Leaderboard

NBC Universal has received several tax breaks for investments made to remain and modernize at 30 Rock. They actually own many of the floors that are used, rather than leasing them from the buildings owners. 30 Rock is iconic to the network, not just the station. ABC for years was a hodgepodge of neighboring (not always connected) buildings and required doubling up use of studios. Before WABC took over the Disney Store space for their news studio, it used the same studio as Live with whoever. It wasn't the most optimized facility as the network grew and developed.

This is what happens always. The viewers always yell "gee we want a quality newscast". You give them an excellent broadcast and then they are like "lol sike not like that".

It can’t come soon enough. For the life of me I don’t understand why he insists on ad-libbing as often as he does and making a fool of himself. Just read the damn prompter.

Yeah I dunno, I get that the ad-lib and personal biases can impact the integrity of the broadcast, but at the same time, it is sorta the thing that makes them human really, and can occasionally make the story captivating and compelling at a time where the attention span of people is pretty short.

With all due respect that off hand remark about immigrants is fairly widely reported and accepted as factual so it’s not exactly inserting biases into the equation. If the appeal was more emotional that would be perhaps biased. But those folks having all kinds of jobs others won’t do is a perhaps dirty but known thing. I don’t see that as in any way being inappropriate.

They did it a couple of days ago when they debuted the studio for the 4 pm show. Well, they did it during a going-on-break bumper shot when I had rewatched it. It was a nice aesthetic. I'd imagine they probably won't do these shots forever, so we should enjoy them while it lasts as the novelty of the new space wears off and they return to the regular live shots, etc.. It reminded me of the classic way of doing the news where they would show the anchors talking before the break, that was a nice touch. :). Regarding Bill Ritter’s ad-libs during the broadcasts, it is important to note that he is a seasoned veteran and a legendary figure in the New York market. His industry reputation allows him to incorporate these ad-libs into the show without disrupting its flow. By doing so, I think he enhances the overall value of the production. A lot of veteran anchors similarly did this, similar to Bill Beutel when he was there before he passed he had his signature closing remark at the end of the 6 pm shows in the '90s. Chuck Scarborough did the same before he departed from WNBC, and the same with retired anchor, Jim Gardner on WPVI before his departure. Bill's a sentimental and empathetic guy, you see it in his presentation and reporting, especially after 9/11 which gripped him and many of the reporters and journalists here in New York. It's not an easy market, this city requires a lot of hard work and diligence to survive here. So naturally the reporters and anchors are just raw and heavy-hearted from all the years of tough storytelling. Personally, I like the adlib it really provides a sense of authenticity to the broadcast and adds an extra level of depth and value to the show.

KTVK looks back at its history as part of its 70th anniversary celebrations--the report includes some unseen vintage material:

Kristin Thorne left WABC earlier this year to be an investigative reporter and host with Law & Crime, focusing on true crime.

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/week-of-feb-17-2025-evening-news-ratings/

Plus is essentially a different broadcast. I doubt its existence takes resources away from the main broadcast, especially since they've already had a 7 p.m. streaming show.

I would like to point out as well that what he is doing in the fire story is the kind of thing done back 30-40+ years ago and was not only accepted but EXPECTED. People tuned in just for that kind of stuff. The movie Anchorman is partially based on and is an exaggeration of the way they talked on the air. The immigrant example is almost certainly 100% in the copy by the way. He didn’t ad lib that. It’s just an old school way of writing it. The cousin of that is the “happy talk” you get at the end of some emotionally gripping story where the anchors do some bantering back and forth giving a thought or two on it. I don’t know if every station in the world uses it but many do (did?). The flowery intro would be in the copy and then they would ad lib the comments at the end.

Speaking of awkward ad Libs, Ritter went "Who would've thought, Los Angeles on fire!" I remember myself thinking, and a YouTube commenter writing, "literally everyone" lol. Ad-libbing is one thing, inserting your personal biases into hard news stories that require straight facts is another thing. Certain jobs like a morning show host such as Mike Jerrick gives you a little room to add a little extra flair on lighter stories. But to me, tenure is not a license to editorialize. No matter how you feel about the undocumented immigrant issue, Ritter inserted his own bias when calling them "critical to our economy" in the video below. Even his tonality in "now to the confusion that is the federal round up of undocumented immigrants", Small example among many. Ritter is not alone. Gayle King does it all the time, and Rosanna Scotto is the most obvious example.

The issue isn’t ad-libbing in general as much as it is how poor he is at doing it. Any anchor, no matter their experience, will not present well when they stumble all over their unscripted commentary on stories. At times, he’s much closer to Dari Alexander than either of those anchors.

Clickspring Design is responsible for the new studio. For what it’s worth, they also designed WABC’s street side studio. Here’s a rendering of both

They adjusted the banner in the backdrop to only be 2 lines instead of 3. The top and bottom lines were redundant.

Breaking up Mary and Chris in the mornings definitely wouldn't be the worst thing, Cindy fits pretty seamlessly into that role (plus she was originally supposed to do the 9am). Chris could do the noon and 5pm as he did the last 2 days. I think his past work with Kristine from 2007-2010 makes him a good candidate for the 5pm. I think if WCBS favorited Dick Brennan, he wouldn't have been bumped from the anchor desk (twice). Unfortunately current management sees him as a fill in anchor only, until further evidence.

They must be "testing" the pairing of Chris and Kristine (even tho they were together) because Jessica did a report from the desk tonight. In my opinion moving him to evenings would be a great option.

Usually when I download videos off of YouTube, I keep them for private use. From now on, I would ask the user(s) before reposting clips on there.

