Leaderboard

Steve Harvey: Name a show that's replacing NBC 15 News at Noon and Gulf Coast Today. The National Desk! (Nope, another hour of Family Feud on top of the hour at 4: 00pm AND the 6:30 airing on WEAR!)

Didn't see a thread for Allen Media group, so here we go! And to start things off, Bob Prather (who left Gray to start Heartland Media) and Andy Fisher, are both leaving AMG. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2023/4/17/breaking-shake-up-at-the-top-of-one-media-group-to-be-announced-today Could any of this be related to Allen's involvement in the Diamond Sports dumpster fire?

CNN's 1-4pm ET version of CNN News Central debuted today. The open is updated to include DC landmarks and it seems Wolf has lost his studio? (The Situation Room used a flash cam again today. I was wondering if they'd go back to using the studio once rehearsals were done.) Interested to see what they do on election/primary days when they are setting up the studio and rehearsing for the evening election coverage.

They are now using the new 7-day. Go to 2:57

Steve Bender tweeted that he's back from paternity leave today, so at least the weekday schedule will be back to normal finally.

KOIN NewsCenter 6 at 11 open, 11/18/1997 - found at the Spokane Goodwill Outlet two weeks ago, 350 miles or so from Portland I have some Missoula news clips to post soon!

It's possible that whatever plans existed for WBBM got heavily revised or altered as soon as Jennifer Lyons came in? Plus supply chain issues are still a thing...

WPMI deserves better than this, especially better station owners than Sinclair!

I doubt it but I guess there would be nothing stopping them. I just don’t see why they would give up the local time. If they did they would probably drop something like Top Story with Tom Llamas It’s not that I disagree with you, it’s just the way you said it that’s hilarious

I am shocked, I tell you, shocked that FF is filling more Sinclair timeslots!

I could have sworn the WBBM streetside studio was going to become some kind of weather center annex, not a full news set...

A lot of the station's history/legacy was tied to the historic McClurg Court building which they left some 25 yrs ago. Plus, they lost nearly all their veteran anchors and reporters over the years. Dorothy has been with WBBM for nearly 40 yrs, Suzanne is next with 28 yrs and then Ed, Jim and Dana follow with just over 20 yrs. I do hope that they really take advantage of the new graphics/branding. Had they stuck with what they started during the 'CBS 2 Works for You' era; who knows what position they would be in today. From what I could make out when I walked past the studio the other day; no 'substantial' work had begun. Unless the new weather center is going to be really bare bones; it could be some time before the streetside studio is complete.

That's a question for a whole other thread on if/when non O&O affiliates jump on this wagon. Not that I'm opposed to such a thread...

I'm looking forward on seeing what WBBM has in store for their rebranding. I did think, a few days ago, what if WBBM rebrands the newscasts as WBBM News, streaming on CBS News Chicago, like BZ and CCO are doing? It would give a fresh opportunity to reintroduce the brand to the viewers while moving forward.

An entire weekend Eyewitness News Tonight newscast from WLS in Chicago, 1983 (the Seven on Your Side era):

The anchors are opening all newscasts with, “thanks for watching WCCO (or WCCO News), streaming on CBS News Minnesota”. The opens and most graphics show “WCCO News” fairly prominently. In fact, the only thing that has definitively disappeared is the “4”. The intriguing part is that, aside from the color scheme, KYW still rebranded themselves in line with the majority of the O&Os. The “3” is only there as a visual and marketing tool; all on-air references to “CBS 3” or “channel 3”, especially from a verbal standpoint, are gone anyway. And this came about with as many as 40–50 KYW staffers helping with this rebrand! If channel numbers mattered to them (and they work there, so they’d know), wouldn’t there be more to the “3” we’re seeing right now? KYW managed to pull off a rare feat. They adopted virtually all of the new CBS O&O branding conventions and yet are now looking like more of a “Philly station” than they have ever been, certainly since the CBS takeover.

