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Same reason WKYC dumped the Helvetica "3" for the Elevator 3, BECAUSE TEGNA!

Heck, I'd settle for the Rampage package at this point...

The sad thing is that WKYC out-Tegna-ed Tegna on their latest disaster. Usually WKYC has forged ahead of the corporate mandates, putting out BETTER stuff than if they had towed the company line. The ultimate 180 will come when they FINALLY launch a 5pm newscast with Jay Crawford next month. As if his current lunch-time show wasn't enough of a bomb. Remember, it was WKYC counter-programming Dr. Phil at 5pm which even rescued WKYC from the doldrums they were in going WAY back to their days as a farm team O&O for NBC.

The current logo was created by a local company. https://matchstic.com/work/11-alive Here's a video on their new "Where Atlanta Speaks" mission statement from earlier this year.

According to the comments section to that video, that theme was remembered fondly. And after hearing it for the first time in a while, I guess it isn’t so bad...relatively speaking. TEGNA really didn’t need to change anything from the 2013 package, aside from minor updates. “This is Home” and their truly innovative graphics package have set the tone for all broadcast design as we see it today. (Even as the current package is a step back in terms of intentional, grid-bases design.)

I won't go so far as to say it's one of the worst, but as I've said a few times, this package sounds more like it is for Newsy. I see your point about this package for broadcast stations, though.....

It's one thing when Tegna puts on a show (Lunch Break) that gets ratings so low it sometimes does not even register in the ratings. But it's a special kind of stupid when they double down and do it again later in the day. That together with the "WKYC Studios" branding and you've got one big clown show. I guess I was in the minority in that case because I liked the Rampage theme--and the 2008 graphics. And I dislike most cuts of C Clarity 100%.

NewsNet is essentially a small business. You can't expect them to produce the same caliber of content as the networks do. I'm honestly amazed they've been able to accomplish this much. I say they are doing as good of a job as they could. I would've kept more live coverage on the local "Northern Michigan" cut-ins...maybe a half-hour of national, then a half-hour of local news, then repeat. But clearly they see more profitability in the national audience. I'd say that's a smart move because, as a small business, you cannot spread yourself out too thin. NewsNet deserves more credit than they are getting. I hope they succeed. I truly do.

I'd agree that the previous "This Is Home" (Gari) and the "Gannett" (Rampage) themes weren't too bad, but Gannett/TEGNA stations butchered them. Graphics... I didn't really care for Pyburn graphics (used with Gannett theme). The USA Today style color-coded graphics weren't too bad, although the color-coded tabs were a bit over the top. I don't care too much for "C Clarity" (Sixeme Son) music. Current graphics is okay. KUSA had its custom music (Third Street Music) from 1995-2009, and KARE had its custom music (also by Third Street) 1996-2013, as they didn't get Gannett package. Their custom music packages could easily be their versions of MCTYW (still heard on WPVI) and Chroma Cues (WJZ's longtime theme music). Portland and Bangor stations had "Good News" (Gari) for longest time. WFAA having "The Spirit of Texas" signature in their news music, before Belo sold out. It'd be a sad day for WNEP if and when they're forced to dump the Cliff Schwartz version of MCTYW for C Clarity. Besides TEGNA stations having newscasts with non-traditional names (like the current WKYC mess, WUSA's morning news, WTSP newscasts, WXIA newscasts, etc.), I wasn't a huge fan of the Rundown/Lineup concept. I believe that was something started on WGRZ by their former news director Ellen Crooke, and she implemented it on WXIA, and Gannett forced it on other stations. I also don't care for WXIA's current 11Alive logo either. I'd have welcomed them bringing back their pre-1993 logo or variation, or maybe a circle 11 logo with the Times New Roman font 11 (1993-2019 logo) with the Alive and NBC peacock to right. It's a thought.

I never really cared for "This is Home," and I'm generally a fan of warm-and-fuzzy Gari packages ("Hello News" especially.) Our local TEGNA stations even continue to use "Good News" for their winter storm coverage.

5-10 years ago, if a company sold its stations to Gannett/Tegna, I would've thought they were going to a good owner. Now, I assume that every station being bought by Tegna can be likened to a car going to a junkyard. Back in the day Gannett valued hard journalism. Now, Tegna despises it. There are some bright spots that are semi-immune to Tegnaitis, perhaps the best example: WBIR. And I believe a case could be made that KFSM might be able to weather the storm alright. But time will tell. Don't even get me started about WATN, however. I wouldn't be surprised if ABC would consider moving its affiliation elsewhere--to be honest, I wouldn't blame them. If anyone thinks WATN was bad before, just wait until they are transformed into the WKYC of Memphis. How does "Local 24 Studios" sound for an on-air identity? I will say that if the WSVN strategy (hard news) was applied to Tegna by Cheatwood, most if not all stations would be serious threats to their competition. It would seem just the opposite strategy was applied. C Clarity is and always shall be one of the worst news "music" (noise) pkgs ever made. They need to go back to This is Home as a first step. That would at least remove the inappropriately silly sound to the newscasts. That alone would make some improvement.

