MediaZone4K

IMO this would have been a better package to stick with. That light blue bar below the logo just needs to align with the light gray headline feed box.

Standing vs sitting works depending on the station, and the set. On WNBC and WANF it looks off, WNBC especially beecuase if the awkwardness of camera angles.

WWOR and WNYW did the standing format very well back in the 2000s, especially because they had a more dramatic tabloid flair to their presentation.

Rare find, WABC 5 & 6 PM News, 1999. Late era Bill Beutel.

On 9/14/2022 at 5:11 PM, 24994J said:

 

Are these stations getting paid by the letter/word?

 

'CBS [Market] MORNINGS' (KCNC and WBBM are two that come to mind) surely gets the job done, in a more concise manner.

 Exactly!!!

On 12/19/2022 at 4:02 PM, Georgie56 said:

KPIX ended up being first out the gate.

 

 

Well, here we are in January and exactly what was propheseised has occured.

Didn't mean for this to turn overly political. I'll humbly say that I liked Norman Lear's shows, I will agree that Sanford was the most funny, and I dont think everything rural had to be purged from CBS' line up. A mix of rural and urban humor would have been a nice balance.

Tv shows can make social statements, it's art. The issue to me is when EVERY show gets political, when shows get too preachy, or one political line of thinking is dominant in most shows.

For example, I watch South Park if I want biting social satire but when I watch Martin I just want to see a comedian and 4 friends get into light hearted antics. If I watch a razor commercial I just want to be sold on how "amazing" the product is, not given a social commentary on the state of masculinity. The politicizing of everything has turned people off from tv. 

9 hours ago, jase said:

 

You young whippersnappers!!!! Leave us 'traditionalists' alone!!!

 

But seriously...I agree it makes sense to have 'some' form of uniformity (whether it's graphics, music, etc..). However, that uniformity shouldn't come at the expense of, for example, a station's uniqueness. And that is no doubt a huge challenge that CBS has to work through.

Uniformity isnt all bad. It's cool seeing an identical format with different faces when going to another city.  But I dont mind a middle ground, uniformity with traces of uniquness. For example, KDKA has the standard CBS get up, only their little twist is the black and gold graphics. Staions could have a standardized set perhaps with individual takes on colors or set per market. Maybe even a different version of the theme. ABC's O&Os have achieved this and they're largely winning. CBS hasn't achieved a winning formula to warrant a standard format acoss stations. 

On 1/4/2023 at 11:30 AM, Media_1904 said:

New Set designed by Jack Morton

This set is perhaps the most redeeming thing about the current rebrand debacle. Simply marvelous. Good to see them and KTLA got it right!

I hope CBS doesnt get rid of the couch sitting area they have in multiple markets. It very physical and detailed.

3 hours ago, bpatrick said:

For me, the death knell was when old shows like "Hawaii Five-O" and "Magnum, P.I." were revived.  However good they may be, it indicates to me that the Hollywood creative community is woefully dry on ideas.  And all the game, reality (including news), and contest programs (such as "America's Got Talent") are ways to fill prime time as cheaply as possible (come on, do we really need two hours of "20/20" and "Dateline" on Friday nights?). One problem, I think, is that there are too many channels and not enough programming to fill them all. Also, I can't think of a lineup today that excites people like CBS's Saturday-night block in the '70s or NBC's "must-see-TV" Thursday block in the '80s and '90s. Further, it's the very fact that we have computers and online streaming that makes it so hard for television as we've always known it to attract an audience.  The simple fact is what is happening is the same thing that happened to old-style "30s and '40s radio when television came in.  

 

 

There was a time I felt sad at the decline of tv, therefore overjoyed at the prospect of classic tv reboots. Now that I've seen the stale writing and political heavyhandedness on revivals , it's best they're left in the past. 

Its like Hollywood is out of ideas or is so dissatisfied by today's world, that they'd rather look to the past for nostalgic comfort. 

It all comes down to personal taste.

The current O&O look is not great but this isnt much of an upgrade. For me, grand well composed themes like The Enforcer, ABC's Cool Hand Luke, or NBC's the Mission are timless as apposed to techno gumdrop beat sounding pieces like Tega does.

On 1/6/2023 at 9:06 PM, sfomspphl said:

 

What % of streaming news viewing time is on small devices vs a normal TV screen? I get the sense people equate streaming with mobile device. But at least in my habits, most of my 'streaming' is on a full sized TV as we don't use traditional cable, but one of the streaming packages like Hulu Live or YouTube TV, or Pluto.

 

And these graphics designed for mobile come off flat and sterile on TV screens. 

