doublejman69

With Pat Sajak retiring here he is with Vanna White hosting Milwaukee's Great Circus Parade in 1985 on WTMJ (it might have aired nationally or at least regionally). it starts at 23:40

Hearst buying WBBH is a unique one off, if you look at the demographics of SW Florida it’s very old, it’s the only demo that’s watches tv news and subscribe to cable in large numbers. Ft Myers is still a fast growing area. Just going by news ratings and how many people are watching in the market it’s likely far larger than its 55 ranking, possibly 5-10 rankings higher. Local news pay is really bad and in ft Myers for all stations especially WBBH it’s even worse. There is a bunch of injury lawyers and shady home remodelers in SW florida that purchases ads that make WBBH very profitable. 

Hearst isn’t going to buy your guys pet stations from owners that you don’t like.
 

There is no one that’s going to purchase tv stations and “invest” in tv news in 2024 we are long past that point. 

Long time WTMJ anchor and reporter Bill Taylor passed away at 79. he retired from WTMJ in 2001, He anchored the midday newscast and reported all over the world for the station. He was one of the first African American reporters in Milwaukee, and often reported on the led story shortly after arriving in 1972. He launched "Positively Milwaukee" and was involved with Milwaukee's Juneteenth day celebrations in the first few years and now is one of the longest running Juneteenth day celebrations in the country.   

Bill Taylor, TV anchor who started 'Positively Milwaukee,' dies (jsonline.com)

(Bill Taylor interviewing WTMJ's graphics person about WTMJ's 50th anniversary and anniversary website).

1 hour ago, Rusty Muck said:

Why? Because they actually modernized production for their newscasts and thus made themselves a target of a has-been blogger who wants things to remain stuck in 1989 even as viewing habits have collapsed across the board?

 

In the real world, the only real weak spot is the Ion stations, and that's because of the soft national ad market.

Yeah no Scripps isn’t modernizing news. Scripps cut people that were making the most money in the newsroom that aren’t managers (the anchors). Then sat down with some people that still watch news and ask was the biggest complaint about news and it was that they never report about news in their small town.

The neighbor reporter concept is a good idea for communities that get underreported, KABC has a few communities reporters in the LA neighborhoods that maybe get on the air 2-3 times week and post other stories online but KABC also has a team of general assignment reporters and beat reporters. At some Scripps stations every reporter is a neighborhood reporter and the top 2 or 3 stories could be, smithtowns grand opening of Olive Garden happen today and Greg Johnson of Lilly village is 8th grade state spelling bee champ.

Scripps is getting rid of any veteran they can, these people were teachers to the new hires at most scripp stations, most are coming straight out of college. This does delay the shutting down of newsrooms though which is good.

You guys are setting up yourselves for disappointment if you think the networks, cox, graham, Scripps (yikes) or any other broadcast company is buying any Sinclair station.  
 

It’s been reported that Sinclair is looking to unload small market stations, most likely CW, mynet and independents. Sinclair will sell those underperforming stations to a private equity firm, then they will gut the stations or let the network and syndicated contracts expire and sell the spectrum to god casters. 
 

I think the thing to look for is what network contracts are due to expire. That could be a sign to what stations sinclair unloads. 

14 minutes ago, bmasters1 said:

 

So basically, WGBA is the TV news version of what the Greenville News is in print in my area, I take it?

Besides weather basically Scrippscast can be put together on a Tuesday to be aired on a Friday, there is very very little current event, breaking news being reported on. 

Hearing more Scripps stations are going to Scripps cast or pre recording late evening newscasts, more than ftvlive.com reported, WKBW and WLEX. It’s a safe bet at this point it’s not an if, its when the remaining Scripps stations go to Scrippscast or pre recorded newscasts.

For stations like WMAR and KJRH it’s not a big deal because so few a watching, KJRH can’t even get over 1000 viewers most nights. Even a station like WTVF the only 1st place top 100 market station Scripps has, there are other choices In Nashville. It’s some of those small markets stations like in Montana where they did have a significant lead in the ratings and for the most part the competition is so bad it will awful for those viewers.

Scripps did have some changes in upper management but that guy didn’t get let go because of Scrippscast, it’s how it’s been handled, every day for a year now employees have been fearful that they could be losing their job or when their job title changes and try to get out of their contract but can’t without facing significant penalties. 

Hearing a number of Scripps stations are pre- recording newscast to air later. WFTS in Tampa is only airing live newscasts at 6am,9am, 5and 6pm. I know the station has struggled for a long time but it’s a top 15 market. Scripps has also let go GMs at least 6 stations. 

