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Can we get back on topic please?

May be an unpopular opinion in this thread among the love-to-hate-CNN-ers, but I think Licht has put together a strong product in CNN This Morning. It delivers the hard news with a light atmosphere that many have denounced ABC, NBC, and even CBS for turning away from in favor of tabloid fare and pop culture. I think moving Don Lemon to the morning on a roundtable show was a smart, creative move that reels in his excessive prime-time opining while still giving room for human perspective. Kaitlan Collins is an excellent political interviewer and Poppy Harlow has been a strong, personable anchor for years. The three clearly have good chemistry, too. I look forward to seeing how the show evolves over the next several months, including with a new set of its own. Licht, who is deeply experienced in launching and relaunching morning shows, is playing the long game and not obsessing over the day to day ratings like some folks here, as he acknowledged he recognizes it can take around a year for a show to start gaining its own footing.

The majority of the “rusted dial” complainers are well over the 25–54 money demo. They’re the people who Sam Watterson markets to when pitching Old Glory Robot Insurance.

Agreed! I’ve noticed the ones who complained are the ones who aren’t used to it. Heard a lot of places are playing CBS News Detroit. Network and advertisers both seem to be happy.

I dunno. WPVI tried to replace MCTYW with a modernized version of it and we saw how that turned out. Both WPVI and WABC are number 1 in their markets respectively. They have less of an incentive to rebrand like the struggling CBS O&Os do.

Allow me to clarify- I did not mean to suggest Gardner would have cared or not- but habitual viewers (I think the term rusty was thrown around earlier this week) would whine and complain if there was too much change at once (again, to clarify, are the possible complaints valid? I don't think so). They probably also call complaining that Ken Jennings is not Alex Trebek.

WABC’s branding is such an atrocious and inconsistent mess that it’s a miracle they’re number one in anything. The “Disney Mandate” reads like another “CBS Mandate” to me, tbvh.

I’m like you and I’ll take it a step further, I don’t think Jim Gardner would have cared at all. These changes would have been made above his pay grade, he would have been happy just still doing the news.

That was 15 years ago. The industry and the consumer is not the same today as in 2008 and admittedly, Fox may have been way ahead of their time. To be honest, I don't think Jim Gardner would have cared if they changed to "ABC Philadelphia News" and unveiled a redo of MCTYW by Made Music a week before he retired.

It sucks how WNBC has fallen aestetically because studios 6B and 3C were gorgeous. 3K, especially since they changed desks and moved to standing, is awful. But ABC 7 --the #1 local news station in the country -- looks pretty bad. Their set and HD quality looks cheap. At least WNBC has decent graphics. Overall for the number one market, NY is really lacking in terms of set design. Agreed that this is WPIX's best studio design since the WB 11 main set and morning kitchen set era.

Don’t forget WNBC is moving to a new studio later this year.

This is why I eventually see WJBK becoming Fox Detroit, and WTTG, WNYW, and WAGA becoming Fox DC, Fox New York, and Fox Atlanta.

It has been longer since WPVI tried changing the music (1996-2023= 27 years) than it was between MCTYW debuting on the station and the attempt to change (1972-1996= 24 years). This is a fun piece of news lore, but it's also ancient history, and things are a LOT different today than they were in 1996. They have been sneaking in new cuts of music for a while now. I can almost guarantee "modernizing" MCTYW would not get the same response as it did nearly 30 years ago. It would probably take days for anyone but the oldest, rustiest dial viewers to notice.

Paramount Global is putting attention and care at the CBS stations for the first time in decades. They're beginning to implement changes sorely-needed in the industry that the other networks will imitate, including branding and identifiers. And yes, I will not be shocked if one day, WPVI rebrands to "ABC Philadelphia" and WABC becomes "ABC New York". It will absolutely happen. "ABC 7" might mean WABC to you or WLS to someone in Chicago or KABC in Los Angeles, but they get drowned in a ton of other ABC 7s in social media and online portals. The current way of doing things is 100% unsustainable.

Ctfu at the suggestion the station group that is consistently #1 would follow suit of the perennial bottom-dweller. It’d be like Walmart following Kmart’s lead

Which happened 27 years ago. And unpopular opinion, the redone version wasn't that much better and should have been shelved. But MCTYW in the classic form is ridiculously dated, at least when compared to the iteration WNEP uses (which was kept because -- gasp!! -- it fits the Tegna graphics like a glove). Those stations are #1 despite Disney basically not giving a crap about them and treating them like an afterthought. Disney has not bought a station in the now-dead M&A mania because ABC remains such a low priority, it's all about the Pixar and the Marvel and the Star Wars product. Heck, they probably forget that they even own ABC.

