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Other than pure speculation, is there any evidence to indicate that the KCAL branding is transitional?

It says something about the state of broadcast syndication when first-run shows go away, they're replaced by their repeats.

The CBS News Los Angeles brand already exists right now. Yes, not as the primary brand for KCAL, but through streaming and its digital coverage on the website. As for on-air, as I stated before, the call letters and the channel numbers are gonna vary based on location through CBS Brand research. “We have research in each and every one of our markets,” said McMahon. “We’ve tested this to a place where we feel we make a decision that’s most aligned with our audiences and our viewers.” “In some markets, viewers may see channel numbers remain while in others – such as at KPIX in San Francisco – stations will lean into call letters as the primary moniker alongside the location name.” That's according to the specific source of unknown name. So, if they did the research, why would they reverse it now, or in a year's time for one station? Now, I'm not the manager at KCAL News, so you never know, but based on what they want to do now....maybe this is it. Agreed.

KCAL might honestly be the only one where the "transitional" branding can function long-term. I do think it's just a matter of time until the "CBS News" portion gets put back into the OTA broadcasts. The rest of them, though? There's no way something like the WCBS and WJZ lockups, with the current logo in the box next to "CBS News New York/Baltimore," are viable long-term. The "channel number logo" gets shoved into a small box in the corner, dominated by "CBS News (location)". Two distinct logos advertising the same product. Same goes for the call signs. They accomplish very little, simply existing to reinforce the fact that this is the local news and not the visually identical network news. They're not even following the way the stations currently use their call signs, if the KDKA image is any indication... They want you to "Expect More from KDKA-TV News" for a reason. KDKA will keep that call sign box until the day someone on KDKA radio decides to say something controversial again. Some of these call signs aren't viable long-term because CBS management made a huge mistake not requiring call sign changes on the majority of the former radio cluster. As for stations buying stuff with the logo, KPIX is still using mic flags with the CBS 5/CBSN Bay Area branding on them. Just think of how good that square "KPIX" box would look on a mic flag... But maybe there's a reason they haven't bothered to order new ones yet? Waiting until they can get away with simply putting "CBS News Bay Area" on them? Perhaps. Why do I think the "call sign box" is a transitional brand? It looks and plays the part. It's one size fits most, grafted onto a different logo in an uninspired manner. It's also not universal, and only seems to be rolling out at stations that have some kind of long-term branding history using their call sign. @ChesapeakeTVrecently shared a news article in the Discord that had some interesting numbers in it. CBS knows that people by and large (over half of all people, at this point!) are moving away from over-the-air television being how they primarily consume local news. This is why Detroit was launched as a "streaming first" operation. If this company truly felt that call signs and channel numbers were still relevant to today's consumers, we'd be seeing them on WWJ CBS 62 News Detroit. Those boxes are transitional. This is a fact. The question is, how long will this transition last? At this rate, what relevance will channel numbers or call signs have in three years? Five years? Ten? The digital renascence is here, folks.

News branding aside, it'd be incredibly shocking if they were to completely dissolve KCAL's identity. Look at all the FOX duopolies- the sister stations each took the name of (all together now...) the more dominant brand. However, we each know about as much as the next person regarding the situation, which is to say- we know nothing, aside from what we're independently inferring from articles. None of us know, for sure, which O&O is relaunching next. KCBS/KCAL could absolutely swap out logos and VO's in a year's time (though the concept of "transitional mic flags" seems a bit far fetched). What I know since moving here nearly two years ago is I developed a preference for KCBS, I love that they finally combined newscasts instead of having separate branding, and Pat Harvey is an absolute legend.