On 11/28/2023 at 5:03 AM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

One of the individuals labeled as a "Senior Reporter" has an anchor title.

Web person forgot to change all the titles, everyone is a reporter or “senior reporter.”

On 11/24/2023 at 8:43 AM, mrschimpf said:

Weigel is definitely not an afterthought in the market and they've long left their 90s era struggles at this point. They definitely have the more powerful schedule and good overall lead-ins outside mornings, and they (along with the other four ops in town) hire good people from everywhere rather than MMJs who are hamstrung from the get-go.

 

WTMJ is just in a fugue state where they're still stuck trying to recapture their 90s peak, but with Carole Meekins about to depart they no longer have any of those people in the newsroom and it's mainly either personnel with no connection to the area, or those who came on to try to salvage things, or those who are just there because they sucked up to management still living as if Journal hasn't fully ceased to exist.

 

There's just no encouragement there, or any management that wants it to be unique; their GM did absolutely nothing with WGBA and somehow got promoted, and their 'no comment' in that Next TV article says it all; it's a station that wants to do the bare minimum without Cincy catching onto them.

Scripps must see something in the GM, he recently got promoted to regional GM oversee 3 or 4 other markets. I know he did improve advertising revenue quite a bit when he was in Green Bay especially when they started airing local sports, but revenue for WTMJ has dropped significantly since Scripps took over, part of that ad revenue is going down for all TV stations especially in the last couple of years, but compared to the other stations in Milwaukee, WTMJ has lost the most.

All major decision goes though Cincinnati, that has been the case shortly after the merger. if you look all the Scripps stations for the most part, they are in 3-4 place in the ratings. sure, there are some that do better but are in small markets or where the competition is nonexistence. WTMJ looks like every station in the group performance wise.   

Nothing WTMJ does stands out, Chamraz and Benson are better reporters than anchors, all the reporters are interchangeable and will likely be gone in 2-3 years when their contract runs out. After the merger everyone that only reported left or was replaced in 6 months. Andrea Williams and Cassandra are the best recent hires, but they are not hard news reporters, they are miss used only to be on the low rated 6:30pm show. WTMJ should be doing more community stories for the intercity on the main 5,6 and 10pm newscast and not just focusing on crime and violence. For decades WTMJ had the biggest and probably the best weather team in the market, but for the most of this summer WTMJ was down to only 3 meteorologists. Every time there was severe weather all the other stations had 2-3 meteorologists on hand compared to WTMJ where they only had one who was standing in front of the green screen looking down on their lap top the whole time. WTMJ recently hired a 4th meteorologist but got rid of the 5th met spot a few years ago. 6,12 and 58 all have 5 metorologists.

On 9/29/2023 at 4:22 PM, ELISYSYN said:

If WTMJ gets lower ratings than CBS58, I would be shocked as CBS 58 is basically just an afterthought in SE Wisconsin.

This was the ratings earlier this year https://www.nexttv.com/news/local-news-close-up-good-things-brewing-in-milwaukee “WISN and WITI are the frontrunners in the local news game. In February, WITI won the 6 a.m. battle in both live-plus-same-day household impressions and the 25-54 demo. At both 5 and 6 p.m., WISN won households and WITI took the demo. At 10 p.m., WISN averaged 49,200 household impressions, ahead of WITI’s 34,700, WDJT’s 22,400 and WTMJ’s 19,200. In the 25-54 late news race, WISN had 14,300 impressions, WITI averaged 14,000, WDJT had 5,400 and WTMJ had 5,200”. 
 

 WTMJ’s 4:30am newscast was barely getting 1,000 impressions. When I moved to Milwaukee in 2000 the WTMJ had a 15 share, WISN was around a 10 and CBS58 couldn’t even get a 1 share. 

Sorry if this has already been posted but recently KIVI has dropped all live newscast and news anchors for “scrippcasts.” I’m not sure how many job cuts were made in Boise.

On 11/9/2023 at 4:36 PM, Breaking News said:

WTMJ Carole Meekins to retire end of the month.

 

True TV legend. Her and Mike Gousha were probably the best anchor pairing in Milwaukee TV history. 

TV listings indicate WTMJ has dropped the 4:30am newscast, likely a combination of being short staff and lack of ratings. at the moment WTMJ only has 3 meteorologist and each month the morning newscast rating are sinking and are approaching CBS58’s type ratings. 

On 8/3/2023 at 7:56 PM, MidwestTV said:

Changes to Scripps' smaller market stations include eliminating some anchor positions, beefing up heavily on MMJs (including, apparently, giving substantial raises on the order of $20k+), eliminating the chief meteorologist title and placing all meteorologists under the purview of the assistant news director.