So I sporadically make videos on my YT channel (Jerseyfla). I have a lot of playlists on my YouTube channel that are public and private. I specifically made one for different TV station sign offs from areas that I have lived in my life and military career. Recently, I decided to make a nice piece of “nostalgic ASMR” if you will, something TV junkies can go to bed to, and create a montage of those TV station signoffs from the different regions I have lived with a title slide saying “It’s Bedtime In ________. Let’s Signoff”. I didn’t credit the YT channels I captured the material from by name, just saying “Credit to the YouTube Channels who posted these sign-offs. This video is intended for nostalgia and fair use. No copyright infringement is intended.” Last night Drew Techner who posts a bunch of TV and Radio airchecks from Philadelphia and NYC commented on my Long Island and Philadelphia Signoff videos with time stamps that I stole signoffs from his channel. I commented back stating that him accusing me of stealing his videos is the same as me stating that he stole them from the station he posted them from and that there are many montage videos with News Opens, Station IDs, and Signoffs on YouTube and I am not making any money off of any of my videos. An hour ago, I received a copyright strike on my channel for using some of his signoffs in two of my videos. What is everyone’s view on this? I see nothing wrong with it. It’s all copyrighted material owned by the station groups, not him. Heck, I even told channels who post chronological news open montages “Here, you are missing mine”. I mean if it’s a one for one entire video reposted and taking credit, yes that is over the line but when you use pieces of it that’s another thing. Should I fight it?

WLFL Fox 22 10 O'Clock News (October 25, 1993) WMBD CBS 31 News at 10:00 (October 14, 1999) WROC Channel 8 Eyewitness News at 11:00 (February 3, 1991) https://youtu.be/x1IoAAluVDc?si=yD8JoQytHA0K32DB WROC (incorrectly labeled as being off of WOKR) Channel 8 Eyewitness News "Eleven at 11" (February 7, 1993) KSLA News 12 at Noon (April 3, 1992)

Somehow missed this but ABC News Live has debuted new graphics, both for it's dayside and Primetime programing and a new theme. Might be wrong, but it looks like the temp set for WNN/GMA FL. The new package seems to follow a file like look, with the file's coming together to form the ABC logo.

Confirmed. Joy Reid and Alex Wagner are OUT as network hosts. The Weekend trio got the 7 p.m. gig and it looks like Jen Psaki is getting the 9 p.m. outside of Rachel Maddow's one night a week (and outside of the first 100 days). https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/msnbc-evening-shake-up-joy-reid-alex-wagner-1236316524/

I agree. Begin the show with that daily news roundup, but instead extend it to 90 second VOs or VO/SOTs for the first 2-5 mins, then get into feature reporting for the remainder. If CBS torches their best revamp of EN since Bob Schiffer, that would be very unfortunate. To the critics: Every news outlet covers the same thing, it's not a sin that CBS decided to go in a different direction. I really hope the audience gives this a chance. It's a jolting transition because we've been hardwired to fast paced high story count newscasts like the competition. But this is a level of quality rare for American TV news that we'd more see from PBS or Europeran sources like BBC and France 24. I hope people will open their minds to this. If this crashes and burns, I don't think the evening news can get much better than this. Just give the timeslot back to the affiliates.

Will be an opportunity (or unexpected obligation) for the network to reconsider both talent succession planning and show format. Will be interesting to see if the show maintains a three-anchor format by just replacing Strahan and moving on, or if we see a return to either a two-anchor format a la Charlie-Diane/Diane-Robin, or to more of the ensemble format (Robin, George, Josh, Sam, Lara) that jettisoned GMA to #1.

KTVU's A Second Look from 2008 honoring Dennis Richmond on the year he retired. Appropriate to bring this back considering his passing.

WTSP 1982 WWL-TV in 1992 news stills holds up 3+ decades later.

Dallas Fort Woth is a bigger metro area by about a million people. About 8.1 million people call the DFW metro area home. About 7.1 million people call the Houston Metro area home. The only reason Houston is the “biggest” city in Texas by population is because it is—quite literally— the “biggest” city in Texas. Back in the day, before Houston really started growing, the city of Houston annexed as much of the (then undeveloped) land around it as possible. So when developers began to build suburban housing developments in those undeveloped areas—they became part of the city of Houston, rather than becoming a part of a different “suburb” city. Dallas didn’t do that to the same extent. When Dallas began to grow, suburbs like Richardson, Garland, Plano, etc. beat the city of Dallas to annexing undeveloped land into their cities. In total, the City of Houston takes up 665 square miles, with a city population of 2.3. million. The City of Dallas takes up 340.5 square miles. And has a city population of 1.3 million. So the city populations area proportionate to the land area each city takes up. That said, Dallas has far more suburbs than Houston. And also shares a metropolitan region with Fort Worth, another major city with a population nearing one million within its city borders. ill give you another example. Oklahoma City is the 20th largest city in America by population. But it is the 42nd most populous metro area—because it doesn’t have many suburbs. It’s basically just Oklahoma City and a few suburbs. tldr: DFW contains more suburbs than the Houston metro, and has a bigger metro population because of this.

Dave Frankel has passed away at 67. https://6abc.com/post/fmr-action-news-weathercaster-reporter-dave-frankel-dies-67/15957608/

Al Trautwig, longtime pre-and-postgame host for MSG Network as well myriods of other sports work nationally has passed away at the age of 68. https://nypost.com/2025/02/24/sports/al-trautwig-longtime-voice-of-msg-network-dead-at-68/

Trump has announced Brendan Carr as the new chairman.