It's not news that Fox isn't news. And yet it is still stunning to read these texts. (Summary: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/media/fox-news-stars-executives-court-documents/index.html) Fox is NOT an organization simply presenting a conservative spin on the news and fighting to prove their point of view with facts. Instead, they are knowingly LYING to their viewers by feeding them baseless conspiracy theories to make money. Otherwise, these viewers have been conditioned to seek these lies out from other outlets, and Fox can't afford to lose their viewers. They've decided that lies are good for business, but it's awful for a representative democracy and hurts all of us. Tucker wanted to FIRE a reporter who had the nerve to fact check the former guy via tweet. He said this act of truth telling was "measurably hurting the company." (That tweet was soon deleted.) Bret Baier, the guy Fox often points to when trying to claim to be a news organization, asked the president of Fox to rescind the network's correct call of Biden winning Arizona. (Fox was the first to accurately make this call, days before other organizations. They soon FIRED their politics editor and Washington bureau chief, both of whom were involved in this accurate projection.) Fox. Isn't. News.

I cannot imagine the plan right now is to *temporarily* rename KCBS as KCAL just to drop KCAL less than a year later. The only way this is temporarily is if it is seen to be a failure and they change their minds, or new management comes in and changes course.

False equivalence. This isn't simply about bias. It's about knowingly spreading baseless and dangerous lies. Fox doesn't believe the disinformation they are peddling. That means they are lying.

This isn’t the first time DFW stations used just “Texas”: WBAP: The Texas News (Pre KXAS) WFAA was “The Spirit of Texas” (not North Texas) - though not in the title of their newscasts KXAS: The Texas News Channel KDFW: News 4 Texas KXAS: Texas News 5 Now is’s 11’s turn to use Texas. But IMHO, streaming on the FAST systems (Pluto, Xumo, Roku, etc.) is probably why - pick up a few eyeballs outside of DFW for additional ad $$…

Honestly I like everything here except the actual intro part, cutting to the beat of the music? Cool. Doing it with a song that fast where every scene only gets like 1 second? Not so cool. It would work better if they just slowed down the music just slightly, like an in-between of how long the intro took before the Headlines was added and now's way too fast version. The graphics look great and I've always loved the whole idea of the EyeOpener and always thought it made sense on Evening, especially considering Evening is 30 minutes while Mornings is 2 hours, you need as much extra time as possible so it makes loads of sense to try and cram as much headlines in as you can in as short of a time instead of being like ABC taking a whole 2 minutes on teases That's a whole 1-2 more stories you could've fit in the main show and the montage format allows stories to be shown that don't need a full segment, just a few seconds. Same reason why I also don't get the complaints about "it's too rushed", of course it is, how else can they properly inform people of everything they need to know when they only got like ~22 minutes of total time after removing ads to cover the news. If it was longform reports, you might only hear 4 stories a night and be missing a lot of what actually happened. We have plenty of outlets today for longer stories that people can check out 24/7, the evening newscast should be a quick summary of everything for people that don't have time and then refer people to watch them on streaming if they need a more full story. I said this before in the Discord a long while back but tbh, I think one of the Evening News programs really needs to completely blow up their format and CBS would be in the best position to do that since they are always last. As someone on the younger side (25), basically none of the news shows on TV currently really are something my demographic would watch. Even a lot of the streaming ones are basically "just take the existing format and shove it on online". The ideal format imho would be essentially: Younger host that would be a bit more relatable (ABC and CBS both have anchors that are almost 50, Lester is 60, PBS's co-anchors are early 40s) For CBS specifically, this would also help shed the common conception that CBS is the network for the elderly, not something young people want to watch. Less teases, we don't need 2 minutes straight of just saying what's going to be in the show a minute later. Stop calling everything Breaking News, stuff you talked about 6 hours ago on your streaming network isn't breaking. If it didn't happen during the show or like at most an hour before, it's not breaking. Fit in more stories that might not need more than just a passing mention, not everything needs a 1-3 minute package with reporters on the ground. Maybe have a 2-4 minute segment during the show that's basically just Newspaper headlines, each topic limited to just 20-30 seconds, just enough to get the point across, or spread it throughout the whole show. A better balance of positive to negative news stories. Currently outside of the final story usually, there's almost no positive news nowadays (obviously if something major like a mass shooting happens, it's understandable if they pare it down but there's many times nowadays where you have slow news days that could easily fit in some more uplifting news stories and they still only talk about the nonstop doom and gloom) Incorporate more stuff to help the viewer feel connected to the newscast. Something as simple as asking people to think about a story and share thoughts online with a Hashtag to maybe like voting for a big feature story to air at the end of a week or maybe even pulling a note from TODAY's MyPlazaCam and featuring photography at the end of the show to show off all of America (since all the current shows are too New York/Washington centric) Legit at times I feel the reason this country is so polarized and all the constant hatred and shootings and stuff is cause that's all people see in the news, maybe if they saw that the world wasn't always that bad more often, maybe people would hate less than they do seeing everything fall apart 24/7.