Obviosity it's good that MMJ's are getting raises (right now they get paid significantly less than reporters and longtime photojournalists) but that likely means there will be no longer reporters that don't shot or photographers only. Even with all the new technology in the last few years, I still think photojournalists play a very important role in a newsroom, its better to have a second pair of eyes in large crowds or reporting in dangerous areas (near roads) and quality does suffer when one person does all of these jobs compared to when it took 3 people just a few years ago. 

None of these moves will make improvements to ratings or increase the quality of newscast. Outside of WPTV, longtime Scripps stations before the McGraw-Hill deal were in 2nd or 3rd place or even worse, stations like KSHB and KJRH ratings have been downright garbage most of the time.

The thing is unless if you're a yes man Scripps has put in place their own management team shortly after acquiring new stations/groups and it doesn't matter how well the stations are preforming. Some of those ex Journal stations have gone through 2 or 3 scripps mangement teams already. WTMJ has been number 1 at 10pm only one time since Scripps has owned the station that came only a few months after the sale was approved largely under Journals former management team (news director, station manager) and before scripps made any big changes to the stations. Ratings have declined ever since and now WTMJ is in danger of CBS58 over taking them in the ratings in some day parts, I know this was long time ago but when I moved to Milwaukee in 2000 WTMJ had over 15 rating and CBS58 was at 0.7 at 10pm.

On 8/3/2023 at 3:34 PM, mrschimpf said:

Interesting choice with the indictment today, with WTMJ just continuing to roll Scripps News coverage of it featuring commentary and anchor shots rather than the NBC News network coverage, which boxed in panels with a larger window boringly focused on satellite trucks and protesters for a thing that cannot be recorded for a departure that takes only two minutes. WGBA took NBC News; not for this thread, but ABC News has an even more pointless shot of a dumb AliExpress message flag in front of the courthouse just flapping monotonously.

 

We'll likely see this more with the big chains going forward who may have finally hit their limit with pointless network coverage that's just a Trojan Horse to stream on their live streaming networks.

Thing is Scripps News (awful name) and others like it are barely better than local news quality with unknown anchors and commentators. But in the last few years WTMJ has chased away most of its local news viewers and now it’s looking like they are doing the same for those that watch NBC network news shows and special reports. 

This is going to be the year that many 3rd and 4th rate stations are going to be dropping news and not just Sinclair, it’s going to be Scripps, Nexstar and the other big groups. In Milwaukee WTMJ and CBS58 are only averaging 5,000 viewers in the demo at 10, WISN and WITI is about 14,000-15,000. When I came to Milwaukee in 2000 WTMJ had a 15 rating and wisn was about 10, viewership taste has change thought out the years but Milwaukee has always had one of the higher viewership of local news in the country.

This is a business first, many of these 3rd or 4th rate stations are only breaking even at best and likely losing money on news. There is no company that’s going to come to buy and bunch of money losing operations with almost no viewers. The stations that have dropped local news so far had  no viewers in the first place, basically no one will notice.

2 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

To stream a newscast? Ha! No it is not that costly at this point especially considering how much stations are paying for affiliation and syndication fees. If you run it with ads, you can severely offset the costs. I'd argue that this is a shortsighted plan because you're effectively laying your own demise. As station group asks for more money from retransmission fees, the cable subscription costs increase to compensate, decreasing the demand and driving up the retransmission fees, creating a no-win game for groups like this. In the attempt to drive dividends, they are not paying down debt (only the low interests rate) which will come due soon and force Nexstar into administration. It's a downward spiral and Nexstar is harming their viewership by not providing up to the minute information, especially as viewers have less access to local news.

Ads for digital don’t even come close to regular broadcast, even if you can sell it many stations and groups can’t sell all slots and just put up slide saying that the newscast is in a commercial break. It’s kind of a lost cost at that point if the only way someone can watch you channel is by the website stream, at least with OTA they can watch your full network and  syndicated programming and more importantly ads that you’re getting full price on. 
 

The reason I asked how many people that are streaming newscast, I know a station about 5 years ago, top-25 market dominant number 1 in all newscast, number 1 website beating the local newspaper and the web stream count was in the hundreds, the only time it would get in the thousands if there was breaking news or severe weather.  Things have change from 5 years ago but I can’t imagine many advertisers rushing to get on a streaming product that can only average a couple hundred people.

There’s been rumors for awhile now that it’s been toxic inside CBS news so the ny post story isn’t shouldn’t be a total surprise. With cbs’s ratings trouble they likely won’t bother to renew Khemlani contract or even pushed him out before it expires. 