Gannett/TEGNA's decline started before Cheatwood came in. Trust me here. It started in 2014 when they decided to launch Atlanta Alive on WXIA. By early 2015 KPNX started to become, to quote Samantha, "the place with more fluff". Those two stations fell victim to TEGNA-itis before the split even was completed. I agree, even without Cheatwood I'm not sure if TEGNA will get better, especially considering that this is a company where you never know what actually is going to happen. There's a chance they'll continue on the current path of underachieving. As you know, Gannett Broadcasting used to be a good owner of TV stations. Gannett/TEGNA is a shell of its former self these days, and it's rather likely that it won't change.

90%... probably around 99%... almost everything... even sports... is taken word for word from newsource... not just packages... VOs... VOSOTS... it's all newsource... with maybe a few words changed... not saying filling your show with wire packages is bad... lots of stations do that.... just not to this degree.... they must be pretty confident nobody will ever contest their inability to follow embargoes... just saying...

I realize I'm bumping up this thread, which hasn't seen a post since August, but I felt this was something to share: I happened to watch this video of a closing to KMBC's newscast from December 23rd and I immediately could tell the music did NOT match "Strive." I picked up on the fact it sounded like something Stephen Arnold Music would produce. If you listen to the montage of "The Rock" on NMSA's website, at the 4:45 mark, you can hear the same music used in this closing--just without the NBC chimes. I doubt this came from "The Rock" directly. Maybe as production music from SAM?

I remember when WBIR started using the rundown as part of their on-screen graphics. I actually liked it at the time, but maybe it was because WBIR was doing it intelligently and not over-the-top like some Gannett/Tegna stations. I liked the color scheme of the 2008 graphics, but I liked the functionality of the 2013 graphics as well. The 2018 graphics are just ridiculous--but it would be more tolerable with something other than C Clarity "noise." And the current WXIA logo is an absolute joke. I don't get why they dumped their longtime logo for something unimaginative and ridiculous. Surely they could've made something far better than that.

There are things I like and dislike about This is Home and Rampage, although I tend to favor This is Home more. If not This is Home, I'd certainly be okay with hearing Rampage again. I think it sounded great. Sure, you had some stations mess up the implementation of it--but it was a great package overall. KUSA and WBIR used it the best, imo.

I pretty much agree with what you have said. I also forgot to mention that, as everyone knows, Belo was one of the best station owners out there. They were right up there with Cox and Hearst and better than even Gannett. Unfortunately, Belo is mostly gone except for that little A. H. Belo company that still happens to own two North Texas newspapers, and Cox Media Group is now 80% owned by private equity (and is likely to get worse soon). That leaves us with just Hearst out of the three.

Just saw a picture on Dan Marries Facebook page. Looks like KOLD has replaced their Surat tans with a video wall.

All of the conditions that led ABC to switch to KSTP, WSB, WSOC, WTLV, WSAV, WBRZ, and KOMU were present in the Tampa Bay market. I wonder what made WFLA decide to stay with NBC; and WIS and WSFA for that matter.

That is a good point. They probably are thinking stations won't even be monitoring the local NewsNet station.

And then given the same boot along with Ernie Bjorkman at KWGN. This was really disappointing. Innovation is great, but long-term guiding experience is critical too (especially when it comes to anchors). Unfortunately, I can't say the same thing for GMs.

Yes, with the important caveat that WHDH's transformation was very watered-down compared to WSVN's and tailored to the sensibilities of the market.

1000% agreed. Cheatwood may no longer work for Tegna but there are more problems within Tegna beyond just a Cheatwood problem, although Cheatwood himself was the root cause of the problems at Tegna's stations. It's gonna take Tegna rebuilding that trust and respect the stations once had with viewers before they even think about returning to the dominance the stations once had and it all starts at the top at Tegna's corporate offices, and certainly with the General Managers that are forcing this garbage on the stations.

