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Kaity Tong is back at 6pm today.

Just to clarify, Scripps does have WFTX (Fox) in Ft. Myers.

I have no first hand insights. But KABC has traditionally introduced new promos every year for its newscasts around the date of the Academy Awards, which is always a major day for the station (with many hours of station-produced programming before and after the national ABC broadcast) as Los Angeles is the home base for the Oscars. So, perhaps, the new O&O graphics will be unveiled on or around March 10th?

They've had the new weather graphics for many months now

It'll probably have something tying it Amazon. Prime Sports? Amazon Sports? etc. They're not investing all that money to be a silent investor.

Its a few things. The ABC's have always been better run operations. WCBS has been a shuffle of management in addition to talent. And yes, pay. WCBS starts GA reporters at around 150-170K. WABC 180K-200K.

Agreed. In hearing from reporters, constant turnover usually equals unimpressive pay, a toxic work environment, or burnout from being overworked. WABC appears to have the most reporters with a 20+ year tenure. They must have great pay and a decent working culture.

I was just wondering if this was a part of paramount global cuts? I know their cutting and firing people all across the organization. They should have let Dana bow out gracefully than throwing a bone and give her. Any changes that needed to be made would be the morning team. Chris and Mary are bland. Yes they are good anchors but bland for a morning news team.

This is honestly devastating news to hear. I know linear television is in decline, but this is how you start turning off those viewers who you do have left. I’ve recently been thinking about how the NYC TV news market has evolved over the last three decades. What I thought was interesting is that WCBS went from being the most unstable operation to the most stable (at least in terms of the anchor desk). Not a single weekday change occurred from when Chris replaced Rob in mornings in 2013 until 2019 when Alex Denis left and John Elliott was moved to weekends. Even then, until John came back to weekdays, the stability was incredible— with the only anchor change being to add Dick at 6 and bring Cindy back to weekdays. (Speaking exclusively about WCBS weekdays— weekends and WLNY went through a lot of evolutions during this period.) The problem with the WCBS operation is not the anchors— the anchors are familiar faces now. It is the massive churn of reporters. Part of the reason why WABC thrives is because their reporters don’t spend a few years at the station on the way to something else. Dana is the soul of WCBS. The station neglected and diminished her for the last decade, but she has been the constant. Maurice and Kristine are great anchors, I cannot take that away from them. They do not come off as people who really like each other much (Kristine would much rather be back next to Wragge), but they are good anchors. But we don’t need more of them. Dick has been a solid contributor since he joined WCBS. He also deserves a prominent role at the station. For a while now I’ve wondered why WCBS is wasting talent that they have. I think Cindy is probably the single best anchor they have— she has a way of striking the right tone that Chris and Mary just don’t. Why does she only do 30 minutes on linear daily? Why does she not coanchor the noon newscast — a newscast that was hers for 15 years— with her friend Dana? I also think Natalie Duddridge is under-utilized (she has grown significantly the last few years and is a very good fill in anchor). At the same time, I think Doug Williams is overrated (he lacks the charisma of his father and is awkward with reporters and coanchors). Regardless, he won’t be at WCBS for long, just like his father wasn’t. I also, contrary to many in this forum, find Alice to be bland and boring and I also think Jessica is fine on weekends but could never be a weekday talent. Let’s also acknowledge the industry might be moving in the direction of less anchors doing more newscasts, but this city isn’t. WCBS is returning to a period of four weekday anchors (plus Cindy at 9, but since she is underutilized, it is essentially four)— reminiscent of 2003 when Cindy/Michael did AM/noon and Dana/Ernie did 4:30-6:30 and 11. Back then, the station produced 5 hours of daily news; currently the station produces 8 + the half hour Atlanta newscast. Meanwhile, PIX just expanded to a fourth evening anchor, WNYW just moved a morning anchor to have a third in the evening, and depending on how you count, WABC has more than seven anchors for 7.5 hours of daily newscasts. Dana has been on the weekday anchor desk since 1992? 1993? More than 30 years. She has been on from 6-6:30 at WCBS for more than 25 continuous years— since I believe 1999 (for a few years post-massacre she was moved to 5pm). And this is a horrible and cruel way to work her out the door. “Fill in anchor.” Yeah, we will see her do that a half dozen times before her contract isn’t renewed and she is pushed out of the station. Just want to put a few stats out there before I close: Dana is the longest ever anchor at WCBS (nearly 34 years total, 30+ years weekday — Jim Jensen spent 31 years at the station and was a weekday anchor for 29) Kristine is the longest serving 11pm anchor at WCBS (Kristine is currently at 16+ years; Michele had about 14.) Kristine and Maurice are the longest ever anchor pair at WCBS (13 years; previously Jensen and Rolland Smith spent 12 years together) But you know, this was always the most likely outcome at this station. Look at the way they treated other station icons like Jim Jensen and Michele Marsh. I genuinely thought Johnny/Sarah were an improvement over Peter/David. Doesn’t look that way now. It is a cruel business, but it doesn’t have to be like this.

I do see your point. However I would argue that CNN has failed in the mornings for 20 years and so maybe the lighter flair of Robin would have led to something more successful than what CNN has been doing. I’m sure robin could be serious if the situation called for it.

CNN should have just cut their Don Lemon losses in the beginning and kept Robin Meade

I think MSNBC’s decision to have Rachel do her show only on Mondays is a clever business strategy for ratings. Viewers would take her for granted less. It’s all about supply and demand. Take away supply and demand will skyrocket. If she only appears once a week, MSNBC viewers will feel more incentivized to watch on days when she does. Where they once might go “I wanna watch Maddow but there’s this great movie on HBO tonight so think I’ll just watch her tomorrow” will figure “hey, Rachel only airs once a week. I can watch this movie anytime on Netflix. I’ll just watch Maddow then.”

*Byron Allen has entered the chat*