I’m not defending what nextstar is doing but How many viewers do watch live streaming? And how much money do tv stations make off it? It’s very costly to stream, whatever the viewership was when a station was live streaming its going to drop now there’s a delay.

Occasionally I check out job posting for various groups and I notice for Scripps except for 2 or 3 stations almost all the stations have one or 2 openings when many routinely have upwards to 10-15. https://scripps.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Scripps_Careers

It’s possible the website is not updated, or Scripps went on a huge hiring spree in the last few weeks (highly unlikely). Even if you’re at full employment you want some job openings (especially in sales) so you’re always recruiting because there will be turnover. 
 

After this election season and the holidays and a possible recession in the near future it’s going to be a soft period for the news business. It’s possible we will see job freezes and even cuts and Scripps and other companies maybe gearing up for that.

This is WINKs last few hours on air, this might include when WINK was cut off or shortly before.

After 62 hours of simulcast coverage NBC2 and ABC7 will do its own coverage starting today.

Edit: looks like the nbc2 and abc7 simulcast continues.

Edit 2: Fox4 came back to its building and studio some time this afternoon, coverage has been getting somewhat better in the last 12-24 hours 

7 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

WINK is huddled in the 2nd floor, there until the water recedes then will need to find a new facility.

 

I have a feeling they will need a whole new studio too and a complete rebuild. Can a small independent company afford such?

Insurance will take care of the building but it will be awhile before things get back to normal for WINK. Before WINK went off the air both WINK and the abc7/nbc2 simulcast did a very

good job covering the storm. 
 

Fox4 production was done remotely from Detroit and apparently they were broadcasting at FGCU in a makeshift studio, also Fox4 may have taken on water. I’m sure everyone was trying their best but Fox4 coverage was a technical disaster the times I check, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. 
 
I’m a winter resident of SW Florida and gone past each station several times, WINKS building is across the street from the caloosahatchee River that connects to the gulf and a creek that’s snakes almost around the whole building.WFTX is in Cape Coral and the Cape has canals all though out the city and many connect to Gulf. It makes both stations susceptible for storm surge (Waterman’s building is inland Fort Myers). In the last 10 years or so each building has been renovated to withstand major hurricane winds but they will likely have to do more against storm surge,  WINK has a barrier around the building and 

reinforcements for all the doors but those weren’t high enough.

WINK was live overnight and so was the NBC2/ABC7 simulcast. FOX4 started coverage at 4am, they were having a lot of problems for the first half hour or so I watched.
 

All the stations do or did have newsrooms in Collier County, none are studios by any means, basically a camera in a workspace, but it’s a option if any of the main studios do have any problems. WINKs building is very close to water in DT Fort Myers but to a certain point of several feet shouldn’t take in any water apparently. FOX4 building had a major renovation right before Scripps bought the station and Watermans building also has recently been renovated, all 3 should be able to withstand the winds of a major hurricane. Water and flooding could be an issue for all the stations.

3 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Pretty much all of the preseason games on local TV stations are NOT produced by the station itself. 

Like most of sports television, they hire an outside contractor that hires freelance crew members, and any ties to the station are usually station talent, certain personnel, and their logo, nothing more. 

Maybe they play a hand in designing the look and feel of the graphics, but many (especially the O&O stations that have the local rights) pretty much use the network package customized to the team.  And the teams themselves play a role in ensuring the branding is to their liking in their home market.

Many teams have taken control and are managing the preseason TV and radio aspects either by producing themselves or by using a third party.  The Bears are using the same graphics for team promotions. The Packers almost everything is in-house, they have in-house video editors, producers and videographers. It’s getting to the point where there is little difference between the flagship radio or TV station or an affiliate for the Packers, the team has hired a few personal from the flagships for pre or post game work but that’s about it and that’s all under the Packers control. 

22 hours ago, LoadStar said:

I'm guessing any major renovation plans will wait until Good Karma vacates and frees up all that space at Radio City.

 

Edit: when is that happening, anyway? That was originally announced as being late in 2021, then "later in 2022" - how long does it take to build out an office space for GKB?

The construction part is near completion if not completed for the studios and offices. Right now there is no radio equipment or computers in the new studios or office space. I imagine it’s still going to be months before GKB fully moves out of Radio City. The Avenue is turning out to be a very nice place (and that whole stretch of Wisconsin Ave).

There is a lot of empty space in Radio City already. it use to house Journal’s TV and radio executives. When GKB radio leaves I wouldn’t be surprised if more than half the building would be unused. GKB will have as many people downtown as Scripps employs in Milwaukee.
 

Last I heard Scripps has no plans for the radio space or executive offices.