ns8401

Um... oops?

Huh... that's interesting... certainly rare for a station to do this but a definite "we just need a few more points" kind of move. That makes me feel better about why WXYZ has done that the past two Sunday nights in this sweeps. I wonder if 5 and 7 will wind up tied this time around? My prediction: NBC 5 didn't do that too.

I suppose winning the lottery and ponying UP the $30,000 a month might be the answer.. Then they'd probably hate somebody putting numbers out there. It's too bad they don't tout their status as much as they used too... You'd think with the growing news presence on local TV they'd be doing it more and more...

It's more fun when everyone is firing on all cylinders. One of the things I notice for better or worse is that press releases and "#1 at 10" will often cite households to make their claims. They only give the demo numbers they win otherwise. So because it's so much easier to get the totals it's easier to quantify the state of the race that way. Feder gives us demos so that's helpful but ratings data in Chicago is harder to come by than some other places like Detroit where the winning station always puts out a press release hitting its close 2nd rival over the head. I've noticed Atlanta is another place where regular releases from the stations are common. In effect a lack of demo numbers available makes the demos irrelevant to someone trying to follow it if all they will give you is overalls. I realize that's not the way it works for setting advertising rates etc. But I guess you can only work with the numbers you are given. So if I have 10 years of household numbers for May for example I'd be inclined to want the May 15 households and ignore the demos entirely since my existing frame of reference is households. That's the situation I'm in with my Detroit stuff. I put together a ton of data from 13 years of press releases. It's at least 85% households. It'd be nice if TV were like radio and you could just go get the data from a site that aggregated it all. Has anyone ever seen a release online anywhere from any of the Chicago stations?

Haven't new graphics and music been rumored for seemingly years now?

See that's something I don't get... Maybe it's that there are too many news organizations working behind 7 to make any one of them a really strong competitor because the audience is too diluted.

Just to play devils advocate could it be that some switched to 5 and some who had switched 7 off returned but the switching to 5 was bigger? That would offset or about in theory.

Hmmm... Has MAQ's product improved that much?

That's good attention to detail... They could have used the plain "ABC7 Eyewitness News" open.

I guess that first new 5pm preview update from 5/8 was version 1.0. The bug was covering up the large 7abc logo they had pasted on the skyline title card at the end of their preview. So they scrapped that card entirely and went with a simple 7abc logo in the center at the bottom to the left of the bug, appearing on the screen by coming closer to the viewer with a simple "NEXT 5PM" on a red band above the logo. Doesn't get much simpler than that. They sure are doing a lot of refreshing lately...

I was thinking specifically of a new radar look, not that we need it, but in the old days it was replaced every couple years with a new look. I have seen some slightly tweaked maps lately with different orientations and levels of zoom, numbers of places etc. I even saw an old style map with huge numbers and only like 6 cities on it for the lows. That's straight out of 2003... The old "Dopplar 7 Weather" used that format from 2003-2011. Usually now they use a map that's zoomed out more and has more places on it... If they use one at all. All of the Scripps stations have different weather maps so I think the WSI stuff must be customizable in appearance at some level. I don't know if Graham and FOX use WSI or not... Their stuff looks quite different. One thing I'm noticing is that there is a new lightening bolt symbol on the maps for lightning strikes. The maps used to show a solid flash dot thingy before.

I haven't noticed many new maps yet though... Are those involved too?

The thing is that they used it twice once at 6 and then at 11 and all 6 times he reached up to that one spot... No need to reach if he's using the clicker. His arm shouldn't move up like that at all using the clicker. Unless he had to point it at something. Edit: You know what... I think he's faking the touch effect to make it seem high tech... He's definitely using the clicker. Geez... That's kinda bush league. Fooled me though so I imagine it threw every barely watching viewer off too.. Thanks for catching that.

That's pretty funny...

More graphical tweeks at WXYZ: The 5pm preview during the now has switched from the 2012 look to the late 2014 look with a new end card that is a little different than the 7 and 11pm cards: 2014 7/11pm version: 2015 5pm version: They also got a couple of new weather effects, the first being a new aerial view over Downtown Detroit that changes as time goes by (night to day, clouds changing, rain and then sun etc.), it isn't the best thing ever though the water effects are ok: The second is the ability to put lists of conditions at various times over the map using some kind of touch or magic eye trick where the meteorologist raises his hand up to advance each line onto the screen. These graphics are also 2014 refreshes of the original list design: On tonight's 11pm the weather computer lagged and the meteorologist was waving his hand around saying "come on computer!".

The first half of World News Tonight aired on the app this evening... I'm not sure if this was on purpose or if they are falling asleep at the switch like they did with Inside Edition the other night.

Mmmm baked everything...

WXYZ switched graphics tonight for it's 11pm preview promo before network programming begins at 8 and also the newscast preview at 1059pm before the 11pm news starts. Both use the October 2014 promo graphic L3's that Scripps put out and they had until now only been using during extended previews of their 7pm (at 655pm) and 11pm (during ABC primetime) newscasts: 8pm Billboard preview of the 11pm newscast: 1059pm Preview of the 11pm newscast: These things still aren't the worlds best looking graphics but they might hint at what a graphical refresh of the current Scripps package could resemble. They definitely don't match all that well with the current L3 look. Lovely having 2 logos sitting next to each other on the screen in the second video.

That's insane... Glad to see you still exist too... Been awful quiet...

I would have preferred gluing an abc sticker on the ancient flags. That'd be cheap. Or even just have kept them.

WXYZ got new mic flags today... they are black instead of blue and rounded to fit the 7abc logo instead of just being old used box mic flags from who knows where. They had the blue ones since mid 2011 when they retired the classic 1960's O&O mic flags. Old ones as seen in this promo: New ones:

Got 8 minutes of bonus "news" tonight.... The live stream was not shut off after the 10pm so it went right into Inside Edition.

There's a thread on this new site over in the News Music and Voiceovers section... It might be worth a read too...

Oops... from Saturday's 10pm... No scapegoat this time... for all that they do well their OTS's are horrid sometimes...

Did WLS take the Karen Travers Live shot from Baltimore at the top of the 10pm either yesterday or today?