This should probably go in the Sinclair thread, but it's pretty significant to mention here. This is the last day of WPMI's morning show, noon newscast and Gulf Coast Today lifestyle program. This Facebook post even hints at more "sharing" with cross-market WEAR in Pensacola. All the more reason Sinclair should have NEVER been able to run 4 stations in 1 market.

Question is, will WBBM follow WWJ, KCNC, and KCBS (somewhat) in going with the CBS Chicago/CBS News Chicago name?? Don’t be surprised if the CBS 2 name is officially retired in name and in logo. Speaking of WCCO…

I hope design packages embrace black, browns, yellows and purples more instead of the general blue and white, breaking red, and morning orange looks. Not CBS but Nightly News woth Tom Brokaw used brown and purple effectively in the early 00s.

Reddit maybe? And that's good to know that the weekend newscasts are being prepped.

Hughes handled coverage in the afternoon. Not sure she did all of it (maybe Vittert helped carry the load at some point????). Assuming she anchored her normal 3 hr block, that's a lot of hrs. for one person to anchor solo.

ABC NEWS ALUMNI ASSEMBLE!

It's in the same place as the WPIX control room was when they were using that newsroom. The windows are obviously much larger now, though! Hard to believe that area was this mess 12 years ago (and this was after they fixed it up with those wavy panels, it was just plain black walls before that!)

You assume they actually have viewers out there. (Tribune preferred to distribute KTLA over WGN in those states during the superstation era) . She hosted 20/20 and that greenscreen mess that is iCrime (I assume that'll be renewed because it costs as much to produce an episode as her car payment); she knows her audience is the same kind as those two shows and will appeal to them.

I understand that it's the tabloid fodder and not actual ratings, but just clicking through it looks like the launch of "Live With Kelly And Mark" was less than spectacular. My favorite tweet is "Every time Kelly interrupts Mark, take a shot"... you could take any of Kelly's co-hosts over the years and make that a fun game (Regis, Michael, Ryan, guest hosts) https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11981625/Viewers-PAN-episode-Live-Kelly-Mark-branding-couples-fake-banter-painful.html

New 7-day at 5:00. Guess they slotted in the wrong slide at noon. Overall, the new weather graphics are a big improvement over the previous look, but that's not saying much. I like seeing more white being used as it makes it feel fresher. (The old look used a lot of black boxes and it just never looked good.) It seems like they really want to use all caps everywhere, except in one graphic. The | symbol seems like unnecessary clutter. And in the 7-day, it's weird to me how the temperatures split up the icon and the description (aren't they related and should be together?). Of course the usual sloppiness that we've come to expect from this station is present in terms of badly aligned text and squished logos. Maybe they'll get around to adjusting those pixels some day (though they're STILL using the sports graphic that repeatedly says CBS NEWS LOS ANGELES, so maybe not). At least the weather graphics match the rest of the graphics for the first time in many years. Will they ever fix this?

She was named GM in 2021; so getting the jumbotron and streetside studio up and running was likely her idea. Doubtful supply chain issues are a problem given WMAQ, for example, was able to construct a brand new studio last September. Now that doesn't mean plans couldn't have changed, but it shouldn't take this long to construct a weather center.

Applegate destroyed much of WBBM's hard-won journalistic reputation. After a short uptick because of the curiosity factor, viewers deserted the station in droves because its blood-and-guts, in-your-face style was simply not suited to the market--and WBBM never really recovered image-wise, its reputation as a serious news outlet in tatters. It's even more poignant that this was once the station of Jacobson and Kurtis, whose relatively sober, hard news approach was admired around the country. (Walter Jacobson ultimately condemned Applegate's approach and bolted to WFLD.) Applegate is one of the people who ensured that WBBM no longer has anything close to the reputation that WGN or WLS have.

All of this begs the question though, will WDJT rebrand as "CBS (News) Milwaukee" real soon