C Block

It''s not that clear cut. There are a lot more resources, people, and space needed to support TV news production than just what you see on air. Morning Express probably only accounts for a fraction of the headcount still based at CNN Center. CNN Domestic weekends, a good chunk of CNNI shows, and CNN En Espanol are all still anchored out of CNN Center. And even though they've moved a lot of anchoring out of Atlanta, a lot of other important staff are still there. As I understand it, a lot of the staff for the CNN Domestic dayside hours stayed in Atlanta even though those hours moved to New York. So a lot of the producers, writers, segment producers, editors, etc. for much of CNN Domestic are still in Atlanta even though the shows are anchored in New York. Not to mention CNN.com, Newsource, Image + Sound, and plenty of other teams. CNN Center may not be the bustling place it was a decade ago, but there are still a lot of people working there to support a major news organization. Some other people also might have a better idea than me, but I also question whether there's enough space for everything at Techwood just yet. Even if they are going to move everything there and in a smaller footprint than what they have at CNN Center, there's still going to be a fair amount of work needed to move so many employees and have space for all of them. I'm sure they'll be able to do it, but it won't happen overnight, and it won't happen just because Morning Express got cancelled.

The other thing is that it nearly doubles the amount of ad inventory, so there's at least the potential to make more money by having more compelling programming on both stations in the morning. I honestly think what they're doing with the mornings is a fairly smart strategy to try considering they have nothing to lose. People have tried far, far dumber ideas in the morning. The only move that makes me question whether current KCBS/KCAL management have their heads on right is the hiring of Ross Palombo. That guy is so horrible to work with that KTVU let him out of his contract more than a year early, and then people at WPLG were literally crying in their newsroom when they found out that he was rehired there.

Probably didn't help that her EP left shortly after her show was launched.

It's sounding like Fox is expecting that NBC and ABC will indeed drop the 10pm hour. I've heard that the O&Os are looking into what effect, if any, it would have on their long-established 10pm newscasts. It sounds like there's actually not much overlap between viewers who watch the big 3 primetime offerings and those who watch primetime newscasts.

Interesting. I always thought it was odd that he was replaced on the morning show and put onto what seemed like a pretty meaningless 11am/4pm midday shift not too long ago.

Pretty sure it was dropped sometime in early September at the start of the fall season. KICU dropped it too, though it still has the Live Now simulcast in the middle of the day. If I'm not mistaken, Fox Weather is on a subchannel somehwere on at least one of the stations Fox owns in each market.

Yes, is that not basically what I said?

This doesn't read as any new information, but rather just analysis of the original story that the WSJ broke several weeks ago. I do agree though that it seems more than likely that the 10pm hour goes away and will probably be replaced by more local news in most places, especially the small markets. For local stations, that's probably the best bang for their buck – no extra costs ("you've been producing half an hour, so we'll promote you to doing 90 minutes!") and a lot more ad inventory and therefore more revenue potential for the stations. I doubt we'll see a late national newscast as so many have speculated in here. If NBC is going to give back the hour to affiliates, then they're going to give back the hour. I suppose some stations on the east coast could take the west coast edition of Nightly on a tape delay if they really wanted to, but that sounds kind of lame. At the most, maybe NBC would offer the option for stations to carry that Tom Llamas show or whatever else is on late on NBC News Now at that hour. One idea I haven't seen brought up is whether the stations in the Central and Mountain time zones would be able to shift primetime to 8-10 and basically expand prime access to the 7pm hour and also still have a decent lead-in to the 10pm newscasts. If so, that would make programming neatly uniform nationwide with prime access until 8pm, primetime 8-10, and then local news at 10. If so, then this move would really work out well for the stations in the middle part of the country. I would love to see some stations take this opportunity to do their own local late night talk shows. That would be fascinating, and perhaps some big market stations could pull it off. But I bet the cost-benefit analysis on that doesn't even get close to penciling out.

This open debuted a few weeks ago when KPIX shuffled around all their anchors. They're clearly trying to market the 6 and 7pm newscasts with Juliette Goodrich as complements to the Evening News with Norah O'Donnell. But aside from the new opens and giant tease banners for the 6 and 7pm shows, it's the same mish-mash of old and new graphics everywhere else on KPIX. Plus, knowing PIX, they'll change their minds on everything again in about 3 months...

Good for him. He was one of the handful of people Fox laid off early in the pandemic.

Yeah, ask Jeff Michael how well that turned out for him. I don't see what kind of case Mark has at all here. As I understand it, management also even approved that he could say something about Lynette, and the weekend AM EP had something written, but then Mark ignored it in the moment and went off script. As far as all the talent departures in general, from what I've heard, it's all coming down to money. Nexstar isn't cutting pay, but they're not offering talent another dime when their contracts come up for renewal. People seem to like the GM, but the ND is a very by-the-book corporate kind of guy (and his track record coming from KING and KPIX isn't all that excellent to begin with.) Lynette Romero will be fine. She's going to work for a better company for better terms and with better quality of life. Most people outside this industry probably don't realize that what happened to her is extremely common. KTLA will also be fine. Speaking from experience, I can tell you that the social media crowd that gets worked up about this kind of stuff isn't the same crowd as the people who are actually watching. KTLA's news director might be on thin ice. And Mark Mester should probably consider a career change right about now.

Mark Mester’s bio is no longer on the KTLA website.

