doublejman69

Ten years later and 'TMJ is probably still feeling stupid about letting the Sony game shows go to WDJT.

I was told at the time that there was such a huge bidding war to acquire Wheel and Jeopardy and WDJT over paid so much that advertising doesn't even come close to the cost for the syndication rights even with WDJT being in 1st place from 6-7pm since getting those shows. It's very likely TMJ was/is turning a profit in the 630 half hour when they have done local news even though its been 3rd or 4th.(in the fall/winter Packers programming makes a lot of money for TMJ). Anyways its a moot point now, Scripps doesn't spend money on outside syndication.

How many of the legacy Journal stations ever got The Now, anyway?

I believe just WTMJ and WGBA so far.

Scripps is performing a comprehensive restructuring, which includes selling its radio stations, as well as centralizing some services.

 

However, it sounds like Scripps is doing this so that they possibly could acquire more TV stations.

 

EDIT: A thread has been started on this topic.

Look for more long time veterans to "retire" its been happening the last year or so.

I want to talk about Graphics for a second because with the NBC-affiliated Hearst stations updating theirs for Super Bowl LII and the Winter Olympics, I'm curious to see what the five NBC stations in West Palm Beach, KC, Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Tulsa plan to do with Their gfx.

Scripps is struggling, the last thing on their minds are graphics.

Janet Hundley has “resigned” from her position as News Director at WTMJ.

 

http://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2017/12/29/nd-out-in-milwaukee

 

This comes not long after the station dropped back to 4th place at 10pm. Janet was hired by Journal prior to the Scripps merger when the station was having similar ratings issues.

 

I have a suspicion that the fall from grace after she managed to turn the ratings around have more to do with Scripps corporate and not decisions she was making.

 

Their content has suffered a lot lately. Who wants to bet the "digital" guy gets the bump up like at other Scripps properties?

That is disappointing, Janet is a very good News Director. Weeters is right, one reason she came to WTMJ when it was owned by Journal was because she was given free rein on the News Department. Over time Scripps corporate has taken over more control, and in turn ratings have gone lower. Several rounds of budget cuts haven't helped either.

How has WISC's knockoff of the Scripps package not come up?

 

 

WISC has a very good in-house graphics department. Yeah, there might be some Renderon looking elements to the graphics, But this is more of a continuation of previous looks going back to more than 15 years.

Has Brian Williams anchor news coverage outside of his show lately? I didn't notice him on Thursday afternoon during the breaking news in Spain.

9/11 coverage from WTMJ. while airing NBC and local coverage you also see them switching to CNN and MSNBC at times.

I know there is alot of Milwaukee people on here, if you haven't checkout the tv madman youtube page there is alot of good stuff from the 80's thru 90's. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw0YMe-ZEEm33KqDdbPlFag

CBS58 newsbreak from 96 right before launching their full news department

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=KFc4iouKeP8;list=PLLO34BKhySfAwhKB-P0x-nvtDhjrPjFF-

Not many people were fans of the Six is News branding but the opening and the rest of the look was good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=UOD3KPW1KC4;list=PLLO34BKhySfAwhKB-P0x-nvtDhjrPjFF-

Classic WTMJ newscast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=6hkFv5EKpcI;list=PLLO34BKhySfAwhKB-P0x-nvtDhjrPjFF-

This year is WTMJ's 70th annivesary, this is a clip from there 50th.

and a report about WTMJ's 50th annivesary website i believe the website lived on until the early 2000's.

Some of the studio cameras and pretty much all of their field cameras are still 480p...in 2017.

I'm thinking this forum needs to stop with the hot takes about politics...

To be said, from all accounts I've heard WGBA had lots of potential and was growing audience is first few years (1995-99, especially when late WISC legend Tedd McConnell was there and built the department from scratch.), once Jay Zollar jumped to WLUK, combined with short-sighted moves by predecessors in both the later Aries and Journal era (Remember the infamous financial and ratings mess when Journal bought them and tried the tabloid route with John Shelby as ND in the mid-00's.), their image with the community (advertisers and viewers) was destroyed. It was been a very tough last decade for them (Larry McCarren's stint was a good first step), but it looks Scripps, along with new ND Julie Moravchik have the most progress so far in rehabilitating NBC26's image in the community and making it respectful once again after it was badly damaged (and almost burned to the ground) by Journal.

Aries had deep financial problems and couldn't compete, the news room was barebone. The only time WGBA had news personal levels that were comparable to the other stations in the market was the first five years or so Journal owned the station, not seeing ratings gains like Journal wanted and the recession deeply hurt the station after that time period. I think losing Larry McCarren hurts (you need recognizable people to get viewers). The other stations have double the news staff WGBA has and so far since Scripps ownership hasn't increase it any.

Between the new graphics and the virtual set they got a few months ago, is it safe to say that Scripps wants to make WGBA a real contender in the Green Bay market?

A set and graphics change isn't going to move the needle in the ratings.

The Green Bay market has a population that is older and its hard to change their habits. When Journal bought the station in the early 2000's they did pour a lot of money into the station but the ratings were still low. Maybe one of the other stations will mess up and then WGBA can grab some viewers?

WGBA has low overhead and makes a little money. A company like Scripps isn't going try to compete.

