discussed his before but the scripted cable series bubble has largely burst. There was a time AMC, MTV, VH1, Lifetime, USA E! and others were clammoring to put out original dramas and comedies. Now aisde from HBO, Hallmark, BET, and maybe TBS, non children aimed cable channels have largely stuck to reruns, live sports reality shows and movies. (Not counting Lifeime movies as a continuning series). TV networks probably thought that prestige programming might bring them noteriety or an audience, but I know alot of people who've heard of Schitt's Creek --from streaming -- but couldn't tell me it originated from the Pop! Network. Will *new episode* streaming sydication ever become a thing? A studio makes a show (that doesnt have a home network) avalible on multiple streaming platforms owned by different companies.

Gosh the Eyewitness News tag, Its dying only a handful carries them mostly ABC. I could probably count on my finger who still have it. KGO should pick it up, All non-action news ABC O&Os should have the title since they own it.

They've had this version of the logo on their website since its relaunch, though I haven't seen it on-air yet:

As I am sure everyone knows, I for one welcome this new era. WBZ, when I tune to you, I better hear CBS News Boston being announced. Okay...maybe they'll stick with WBZ News. But you know, you never know. But I understand that not everyone here is welcomed to this change. The call letters, the number, the font of it on the logo, it's iconic. And when you see it gone, for some, it's like a sad thing. It's like losing a nice painting you had in your house for years. So, I feel for you guys that may not like it.