The station owns the airtime and decides what they do with it. If they decide to let an anchor use it to say goodbye, then great. If they don't, then that's their decision too. Different stations and different circumstances could lead to different decisions, but ultimately, nobody is owed any airtime. You'd also be surprised to find out how little viewers actually notice or care if an anchor 'disappears.' Yes, many might notice, but most don't. What everyone in this line of work should know is that everyone, from the GM, to the anchors, to the part-time video editor, is replaceable. I am far from a Nexstar apologist, and I'm glad I don't work for that company, but unless there's a huge backstory that we're not aware of, then it sounds like a lot of the on-air people at KTLA need to be reined in and have their egos put in check. I get that KTLA is all about personality, and to a degree, that's fine, but anchors are principally hired to do a job, which is to do the news. They're not hired to do a talk or reality show, and they're not hired to sell products or a lifestyle on Instagram. It wouldn't surprise me if Mark Mester just anchored his last newscast on KTLA. What he just did is stupid. I highly doubt the GM would have approved of what he said, but the fact that he referenced her in it is enough to make it appear like she did, and that's just stupid on his part. He just put a target on his own back by doing that. I get that he must feel like some special connection with their viewers has been violated, but being the weekend AM anchor at a big market station (or an anchor at any station) is not that big of a deal. Ultimately, it's management calling the shots, and management hire people to do the news and also not make the company look bad.

An anchor got away with airing the station's dirty laundry not just on air, but also in the first four minutes of the A-block of a newscast? I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. The news should always come first. I get that it's KTLA's style to be a little overly personal, but all this is doing is making the station look bad and making the situation worse. Trust me, nothing good comes out of calling attention to yourself in these situations. That is way over the top for what sounds like a fairly routine situation of an anchor not feeling valued and going to a competitor for a better offer at the end of a contract. Sucks that such a thing happens, but that happens in this business all the time.

Weekday AM reporter, weekend PM anchor is kind of weird. That seems like a temporary schedule until new management comes in and decides whether to give her a more prominent role either in the morning or evening.

If he doesn't work on Face the Nation, put him on Mornings. It he doesn't work on Mornings, put him on streaming. If he doesn't work on streaming, ....? I'm sure he's probably a nice guy, but he just doesn't have that on-screen presence that clicks with viewers. If he's their idea for a marquis show on the streaming channel, then the streaming channel must be in a lot more trouble than it looks.

What strikes me the most about all of this is how traditional it all looks. Solid royal blue everywhere, restrained design elements, and an orchestral theme that's refreshed but still light on contemporary touches. The newscast itself is pretty sober with an offering of all the meat and potatoes news of the day. This show feels more in line with what it was like during the later Rather or early Pelley eras. Funny how every time CBS tries to shake up the Evening News, they always eventually go back to a pretty traditional presentation and newscast format. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Amazing to think that set held up pretty well for 15 years with very few modifications.

Dang. They have a lot of the ingredients for success, but they just cannot get it together.

I don't get the pessimism on here about this. The soaps have run their course. We've all known that for the better part of two decades now. NBC's also not going to replace it with any other kind of conventional program like another tired talk show. NBC News Now is a really high quality product, and this is a great opportunity to get traditional TV audiences to sample it. Somebody's finally going to try a true midday national newscast. I also don't think this is that much of a competitor response to GMA3 – that show is garbage, whereas NBC News Now is actual news. It's not going to be pretty though when word gets back to the Days of Our Lives audience that their beloved show is moving to some far-flung internet outlet. I would not want to be answering phones at an NBC affiliate this fall, as that is a very small but pretty rabid fanbase. I remember whenever NBC would pre-empt DOOL for something else, such as the Olympics, the French Open or a news special report, a DOOL fan would call in and accuse *us,* not NBC, of pre-empting DOOL and would threaten to call NBC to get them to pull our affiliation. Lol.

KKTV in Colorado Springs has such a thing already: https://tvnewscheck.com/uncategorized/article/kktvs-new-digs-small-in-size-big-in-tech/

Looks nice. I'm surprised they didn't get the same set everyone else has gotten.

The 7-9am block was pretty much identical for all the stations as the 6am hour. The thing that's a little shocking to me about the LA ratings is just how low the share is across the board – so much competition I guess, not just from all the other news options, but just everything else that's on the air too. I can't see the Spanish stations, but maybe those take most of the viewers, perhaps? I suppose you could say that KTLA and KABC are the leaders, but neither of them seem to have anything that's a dominant news hour over everyone else like what you see in other markets. KTLA stays a pretty constant .5 rating / 12 share in the demo all morning long, which isn't bad, but not a runaway. Compare that to the Bay Area market, for example, where KTVU averaged a 1.0 rating / 23 share in the 7 and 8am hours. Another insight I saw is that I can see why they'd want to do more with KCAL. The primetime block is actually quite strong. KCAL's 9pm hour last week averaged a .6 rating / 4 share in the demo, which was not only the best rating of any KCAL/KCBS newscast, but also one of the better ratings of any English language newscast in LA. I think trying to do something local on KCAL in the morning while leaving all the network garbage on KCBS is a pretty good idea. That doubles the ad inventory, and it at least gives them a chance at maybe siphoning some viewers away from KTLA and KTTV. What KCBS is currently doing in the morning clearly isn't working.

I think this is a brilliant idea. KCBS isn't going to take a ratings hit – they have nowhere to go but up. 6am hour P25-54 27 Jun - 1 Jul KCBS 0.0 rating, 1 share KNBC 0.1 rating, 2 share KTLA 0.5 rating, 15 share KABC 0.2 rating, 7 share KCAL (Relative Justice) 0.0 rating, 1 share KTTV 0.2 rating, 7 share Sure, it's only July when morning ratings are pretty soft anyway with school not in session, but May didn't look any better for KCBS.

For those interested, KNBC is launching a 3pm show in September.