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Can we maybe start an "Anything and Everything Wrong with KTRK" thread, move the relevant posts there, and keep this thread just about the changing graphics at ALL the ABC O&O stations, not just KTRK? When kept on topic, I've found the posts and discussions about what we've seen overall at WLS and in weather on some of the others very interesting.

It's a base graphics package that both stations' meteorologists have customized for their needs. If you don't like the way it looks on KTRK, well, that's the way their meteorologists have decided to use it. It's essentially a LEGO set. They were sent a box of parts, and this is how they've assembled them. There's nothing more that can be said about this.

I think the overall trend of stations expanding and adding more newscasts at all times of the day may be coming to an end. It was certainly true in the last decade or so that more news was the most cost-effective programming most stations could produce. A lot of stations also kept expanding in the early morning as a trick to boost ratings for later hours. Now that advertising revenue is way down all across the board, plus with the producer shortage, it may not be worth it to even bother with things like news at 4am anymore. A newscast is only worthwhile if people are watching and if you can sell the ad slots. The pandemic definitely changed things too. People aren't commuting as much, and I don't think there's as big of an audience at 4am anymore. (There never really was a big one to begin with.) Some cities have been hit harder by remote work than others, but in San Francisco, nearly all stations permanently canceled their 4am news during the pandemic. KTVU is now the only one on the air before 5am. I'm surprised this hasn't happened in more markets yet. As for holidays, it really all depends on the station group, the holiday, what day of the week the holiday falls on, and the whim of management. Holidays actually have higher ratings than you'd think because so many people are sitting at home with nothing else to do. Most places where I've worked, I think they've tried to strike the right balance of offering some kind of news product while keeping expectations in check. I also know some stations where the managers are so hard-wired that they demand running their full schedules even with a skeleton staff, holidays be damned.

With all due respect, you sure use a ton of words to say the same damn things, over and over.

And local ACC markets like Atlanta and Pittsburgh can benefit from this package, as well.

Plus, even though its' the second tier series, it still draws 750k-1 Million viewers. Getting this package may be what's needed to get affiliation groups on the fence on renewing to renews, since even if they only get 500k-750k, it's still better than what The CW typically draws, and better than the typical Weekend filler on CW/MyTV affilates.

Nexstar is in many of those markets and can just put the affiliation on their own stations.

In another major sports coup, The CW has acquired rights to NASCAR’s Xfinity Series. Deal starts in 2025.

Likely depends more on advertisers who MUST get their message out on Thanksgiving or Christmas for some godforsaken reason; most local news orgs rightly don't bother with a morning or noon newscast on those holidays, but then you have a few that do force it upon their employees. The other problem is that the syndicated Christmas special market is down to the leftover shows which are just religious orgs fundraising in disguise or cheap drivel like Santa's Funniest Moments, and remote corporate accounting drones consider taping local holiday specials (or even just those Happy Holidays from staff pieces) to be 'money losers'. It's cheaper to talk the fresh out of college reporter to do the Christmas shows for overtime than spend money on studio decor and setup (or remote time) to actually serve the community. I only fear this is going to happen more and more for Scripps stations.

A weekend schedule is best on major holidays. Even normal local shift workers wouldn't likely need the news before about 5 or 6 am then.

Some of the stations I have worked for have pre-empted AM newscasts on some of those holidays.

10am is a weird spot for a newscast…

What puzzles me is still beginning the news at 4/4:30 a.m. on major holidays holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas where people aren't going to work. I would assume this is for continuity sake or ad dollars?

I agree -- there aren't that many newsworthy things happening... Each half-hour is the same boring thing unless there is "breaking news or weather"

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.

Just copying KTRK's new writing style of endless repetition. "Only on ABC13, ABC13's [name here] is live with the story," and "As we come on the air, we got breaking news...more breaking news...this breaking news is just in..." (Even when some of those stories broke 5+ hours ago, and everyone knows you are on the air. Someone has to hate that kind of writing as much as I do.) But in all honesty, of course I'm repeating the same things over and over, because every time I watch I keep see the same mistakes happen. I know people from that station used to seek out criticism, so that they could learn from their mistakes. So I figure if someone at KTRK still does, he/she will know that how many Eyewitness News viewers feel ad nauseam. I tuned into 4 primetime broadcasts at random times last week and within the first minute of turning Ch 13 on, they made at least one mistake each time. I also sometimes forget that I said something here before, because I've told the station some of it at one point or another, and posted other bits of criticism in other places. Sorry. And I'm not sure I understand this idea of standardized graphics anymore, because what KTRK has now is a hodge-podge of what they had before mixed with the lists, forecasts, the simple icons, font, and three dot, thinner banners from WLS. They still have same unique high and low pressure icons, which you guys hate, unique color tables for enhanced satellite, radar, etc, the 4-TowerCam view with current conditions, the same flow lines, some full length banners like before, the same current conditions on the banner (expect a lot smaller) and in 3D (the same size as before), the same transitions, and as well the same way weather alerts pop out under the top banner on radar and the banner still changes from blue to red like before. Pretty much everything on the left hand side of the video wall is the same and augmented reality still looks the same. On the other hand, they removed one of the station's colors, red, from nearly everything. For some reason, the satellite picture in the background of Mega Doppler 13 and FutureTrack is a lot darker than before, and doesn't have the same level of contrast between the background and everything else. They even got rid of the Mega Doppler logo, which doesn't make sense since the station spent a pretty penny on that radar. So, yeah, even though I don't like it, the package at WLS is much better done in that it was clearly designed for them and everything seems to be an appropriate size, while what's at KTRK looks like a rushed copy-and-paste job with changes that don't make sense which make things a lot less legible.

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