ns8401

That is partially because there were never clear distinctions and much of any independence on the part of MSNBC. They have mismanaged that place repeatedly and not let it really stand on its own while it’s supposed to be separate but together at the same time. They’ve never really handled it right. A place like FOX is the only one in the family doing News. They don’t have some kind of other entity to tiptoe around. Had they been smart they would have rebranded it without references or logos of NBC and changed the slogan to some permutation of “where liberals have a voice” or something like that and programmed accordingly.

It’s also pretty commonly released and of course folks are gonna want to know. We may never find out but trying to slam that door shut like this is overkill.

It should and on say news radio it absolutely does. But being a visual medium the elephant in the room is looks and presentation whether that’s good or bad.

It’s not so much being a certain age… but there comes a time when you just look at them and listen to the delivery and you can tell it’s probably time to hang it up. We had several legacy O&O people at WXYZ in Detroit get forcibly retired that way as a cost cutting thing. But several of them just weren’t themselves anymore and couldn’t read the room apparently. Most were pushing 60-70 at the time. The downside to that is if you don’t plan well and end up with no real established second line of people. The ratings never recovered and that was 15 years ago now. ABC’s stations seem to avoid that particular pitfall fairly well.

Going past 65 isn’t uncommon. Neither is staying past your expiration date.

They do own the property. And in fairness to Scripps WXYZ moved from Downtown Detroit to Southfield and had Broadcast House built in 1959 so you do have to do routine Maintanance and upkeep sometime.

ABC would be buying a fixer upper and I don’t mean Broadcast House itself. All those Scripps mandates have done a number on the format and presentation. I know ABC could probably fix it… I don’t know much about Hearst… are they a decent owner?

Sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do to pay down debt. Scripps isn’t doing very well I don’t think. The $64,000 question is who would buy them cause presumably WMYD would be thrown in too.

It seems every time one of the stations here has shown some veteran talent the door there are folks who say they will never watch… they seem to not follow through always… the ratings have been rusted in place for 14 years now.

That’s too bad, I always thought that was a nice touch. I’m leaning towards saying they should abandon it.

Are they still doing the outside crowd waves at the camera at the end of the show at all?

Having the blinds drawn all the time defeats the purpose of the thing…

They really need to go back to letting style and content decisions be made at the local level. They can control the budgets still but each station knows more about how to connect with its area than some suit in Cincinnati. If they decided to do hard news emphasizing breaking news and investigative stuff it would go a lot farther. The business doesn’t need to be reinvented. It needs to get back to the way it was 20 or 30 years ago. And a lot of that is style and writing. That stuff is nearly free.

There isn’t enough reorchestrating in the world that can fix the music. It’s way too slow to sound serious.

I’m kind of thinking the tell on what time slot a specific station values the most is in its advertising. In my market it’s the 6pm that gets the most ads and feature reports. I know WLS emphasized the 10pm heavily in its advertising and less the other time slots in the evenings. Not sure if that’s still the case. Tonight they had 2 pretaped packages at 10pm. It was a pretty sleepy newscast.

A report from earlier in the day when the scene is more active would seem to be maximum bang for the buck. I’m used to the late news being an update show and the 6pm being the most important though… something that dates off and on back to the 1980’s at least.

I know WDIV has been progressively getting worse lately… I welcome a Scripps guy to make sure they follow through on that effort.

Is there really a whole lotta doubt that she is a particularly underwhelming anchor?

He’s probably there as long as he wants to be but must figure he has more work to do or he’s having fun while it lasts. They won’t cut him unceremoniously or anything.

I realize but I think they and he want to forget that part… I didn’t think it was quite that long a stint…

WDIV Is giving 4 of its veteran on air people and several behind the scenes people buyouts. Bernie Smilovitz (main sports anchor joined in 1986), Paula Tutman (reporter joined 1992), Rod Meloni (reporter joined 1995) and Mara McDonald (reporter joined 2004) have all accepted the incentives. This will take effect July 1. The GM even penned an open letter trying to convince everyone it’s not a cost savings move. Their quality has been slipping lately… I can’t imagine that’s going to markedly improve with the talent drain. https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/television/2024/05/28/wdiv-tv-confirms-departure-four-veteran-members-news-team/73887265007/

I grew up with that theme when WXYZ used it so it’s my all time favorite. Never mind the Action News using Eyewitness News music bit. It was when Bill Carey turned WXYZ into a pretty decent WABC imitation. I will say KABC’s presentation is a little breezy for the pace of the theme.

The second theme is arguably a lot catchier so it should be an upgrade.

Bryan Abel is leaving WXYZ for CNN Newssource… he was their 5pm anchor. https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/television/2024/04/30/brian-abel-is-leaving-wxyz-tv-detroit-for-cnn/73518574007/

It was actually Saturday 4/20.