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ABC13 in Houston has gotten the new weather graphics on the air.

After the pandemic started and people stayed home, we saw the biggest drop in audience at 4:00 a.m.. The midday news had the biggest increase. If remote work truly sticks, I would redirect 4:00 a.m. resources to middle-of-the-day content. And while it is not the desired demographic, the biggest TV watchers, the baby boomers, are mostly retired. My parents were early risers when I was a kid. Now my mom doesn't wake up before 7:30.

I think we've gone over the weather graphics debate enough. People love to claim on here that viewers will switch away from Channel X in droves because they adopted the Tegna music, or because the weather graphics aren't "weathery" enough, and are almost always proven wrong. It's not even worth my time to rebut the absurd claims being made.

They just want a uniformed look.

Just wondering, is anyone seeing any pushback on early local morning news times? I've noticed that KXAS has given up on 4:30am starts recently (they're doing 2 runs of Early Today instead, strangely). I'm not trying to encourage the dreaded list thread, just asking if this might be a trend.

I would think an 11pm rebroadcast at 4/4:30 would work - the only thing I would consider would be to record a toss to morning weather for a little more current info. West coast is weird, in that a 4am would work better, as some folks out there work work east coast times, so are more likely to be up earlier. Also being in DC, a 4am newscast didn’t help one of my coworkers: he left home at 3:30am to beat the traffic from Culpeper (70+ miles away). He did stream the 6am news from WDAY (his hometown station…) at the office…

Definitely doesn't make sense to start at 4/4:30 in most markets as is the trend now. I can accept a 4am start time in top 5 or even top 10 markets. Anything else is just a $$ grab for advertising dollars. I get it, you have to make money somehow, but I feel resources could be better allocated elsewhere.

When the font is that small, lower case letters tend to be harder to read...

That open reminds me a lot of the old Raycom package.

The Patreon story doesn't really have much in the way of details, but there is this: "Longtime employees at KYW say morale and abuse at the station are at its worst in decades."

The situation for now seems to be putting John back on weekday mornings (where he was originally), with Lonnie and Vanessa in their same spots; and then farm out the weekend AM newscasts to other CBS stations for weather. John Marshall would be another good addition, but now he's over at FOX weather.

And then there's Sinclair....case in point WPMI. Had a long-standing morning news program that even pre-dated their switch from FOX to NBC. Over the years, it expanded to 2 hours, and under Sinclair, even expanded to 4:30am. Because of their arrangement with Deerfield and cross-ownership of WEAR, they had to cancel the 4:30am due to going over the 15% programming limit that an operator can produce on a JSA/SSA station. The competition responded by expanding to 4:30am since they were freely able to. Fast forward to Sinclair creating The National Desk, their hot, new national broadcast that's sweeping the nation! This past April, bye-bye went the local news in the morning, and was replaced by TND. In the carnage, other Sinclair markets were severely cut back, and even had local newscasts eliminated altogether, replaced largely by TND. Now with Scripps cutting back at their stations, nationalization of local newscasts could slowly be turning into a thing....

I don’t understand all this work to make it look like 1A. Just tell the viewers it’s coming from Miami. I remember when I was a kid almost all the weekend shows come from dc on abc and NBC.

It depends on the market but anything at 4am is a rehash of last night's news or announcing what's going to happen today. Many stations don't even have liveshots until 5am. The only new content is weather and whatever traffic there is. Starting that early feels unnecessary. I like the WSVN model. Rerun the 11pm news at 4:30 am and start the morning news at 5am (or 5:30 in quieter markets).

Using a virtual set for the Saturday night show, which is typically broadcast from Miami where Jose Diaz Balart is located is not new. He does not seem to come to NY often to broadcast from 30 Rock. Makes sense with his other duties.

can't people sleep in a little longer with remote work?

Yes, during the height of the pandemic, they replaced the 4am-5am hour with a 10am-11am hour.

I can remember several years back, didn’t WFXT move their morning news from 4-10am to 5-11am?

Tonight’s edition came from a virtual recreation of Studio 1A.

I think it looks pretty damn good for a virtual set. Impressive work by NBC.

I like this. It’s unique and they differed from the first Hearst HD package. However I am surprised that this was 2013 and they didn’t get the diagrid 1.0 before the Olympics.

Persoanlly, I honestly don't mind local morning newscasts in most markets going back to starting later. Most reports (outside of breaking news) that air at the 4am hour typically would be repeated during the rest of the broadcast anyway. And just because a lot of people wake up before 4am, that doesn't mean everyone does.

I swear some people here are never impressed lol I like it a lot. It's different and has some confidence to it. Some elements could use work. The wooden element feels out of place, and that top bar sticks out of place as it doesn't seem to do much to connect the wings.

I would agree in most areas of the country a 4am or 4:30a newscast isn’t worth the resources used to produce the content. In top 5 Markets; NYC, LA, Chicago, Philly it’s ok as many people start work at 5am or 6am. A market like Washington DC definitely has an audience for a 4am newscast as it’s one of those places with commuters traveling long long distances to get into the city. As a result people wake up extremely early. Same with the SF/Bay Area.

I noticed WFOR quietly dropped the 4:30am half hour too. I think stations are finally realizing that, at least in much of the country, there really isn’t much of an audience/advertiser draw at 4 in the morning.

Competitor KTVT gave up on that timeslot during the early days of coronavirus. And earlier this year, KPRC/Houston killed their 4:30a newscast allegedly due to a producer shortage. They’re also now airing 2 Early Todays. Not aware of any others, although I’m sure there are some more. In both markets you still have the Fox O&O starting at 4a though.

There will be callsign changes in Pittsburgh & in San Francisco come September 1st. WPCW > WPKD-TV KBCW > KPYX

Uh-huh! You know what it is! (While Stargate-produced instrumental plays in the background.)

Normal branding and those colors are Pittsburgh you have to admit. When all of your pro teams basically have the same color scheme, why not? I believe WTTE/WSYX uses Ohio State scarlet and gray in the FOX-28 logo. And doesn't WPGH FOX-53 have black and yellow in their logo?

Lester back to 3C in today's edition

For DC, yeah, Northern Virginia is very sprawling and people will travel that far for work (even if remote work is very prominent in the area). NBC and Fox both start at 4AM. And it's for reasons like this why all 5 LA newsrooms start at 4AM.

When WWJ relaunched their news operation earlier this year, they started their morning newscast at 5 AM, and this remains true as of now. Surprisingly, WJBK still has a 4 AM start and WDIV and WXYZ still start at 4:30.

Anyone know what’s going on at 3?: https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2023/7/20/going-from-bad-to-worse-in-philly