Doesn't change what I'm saying. None of them are actual "news" channels in the common sense (heck, NewsNation spends more time airing Blue Bloods reruns than they do running actual newscasts). MSNBC is a talk channel with decent amounts of news in the daytime, but they are largely opinion in primetime. CNN is still trying to clean up from the Zucker Era of Disaster and may very well not please anyone in the end. Fox merely is just flat-out blatant about not being a news channel, they don't care. They don't need any advertisers because of lucrative retransmission fees they reap the rewards from on a continuous basis. Contrary to what others have suggested elsewhere in the thread, there's really no redeeming part of that channel whatsoever. It attracts no one but old people for a reason. Cable talk as a whole needs to be thrown into obsolescence where it belongs.

I respect the hell out of your opinions and insight, but that's not fair, and you know it. The average observer sees new mic flags, new graphics, and hell, even new jackets, caps, etc. That looks "permanent" enough, no? It's not the duty of said observer to prove that the station will pivot again, so soon. To me, phasing out KCAL in 2023 would be silly, and lasting into 2025 would have made this a permanent change, in my view, as it will have lasted way longer than less significant/more "permanent" rebrands. Let's see what happens in 2024, at the earliest.

“Cable news” is a oxymoron. They all peddle talk and opinion programming to some degree or other. (I count the pointless and vapid talking head interviews and mini-debate segments, but yes, Fox is extremely explicit in showing bias on-air.) They also attract audiences way out of the money demo. The median age range for a Fox and MSNBC viewer is 69. CNN’s median age range is 66. I would put into question the actual relevance of the entire genre. Sure, Fox may be #1, but if their demos are that embarrassing, does it even matter?

Not to belabor this topic, but this is a terrible hot take. KCAL is the dominant, more recognizable brand in LA, compared to KCBS/CBS 2. I live in the market. Not sure why KCAL would fade into the background in a year or so in favor of the less recognizable CBS Los Angeles brand. KCAL is synonomous with car chases, breaking news coverage and Pat Harvey. From where I sit, KCAL is doing a great job with their rebranding and I hope they have a new resurgence in the ratings.

More like engaged vs married. Wendy isn’t playing along in the #2 market and their likely largest audience market LA. Full on KCAL branding as the lead horse, marginalizing CBS. And interesting the KCAL set is the most traditional- big desk - and format / talent most consistent vs the throw spaghetti at KPIX. It looks and acts like a lot like a WABC or KABC, and gets to play at 10 for the audience that likes that authoritative feel. https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/kcal-news-rebrand-cbs2-los-angeles-1235479093/amp/ She knows CBS News isn’t the brand its inflated egos think it is…not taking that gamble in LA wiping out KCBS.

For those wondering about the whereabouts of former AM anchor Betty Nguyen, she is now joining WFOR in Miami as morning anchor: https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/betty-nguyen-to-join-wfor-in-miami-as-morning-co-anchor/246985/ Glad she will have a new job; it was sad to me that PIX just suddenly let her go.

This thread went insanely off the rails today, but honestly, THIS is likely the only real reason reason. Could it set them up for other coverage opportunities down the road (figuratively AND literally)? Sure. Is it a simpler, more straight-forward branding route than Dallas-Ft. Worth or DFW? Absolutely. Really, this doesn't feel much deeper than wanting to be a singular, instantly-identifiable source for news in TEXAS.