Exactly. There is a perception that most mobile viewing takes place on a smartphone as opposed to a tablet, computer, or full blown smart tv. I still dont get the notion of why mobile must = flat. Even the glossy graphics of yesterday still hold up well on small screen phones playing old youtube clips. But again, it all comes down to personal preference.

The graphics look very generic: big, white, flat, and boxy. As someone wrote earlier, it looks like a local cable news operation such as NY 1.

The enforcer theme should remain, it's iconic and powerful. I hope more local stations don't go the Tegna route with video game sounding themes in an attemt to seem "hip and digital".

Ultimately, what is the endgame? Cable and broadcast shutting down entirely? Tv networks like ABC converting soely to free ad supported or paid subscription streaming services offering live sports or live news at fixed times, and producing shows that release a new episode at midnight on "Day X" every week?

We're already seeing CBS O&Os demphasize channel numbers which is a sign of linear tv's growing irrlevance, even in news consumption. They're basically saying "what does a channel number matter if your watching this online?". 

Inside Story (1984) covering big name local news anchors like KABC/KCAL's Jerry Dunphy and WTVJ's Ralph Renick.The aforementioned men had competing philosophies. Renick advocated for giving the audience hard wide ranging news, whether they or media consultants like it or not. Dunphy believed in giving the audience what they want to see -- within the boundaries of good taste-- as ratings keep a station alive. It's amazing to see anchors like Dave Moore & Charles Kuralt's concern for journalistic content as far back as its prime--the 80s! Imagine what they'd think of today's local news. One thing that Kuralt and Moore needed to realize is that substance is prime but decoration attracts viewers. A good tasting cake must first look appealing to entice the eater. Elements like set design and graphics may seem tivial but still matter.

3 minutes ago, NewEgg00 said:

 

I agree. Outside of news, there's no need for CBS News branding nor call letters.

 

But the thing is that the reason why they may use the name of newscasts like you exemplified is for TV guide listings. There's no way people are actually going to say long names like that. 

At the end of the day, I have a feeling layman viewers are going to be saying "I saw it on Channel 2 News last night" whether they watch the news on TV or online. 

The placement of the word "news" affects how smoothly the brand rolls off the tounge.

Example, KPIX. "CBS Bay Area" rather than "CBS News Bay Area" allows the branding's use outside of newscasts, without having to cluster in the call letters. "CBS BAY Area News at 5", "CBS Bay Area News at 11". If we are de emphasizing channel numbers, I'm sure call letters don't really matter either on an o&o  station.

"CBS News Bay Area Evening Edition: 6PM" is a paragraph.

*KCAL is a different story as CBS is the secondary brand*

Oh CBS what a mess. I understand that the aim is for straightforward easily identifiable branding, but this is too wordy. " KCAL News at 11AM on CBS Los Angeles". When you have a name as a brand its more easily transferable. Example: Atlanta News First, it works on both WANF and WPCH. Then again this was tried already with "News Central". Maybe CBS should abandon standardized O&O branding and let individual stations do their own thing.

The L3's look terrible,  it screams streaming (which is probably the point). 

5 minutes ago, TVNewsLover said:

 

Who anchored the noon?

 

More equitable would be:

A: 4am-7am

B: 7am-10am

10am-11am, 11am-11:30am, 12Noon-1pm

That's better. Local stations are really mix and match all over the place with anchor pairings, that it's confusing to tell what time you can see your preferred anchor.

I guess TJ and Amy figured that they might as well carry on as apologizing and damage control stops nothing in todays culture that will drag you until your destruction. 

3 hours ago, TheNewsTV said:

As it seems to me, the division of schedules looked like this:
4-4:30 am: Kalyna Astrinos.
4:30-6:00 am: Chris Holmstrom and Marci Gonzalez.
6-7 am: Rudabeh Shahbazi and Marci Gonzalez.
7-10 am: Rudabeh Shahbazi and Jamie Yuccas.
10-11 am: Amy Johnson.
11-11:30 am: Chris Holmstrom.

why not just

Team A: 4:30-7 am

Team B: 7-9 am

Team B: 9-11:30 am

Part of scheduling is a predictable team line up.

The simplest scheduling may have been to similcast KCAL Mornings on KCBS from 4:30-7 am, then go to CBS Mornings. Viewers are probably used to local then national arrangement on NBC and ABC so it may be confusing for them (the little that watch)  to see a national morning newscast at 5 AM and then a repeat at 7. I'm sure they have their reasons for doing this though. 

I question if the decline of live tv is limited to the United States.

Overall, it looks like KCBS has exhausted every trick in the book to remain relevant. Let's see if this works out.

19 minutes ago, DirtyHarry said:

 

If I remember correctly, Pluto uses Vevo for music videos.