If true change is going to take place it first needs to happen at the top...which is what appears to have just happened. This is a good change for Tegna, in my opinion. But they need to clean out the rot underneath the top job at Tegna's corporate offices. I want to see qualified and experienced journalists take the helm and steer the ship back on course. And I agree with FTVlive in this matter that Tegna has become something more of a punchline. Any honest person with a brain understands that Tegna's idea of a millennial-style newscast only make people like me (a 20-something guy) want to reach for the remote because it looks low quality and ridiculous. It's not just C Clarity that needs to be shown the trash can--the stupid newscast titles and their overly silly presentation style must go. It really makes stations like those owned by Nexstar, Hearst, Gray, and Sinclair look like world-class quality because at the least they strive to put on an intelligent newscast. And is it any wonder that people like me prefers the newscasts from those station groups instead? If I want silly, I'll go to Facebook. If I want serious, I'll watch a newscast. It's that simple.

So the discontinuation of MI News 26 is extremely sloppy, and from the outside seems to be happening with no thought put into it. The old minews26.com website is being updated as of Friday, but things like weather have frozen in time, being last updated before the transition to Newsnet. Even their own website still features the MI News 26 schedule, with only the website header image referencing the transition to "Newsnet" from MI News 26. The stream appears to have ceased working, and again, there's no redirection to the working Newsnet stuff. It's kind of sad that they've just completely trashed the relatively good idea of hyperlocal news coverage for CNN Lite, and are too busy caught up with trying to make that happen to even transition away from the hyperlocal thing right.

What a sad sing along. Half the employees don’t even look happy to be there... and how did not one person notice Dave Price being confused by the lyrics?? A kosher deli is a deli where you get specialty sandwiches and food from. A bodega is like a small mini-market where you get chips, soda, lotto tickets, cigarettes, cat food, milk, eggs, and change for a $20.

Their graphics are definitely on fleek. This should’ve been you, Scripps!

I agree that's a whole lot of eggs in one basket, but the folks funding this operation must be aware of that possibility. Do you think CNN even considers them a remote threat? Heck No! I don't have a clue who is really behind the whole deal, but the funding seems to be there for now. There must be some timetable for the growth, and a aggressive business plan. This could easily migrate via OTA into a solid diginet once it get a bit more polished. Viewers sure don't seem to care about visual and audio quality much anymore as you of all people know (winky guy emoji). But does anyone (here) remember that first year of CNN? The first year of CNN they would take anything...and air everything, no matter how bad it was, or where it was produced. A bunch of real crappy TV from all over the USA flowed into Atlanta. Taped packages arrived by Greyhound bus ,mail, Federal Express or Airborne Express. A bunch of small time reporters also got some huge breaks when CNN aired those packages from those small markets. CNN also aired some real gems during that time, including portions of one reporters resume tape by mistake one late evening. Train up these kids and their network, and In a few years maybe Sinclair or Byron will buy them. I'm paying very close attention to them.

90% of their content comes from CNN Newsource (which is a bizarre arrangement itself.) If CNN gets worried, they can essentially kill the network by yanking their access to Newsource. Newsnet wouldn't have anything left to broadcast.

WJZ transitioned..... j/k it will be ages before they transition.

I believe GMA does not give time back to affiliates until 7:26 and they air the bulk of the ads - the same is said for Today. Two minutes of news and two minutes of ads is pretty normal. Edit: I am surprised at how early GMA goes to affiliate time today it was at 7:23, They had solid content up until 7:20 with no ads (save for weather). All I can think of is that perhaps GMA is giving the affiliates one hole to fill with news, a break for traffic and weather and then some network ad inventory.

I've noticed some weird "behavior" with WCVB and WMUR between 7:20 AM and 7:30 AM. This 10-minute segment is very "commercial heavy" on both stations, with about 2 minutes of local news/weather/traffic sandwiched around *8* minutes of commercials. I've noticed the local news cut-in from GMA starts at 7:23 on these stations instead of 7:25, and even more annoying, they go back to commercial within the local news update, separating the "news" and the "weather/traffic" segments. WHY do they do this? you have about 3 minutes of commercials, then 1 minute of news, only to go BACK to commercials for another 2 minutes, then 30 seconds of weather, 30 seconds of traffic, then another 3 minutes of commercials before returning to GMA. Who in the right mind wants to watch 8 minutes of commercials? Are there certain times of the morning like this one where "the bills MUST be paid at this time"? WBZ and WBTS in Boston air their local news updates at this time of morning "in one piece", starting at 7:25. "One piece" meaning news/weather/traffic in about 2-3 minutes, with no commercial break within the update.

KCRA had news on Me-TV. doesn't say when but at one point they did.

B-but it has crash zooms!

Ah yes, the Rampage theme everyone on here absolutely hated when it debut. I remember someone described it as sounding like "a malfunctioning fax machine". Sorry, but C-Clarity is leaps and bounds better than the theme that sounds like it was originally composed on the Floppotron.