ns8401

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/

That might have been the idea… their 2000’s graphics package circle 7 spun like that.

Well… they got some nifty new preview graphics in a light blue color: Also a new background for use in a multiple person box, not sure how well it shows up but it’s using some of the same light blue color. They’ve had the blue on their jackets for years now. It’s about the same shade that Honda uses for its commercials. Lower Thirds are the same. Sports sponsorship bumper showing new sports logo: 11pm Open complete with some actual movement with the logo: 7 News Detroit Sponsorship Bumper:

They been stuck in 2nd since 2009 overall and third in the demo… they have nothing to lose.

I hate to break it to you but all three major stations in Detroit will have now rebranded at least once. It happens. Folks in this market seem to like the hype of WDIV and absolutely nothing 7 has tried seems to work. They have been stuck in second since 2009 and there for 22 of the last 28 years. Even though their newscasts are really well put together now they spent years in the doldrums quality wise and never really followed the format to begin with even in the 1970’s. Their newscasts weren’t so different from KABC or WABC or WLS that we should say they reinvented the ABC local news wheel. It’s not the tradition it is in Philly or something either. If it means better graphic elements and a new voiceover and maybe talent opens and a new style that’s probably a positive on aggregate. Their focus is gonna be on using 7 and Channel 7… they don’t even have a slogan anymore. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.