Rusty Muck

@Georgie56posted this in the Discord but KCNC recently updated their Twitter profile, without a single 4 in sight. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what will happen next.

Again, the problem is that KDKA, KYW, WBZ and WCCO have to share those call letter brands with unrelated radio stations. Most people really wouldn’t care if the call letter brands were retired. They aren’t nerds like us and get easily confused between the two. If that wasn’t the case (and CBS had forced the radio stations to change their calls en masse in 2017, as what Sinclair made Lotus do when they bought KOMO radio) then a case could be made for keeping the call sign brands in the TV group.

The goal is brand unification. CBS already has an open position for Group Creative Director which explicitly states that they will “work closely with CBS Stations, CBS News and CBS Marketing to unify our brands.“ Group W hasn’t existed for nearly 26 years. Legacy is one thing but not if it’s holding back the evolution of the station group/rebuild of the network news division. Moreover, outside of KPIX and WJZ-TV, the Group W TV stations never fully owned those recognizable brands. They were always shared with radio and now mean totally different things to different people since CBS sold off the radio unit. (Nevermind that KYW-TV was never a “market leader” in any sense of the word.)

WCCO, KDKA, WJZ and KYW share their identities with wholly unrelated radio stations. John Q. Public has no clue about KDKA not having any tie to it’s onetime TV sister, so of course the TV station got all sorts of flack when Wendy Bell’s career imploded at the radio station. Or that KYW radio is now co-located with, and operated alongside, WCAU. Call sign brand equity doesn’t mean as much as you think it does when it’s been split both ways for decades. How much do vehicle wraps cost? Something instituted by prior management (the GM that instituted the gaudy black-and-gold look left months ago) always can be reversed through a simple Paramount Global budget line item.

WSBK doesn’t have to compete against anyone at 8pm. The 10pm hour is up against WHDH and (in theory) WFXT. Why not experiment at 10pm and eventually merge the two newscasts as a 8–11pm primetime news block?

Everything is pointing to CBS using these DFW-hub produced newscasts as what will subsume all the existing brands. (NewscastStudio isn’t exactly a reliable source, tbh, I could barely read what Michael Hill wrote.) Outside of WCCO, KCNC, WJZ and KDKA, the CBS O&Os are laggards. WFOR, KYW-TV and WBBM have nothing to lose by becoming CBS News Miami, CBS News Philadelphia and CBS News Chicago, respectively. Ditch the current number and call letter brands and Enforcer, too. Besides, it’s all but confirmed that WWJ-TV will be rebranding as CBS Detroit/CBS News Detroit when their news operation launches.

It depends on how badly Daystar needs the money. After Harold Camping's 2012 apocalypse prediction failed, Family Radio had several of their 92-108 FMs (inc. Newark, Philly-Trenton and Annapolis) reassigned as commercial in order to get quick cash. Daystar might be well advised to do the same.

If that one-size-fits-all Gray ticker wasn’t in the way, I’d be fine with the look; in fact, the WMC package looks like something that Raycom would have done back in the day.

Amen, amen, amen! There should be a niche that Austin could fill and give KMSG something of value for the community. Even if it was a long-form newsmagazine I’d respect it.

LOLOL at all the apologists and shills on here (and you know you are) for something that is in reality a non-factor in the Fresno market and never will be a factor. It’s almost like you want Austin to credit you as a “Consulting Producer” at the end of his newscast. I don’t think anyone at KFSN or KMPH is even aware this newscast even exists, let alone thinking it poses anything close to a “threat”.

The cold truth is that news is a public service, but broadcasting is a moneymaking profession. That’s why both have been at odds with each other since Edward R. Murrow interviewed celebrities on See It Now and chimpanzee J. Fred Muggs was a sidekick on Today. Look, maybe the program could improve. But there is no excuse in the world why that debut newscast should have made it to air in the first place. It set back whatever goals Austin wanted to meet, and needlessly so. Fresno is too big a market to have such a fiasco happen. Hell, Glendive and Alpena MI are too big a market.

It might be in everyone’s best interests for the program to be put on hiatus indefinitely and retooled outright. If it got canceled or ended by Austin’s volition, well, I again fault the station for not doing a darn thing to help the product at launch. They failed him.

This really makes Ed Agre's work at KXGN all the more impressive. He was a literal one-man band with no computers and barely any internet access and yet he put out a damn good product, good enough to get that Real Sports shout-out. It's also easy to mock WSVI over their No Budget News but in those videos I linked above, it's also evident that Jerome Agean and Wes Small made an effort. I can absolutely respect them for that. This debut newscast should never have gone over the air. It should have been one of many audition tapes so technical issues could be ironed out prior to the debut. In this case I absolutely fault the station over Austin.

With all due respect to the phrase, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” here’s two more salient phrases that more appropriately apply here, and they run hand-in-hand: 1. You will never get a second chance to make a great first impression. 2. Perception is reality. If you live in Fresno, and you stumbled upon that debut newscast and saw it looked no-budget with stories lifted from other stations, a Podcaster doing sports, and a setup that sure as hell lent credence to Scott Jones’s slam (which, considering Scott’s irrationally absurd hatred of Dave Lougee, sure doesn’t mean much), you’re likely not going to tune back to that newscast ever again. If the perception is that it’s an cheap newscast with no effort or care put into it whatsoever, then good luck changing that. Other options exist in the Fresno market, including a freaking O&O. Watch them instead. The fact this debut newscast already went viral is a testament to both sayings. Few will watch that second newscast in comparison to the debut. It’s how things work.

Royalty-free production music CDs and digital downloads exist. Many of them are actually very good. There is no reason why this had to happen.

Compare to WSVI in their Jerome Agean/Wes Small era and their newscasts become infinitely more watchable: It’s not that Austin Reed made an attempt. The technical effort is simply nonexistent, it plays like a no-budget parody of a WatchMojo countdown video that somehow got played on OTA TV.

WOIO/WUAB has two substantial translators to compensate for their lousy V signal, and WTCL does the same. Plus WTCL is the only Spanish-language media outlet within the city proper (unless you count WQHS, which is run out of a broom closet).

Sure doesn't sound like someone who would be thinking about getting licenses for newscast themes.

Wouldn't be surprised it's "Source: Dude, Trust Me, Bro"

KMSG did the impossible. They made WSVI look like WSVN. I can understand a budget of nothing and a staff of just Austin and a producer, but Ed Agre was a news department of one and KXGN put out a far more competent product on-air.

"The Spirit of Akron! On W - N - I - R" is without a doubt the closest thing to an anthem here in Northeast Ohio. Change my mind. And oh god, is that WGN ripoff of "Nothing But Class" painful to listen to.

Easiest move to make is using 19.2 as a full-power SD simulcast of WTCL 6.1.

I’ve mentioned it on the Discord server but with the “5,500 journalists” and hundreds of TV stations behind them, you’d think that NewsNation would have an inventory of documentaries to run as filler on the weekends instead of a marathon of Last Man Standing reruns.

I was also mocking the press release billing the lineup changes as the greatest thing since sliced bread. I actually like the moves but they are totally overselling it. (For those not on the server, NewsNation is referred to meme-wise as “Matlock” because 1) Matlock doesn’t actually air on the channel, 2) the channel’s highest rated programming is the rerun block of JAG and Blue Bloods and 3) the alternative is either crying or continually being very frustrated at something that never lived up to expectations.)

Looks like the press release was updated and... hmm...