It should be pointed out WTMJ's version of The Now is so much different than what other Scripps stations are doing. WTMJ doesn't air the social media or viral video garbage, its mostly locally produced feature stories and its 30 minutes. The only things that are the same is the graphics, the name and the hosts dresses casual. My guess is that WTMJ was forced to use "The Now" name when local management wanted to retool the 6:30 half hour and then they got to do whatever they wanted...

WMTV 15.2 in Madison is taking over the CW on September 12th. According my guide they will be running a newscast from 7am to 9am starting on the 12th (don't know if its a rebroadcast of .1's 5-7am newscast or live) WMTV has hired an anchor for a 9pm newscast but won't be debuting it on the 12th. WBUW will be an independent most likely producing more local programming and sports.

wexler was responsible just as much as berra was for allowing berra's cockamamie franchise ideas to destroy the station's integrity. "speedbusters"?? "dirty dining"?? and dont forget how he would allow stories to be sensationalized to the point they'd get sued over them...

My last point about this.. Berra does that where ever he goes. It seem like Wexler didn't care as long as WTMJ brought in $$. The last year or so of their leadership everything went down hill and Journal had to make changes fast. Even though the executives in Cincinnati have made some questionable moves, Janet has made WTMJ's newscasts respectable again.

They tried "On Your Side" as the main branding during the Wexler Trainwreck period when they tried to appeal to nobody but Waukesha County and 'bleed it leads for the entire A-block' fans ("TMJ4 News On Your Side" was how it was displayed); it was dropped the moment Wexler got pushed to the radio side (it was their consumer branding for a long time, but it's been dropped for 'Call 4 Action'), and it can be safely assumed it won't return. And they would've dropped TMJ4 when they got the Scripps graphics, but they didn't and also tweaked the existing logo.

Its Scripps anything is possible. Steve Wexler didn't handle the day to day news operation of WTMJ, Bill Berra did and the longer he was there the more power he got. Its uncanny how similar WTMJ and WFTS where he use to be the ND was, Bill uses the same formula. Bill is now working at WFLA is now becoming WFTS lite.

If MSNBC wanted Olbermann back they would have hired him this spring for the presidential election. Once the election is over ratings will go down big time for all the cable news channels and opinion programming suffers the most. Ever since Andy Lack came back and changed daytime to more news and less opinion the liberal primetime block kind of sticks out like a sore thump. I wouldn't be surprised if Brian Williams or even Chris Jansing and Willie Geist are placed in primetime before this time next year.

I wouldn't be surprised if WTMJ drops the "Today's" branding. KIVI did a couple of weeks ago and installed a virtual news set. With the changes Janet has making WTMJ news into a hard news format, hopefully Scripps doesn't make them use "Action News", "On Your Side" or "Works For You".

As criticisms go, that's some weak tea. It makes Scripps pretty much like everybody else. Who doesn't hub anymore? Sinclair, Gray, Tegna, Tribune, Meredith, and Raycom all hub. I've heard Hearst does, but I don't know anybody there. I don't know about Hubbard, Calkins, Graham, or Quincy either. Lin had MC hubs. Media General has them. Nexstar has them. ABC and NBC O&O's don't even do their own hubbing. They farm it out. Fox and CBS hub.

 

That being said, I know for a fact Scripps hasn't hubbed the Journal stations. That might still be in the future, but I've heard no chatter yet.

 

In terms of Ignite-type systems, I've heard even Dispatch has brought that in recently. It's the way broadcasting is done in 2016. I went to lunch with somebody from an old McGraw Hill station recently, they had automation production control 10 years before joining Scripps. Scripps hired enough people that they're having trouble finding parking spots. McGraw Hill was cheap. I know with Buffalo, Granite was crazy cheap and there was open celebration that they'd been purchased. Now they're expanding the number of hours of news they're running or at least they will once they actually start running their weekend morning news.

 

And the systems aren't cheap. Corporate-wide rollout costs millions and have a 3+ year return on investment depending on what equipment you buy and how you structure your setup.

 

There are plenty of valid criticisms available concerning content. Hitting them for doing the same thing everybody does seems nitpicky.

I wasn't really criticizing them, station groups have different opinions for hubbing and automation and they have positives and negatives. but to say a station group isn't automating because they're "cheap" is laughable and 100 percent false.

they're spending plenty of money... you just don't see it... go to any of the former journal communications stations and ask how much scripps has invested in them... many are adding staff like crazy & upgrading equipment left and right... WTMJ is running out of space in their newsroom to put new staff...

 

it's no coincidence they turned a profit this time last year and not this year... since then they bought a bunch of poorly run stations that need a ton of money sunk into them... JBG was cheap... cheap in the way they would rather keep paying union engineers to sit around for hours a day doing nothing between shows instead of spending big bucks automating the control room... now it's up to scripps to make those investments and they ain't cheap...

Scripps is installing Ignite and hubbing master control to cut cost in the long term, employing people cost alot of money. It really isn't alot of money to spend investing in automation but it can cause alot of problems. Scripps isn't adding news staff, they're returning to staffing levels from the Journal days, but they're replacing veteran reporters and photojournalist with mmj's with very little experience.

Scripps had alot of poorly run station before Journal. WTVF is top 2 in revenue for the whole group and Nashville is the 10th largest market for them. WTMJ and KTNV also produce more revenue than other Scripps stations in larger markets than them.