I watched this live. It was good to see. Broadcast networks don't really have the luxury of going long on segments. And Kaitlin is a very strong interviewer, reporter and analyst.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/watch-don-lemon-calls-off-commercial-break-to-go-off-on-kaitlan-collins-interview/

Apollo Global Management, which owns “Cox Media Group”, owns the trademark to Action News. Disney pays Apollo-Cox a fee to use the trademark on WPVI. (Disney DOES own “Move Closer To Your World”, which they bought after Mayoham Music went out of business.) Paramount Global has the first-use service mark for “Eyewitness News” which Westinghouse registered and will keep ownership of it after KYW-TV drops the name (again). ABC has always licensed the name from Westinghouse—>CBS—>Paramount.

To be blunt, would anyone be surprised if ABC winds up wholesale rebranding their O&Os in the same way the CBS O&Os are? As @Weeters brought up to me, Wendy McMahon came to CBS from ABC, and did so after Bob Iger retired. Iger might really not be happy that Chapek just let her walk on over to a competitor the way she did. Just because Action News is the Delaware Valley’s Leading News Program (Disney has to pay Apollo-Cox for the “Action” name) or Eyewitness News is “News York’s #1 News” (and Disney has to pay Paramount Global for the EWN name) doesn’t mean those names are ironclad. If CBS can get this new branding convention to work, the other three networks will follow. And no station will be immune, brand legacy be darned. Nothing is ironclad or impenetrable. It might even be the reason why the ABC O&O graphic redo has been placed on hold indefinitely…

I think WPIX’s new set is great for the space they have to work with. Is it by far the best in NYC? No, but it doesn’t need to be. It needs to be the best for WPIX’s use and for the space they have to work with which honestly seems like it’s not much. So far it looks based off the limited images we have to be utilizing the space way better than the previous set did, and is arguably the best use of studio space since the 2000s set. It’s sad it took them well over a decade to get a decent space to do the news, but it looks like they finally will have it. The previous set did not age well and was a poor attempt at getting them back into a studio space after the failed newsroom era. That three-wall small-market set was never right for NYC, but was probably very cheap given Tribune’s money woes towards the end. It still amazes me that DailyMailTV used that set and made very little modification to it to use it. Quite frankly, I’m glad it’s gone.

One thing I really like that I’ve noticed they do during first weather and during regular weather is show the 7 Day Forecast fairly early on instead of just at the end. It makes sense considering anyone can pull up the extended forecast on their phones, not sure why more stations don’t blow up the old formula and try it like this.

The long-awaited channel switch in the Mid-South is one step closer to reality. On Monday, the FCC granted WMC's petition to change its signal from VHF 5 to UHF 30. It's been a long time coming. Since the digital transition in 2009, they've been trying to get off that VHF hellhole. They even tried to move to UHF 17 back in 2011, only to be told after the auction & repack that they're dismissing that petition. It wasn't until after the freeze was lifted two years ago when WMC tried again and filed this petition. And even that was a long process. I think the reasoning for the lengthy process was FCC probably had concerns for the viewers in those far fringe areas potentially losing WMC after its move to UHF. So Gray had to come up with a remedy by launching three small translators serving some of those lost coverage areas (contours). WANF-LD Dyersburg (serving the northern fringe) WDDY-LD Jackson (serving the eastern fringe) W20DW-D Clarksdale, MS (serving the southern fringe) So what's next? The station has to file a minor change app to get the construction permit. The R&O actually says once the order gets posted in the Federal Register, they'll have 10 days (not the usual 30 days) to file the app. I should also point out that Gray also has the permit to light up that new LP WTME-LD (formerly WYMP-LD) on the same tower as WMC's new UHF signal. So once the construction process is completed, Gray will be launching TWO new signals in Shelby County. That LP will likely be used to launch Telemundo (the webpage is already up, even though the station hasn't launched yet). But I'll tell you this right now. This should've happened before 2011. WMC should've filed at the same time Nashville's WTVF filed to move off of that same allotment. Hadn't it done so back then, we wouldn't be talking about this today. But better late than never.

Obviously, this is 100% wrong and unjustified, especially with what the Governor said. And no reporter should bare that. But with all the bad stuff that they've been doing, specifically with Perry Shook and his actions inside and outside NewsNation, you can say this was karma.

I think that gives an impression, the new ABC O&O graphics will get rid of talent, openers.

I'm sorry I got everybody off on a tangent, but CBS needed some place to park the CW back in the old days. Now they don't. But just take a look at the WANF website. Not a CBS logo in sight. I don't think it's a stretch to think they are going the way of WISH, WJXT and WHDH. Gray didn't have to do anything just as Sunbeam didn't have to do anything in Boston. CBS may just want to bring things in house. What you see in this Detroit launch will probably end up being relevant in Atlanta. I just noticed the Atlanta News First thread below. Sorry if I went off on a tangent. LOL