Looks like Today is returning to some 2013 camera angles. The mixed utilization of this angle and the window is cool rather than one way for the entire broadcast. Overall though the studio needs to be redone. Can't believe it's going on 10 years since Today's reformatting! The set reversed course from an orange rebrand back to baby blue. IMO orange/gold hues with window frames, lamps, cityscape wallpaper and monitors looked better:

I started a thread in the Speculatron; hope this is more convenient.

They canceled Morning Express with Robin Meade, arguably the best morning news program that CNN had going for it, for this. Keep that in the back of your head. EDIT: I know HLN ran Robin Meade. I don't count New Day as CNN's best morning news program. They could have easily moved Meade to CNN instead of putting this crap on the air.

This surprises me. Both shows are cheap to produce and have loyal audiences. I like Mathis's calmness and humor, and Judge Milian has always been great. Maybe Freevee can pick them up for new court shows. What's interesting is Judge Mathis and the People's Court have other production companies involved, which makes me wonder if they could find another partner to continue the shows. I feel like my childhood is slowly dying TV wise with all the cancellations of syndicated shows these past few years.

CBS and Paramount+ NBC and Peacock Fox and Tubi

NBC SPORTS DFW would be more appropriate.

Where's the evidence that it ISN'T transitional? If it wasn't transitional, they would have renamed the streaming side as "KCAL News Los Angeles" and dispensed with the "CBS" part entirely! You wouldn't have disparate brands between on-air and streaming!

I suspect WBTV will still offer Mathis and People’s Court in reruns, like CBSMV is doing with Judge Judy and later this year, Dr. Phil.

The remaining daytime offerings are slim for the picking. Realistically how much news can stations use to fill gaps before turning into KTLA. Fox 10 may have no choice but to air both shows in reruns.

Also in Texas, only Nexstar and Tegna have reach that comes anywhere near statewide. I agree, if it was the Bannon podcast, that would turn into Comedy Central once the Democrats respond. The other markets that are missing for Nexstar in the state are Beaumont-Port Arthur, Corpus Christi, Victoria and Laredo.

CBS News has already been merged into the O&Os and vice versa; they are in the process of assimilating into each other.

Retrans is the difference. We have a much more developed pay for home video entertainment ecosystem than any comparable country. It's prolonged the life of marginal 3rd / 4th / 5th place broadcast players for 10-15 years beyond its otherwise shelf life and insulated the industry for better or worse. Another question is what's the viability of national CBS News itself if that dries up. Weakest hand at the table. Does it get picked up by a non-profit motive owner? It will be a while - retrans is contract based so there are lag effects, but it is the underlying cash that's propping the current size of the industry.

The only thing they DIDN'T do is rebrand to "PIX 11, Your NewsNation Station" or "NewsNation PIX 11 New York" YET.

https://katytrailweekly.com/what-has-happened-to-the-dallas-news-leader-p5241-182.htm Local TV news has been a decaying cash cow business for a few decades now. First 20 channels of cable, then 100, then the text internet, now the broadband everywhere video internet (which at least plays more toward the video strength of a local TV news product). I'd argue those market leaders were more distinctive over the years because of their consistency as a point of distinction. CBS was an also ran of local stations well before Dunn and Friend, aside from a brief renaissance under Swanson and what WCCO pulled off vs KARE as TEGNA messed up its cash cow via unappealing innovation. Of course innovation happens. But CBS isn't creating any meaningful proprietary technology here like Google did in 1999 or Chat GPT, or any real tech company. They're simply changing the window dressing of the presentation to adapt to additional storefronts of distribution - something any station can do rather quickly for the parts that might ultimately stick, and avoid for those that fall flat. In other words a free market test for others like TEGNA was post 2013.

And Tegna is an example of product change gone too far, costing market leadership of the Belo stations like WFAA. The WABC/WPVIs (WFAA before TEGNA) bring in more cash than any competing stations in their markets by a large margin. As a viewer their differentiation seems to be a consistent on air product while other weaker stations more regularly toy with formats. Like all market cash cow leaders in business they face the innovators' dilemma of having a cash cow at risk, and the more radical product change tends to be done naturally by new entrants or the less competitive players with less at risk. Just like the WSVN example. News in any form has always skewed older. Trying to please the 18-25 and even the 25-34 group with news is the fools game played by many losing stations during the days when formats changed every 2 years in the 80s and 90s. People age into news as a habit as their responsibilities in life grow and they spend more time at home. The ABC O&Os whether they knew it or not over the 80s to today did a good job of providing consistency for regular news viewers, the habit seekers who tend to be older. Easy to read and digest like an early dinner special. I do find it fascinating no digital first, digital only news production outlet has scaled nationally here. Buzzfeed...no. Vice...no. Huff Post...no. Yahoo news, Apple news, or the AOL news pages are the closest equivalent but they just aggregate legacy sources. CBS is making a grand experiment, and it's just that - an experiment. It might be a home run. It might fall completely flat. But the market dictates they should be the first mover of this kind of product risk as those with much less to lose. This isn't a situation where more $$ invested necessarily is the differentiation, but the way the limited pool of $$ is allocated and used to shape the product.

CBS isn't looking to expand in Texas or Colorado.

Minus the L3 boxes, looks like an improvement

I’m not trying to downplay any of the points made here but a lot of this is blaming ABC, NBC and CBS who have made adjustments to format based on what viewers respond to. The formats you’re longing for were optimal for a period 20 years in the past. The most egregious of the fast paced newscasts is dominating 6:30pm and has for some years. Technology has changed the world and information processes so much that the 2005 format for these broadcasts would be DOA. Hell, I love broadcast media and even I have to force myself to sit through Lester Holt or David Muir. The news they’re presenting has already been broken, disseminated and analyzed hours in advance by the time they take to the air. Times have changed, I’m not mad at any of these newscasts for evolving.

I assume that the two 3-hr. blocks is where they will tryout getting the anchors out from behind the desk and moving around (I.e… the NYC newsroom and possibly both the DC newsroom and one of the DC studios). Having 3 anchors isn’t an unusual concept. They just have to balance everything out. I’m curious to see what they come up with.

Keep in mind the newsroom wander was perfected at CITY-TV CityNews/CityPulse Toronto...starting in the early mid 80s

SuitSnob is that you??

They should reverse the naming so it doesn't sound excessively long like CBS' O&Os "PIX 11 NewsNation at 6" flows better. "PIX 11 NewsNation's Kaity Tong is in Midtown with the latest."

With Dr. Phil, The People's Court and Judge Mathis ending this season, that pretty much blows out WALA's remaining daytime schedule. They do news from 4:30-9am, Studio 10 from 9-11am and an hourlong Midday newscast at 11am. Judge Mathis runs twice at noon and 1pm, People's Court runs at 2, and Dr. Phil runs at 3. Followed by news from 4-6pm as well as a 9pm and half-hour 10pm show. Aside from Wheel/Jeopardy, FOX primetime, and some off-net sitcoms after 10:30, that's all that's left outside of local programming. Many other stations could be in the same boat and could possibly KVVU-ize their news output.

Wow! I guess the station being #4 in the market and me rarely watching their newscasts prevented this from become viral! Rich was trying to make a miserable joke on-air back in early November that backfired and racially profiled a reporter. And from the comments on the Twitter video link, former co-workers from KCBS weren’t surprised. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2022/11/20/why-would-you-say-that#google_vignette Rich then posted on his FB yesterday that he is stepping away from broadcasting and will become a motivational speaker. Many game show fans were worried about him after he abruptly stopped his Come On Down Podcast.

Tim McCarver, champion catcher turned famed MLB broadcaster, dies at 81