 

I don't mind a reasonable amount of commercials. I realize people have to pay their bills and make some money. The problem is when they keep layering them and the commercials never seem to end. The other thing I hate is when they push low quality borderline scam products on us. If they're so great at pinpointing potential customers, they should know who is stupid enough to buy those things and who isn't.

 

I personally believe that all stale content should be free, when it comes to music, print and video. Forget the copy protection and all this other crap, just encode them in a way so that a reasonable amount of commercials get inserted from the internet. If you want to watch commercial free, then you can watch them through a service. (I understand that you should pay for first-run and newer content however.)

 

 

BET does this alot. Weird timeslots like 4:27 pm to 5:06 pm to accomodate more commercials.

The set looks nice and the promo graphics were well done even though they reek of corperate blandness. 

This is really someting. An owned and operated station is doing that badly that it's independent sister station will become the chief brand. Personally, I haven't seen this before. For LA watchers, is KCAL that much more popular than KCBS? 

How do you feel about the double (live and repeat) broadcast of CBS Mornings?

6 minutes ago, Newsjunkie24 said:

 

I don't get why Paramount Global doesn't move some of their lower-watched, nothing but reruns channels like MTV2, Teen Nick, Nicktoons, and MTV Classic to Pluto TV. We know the way retrans works is that all the big conglomerates want ALL of their channels carried on a provider, and if not, channels that people actually watch will get blacked out. Paramount and WBD seem to be the worst when letting minimally watched channels survive. Even NBCU has shut down channels that had almost no viewers. I think MTV2 and MTV Classic have long been among the lowest rated channels overall. 

(Didn't merge) Didn't even realize MTV 2 was doing that bad. Content wise it's superior to it's sibling Rediculousness and Teen Mom ladened MTV.

And one would think an abundance of choice would make tv better but it's had the exact opposite effect.

Something left out of my earlier essay, lol. Cable channels rerunning the same thing ALL day long. I'm looking at you Rediculousness MTV, or SpongeBob Nickelodeon. Does Rediculousness even do that well in the ratings to be rerun that often?

I wouldnt even mind an endless array of cable channels playing movies if said feature was inline with it's niche. Example: a movie like Notorius (about the music industry) on VH 1. 

On 1/3/2023 at 9:10 PM, VHSgoodiesWA said:

Late night TV shows have also declined to new lows. Same jokes about former President Trump EVERY NIGHT on every single show. We get it, I can't stand him either, but he's no longer POTUS. Surely is there anything else to make fun about? Segments are mundane and cookie-cutter compared to previous hosts (Leno's Headlines, Craig Ferguson, Geoff and Secretariat, Carnac on Johnny Carson). They have little to no creative value to viewers. I love Bill Maher, but I don't watch any other late night show. That ship sailed when Letterman, Ferguson, and Leno retired.

 

Even the soap opera fans are noticing extremely poor writing and the lack of nuance on Y&R, B&B and General Hospital, compared to 20-30 years ago. Days already went to Peacock (to die, probably). It looks as though the rest of the soaps are also on life support.

You hit every individual nail on the head. It's like sometime in the 2010s, exectives just forgot how to produce good tv.

Jimmy Kimmel is the cheif suspect.  I thought the nonstop Trump coverage would've died after the election, but Kimmel continues to go on and on. Find material outside of "orange man and red party bad" EVERY night.

On 1/3/2023 at 9:41 PM, TresGriffin said:

you know it's gotten bad when you're actually excited for the fact that over on B&B, Brooke and Taylor finally both kicked Ridge to the curb. The writers must've finally taken notice that we're sick of watching these two now-grandmothers battling each other over that man. 30+ years of it was more than enough.

Saw that too!! Soap writers seem to be ignorant that repetitive poor writing and not just changes in viewing habits have lead to the genre's collapse. The only reason those shows retain an audience is viewer loyalty. 

On 1/3/2023 at 11:47 PM, mrschimpf said:

Only three game shows (and one, Family Feud, doesn't even get near a 1/10 of an entendre and makes me embarrassed to watch) are left, and it seems except for PBS, broadcast, cable and streaming have unilaterally decided that all kids watch is Fortnite and play Roblox and refuse to put money into any children's content (the Saturday morning E/I Hearst 'for kids...but really old people' racket doesn't count), and David Zazlav showed his true hand by culling every bit of kid's content from HBO Max and ready to cut Cartoon Network to the bone.

It's sad what's become of kids tv. Back in the day even my adult family members could sit watch and enjoy because the writing was smarter and didn't dumb things down for children. All kids in my family look at now are Co Co Melon, and watch other children play with toys and video games on YouTube. Don't get me started on just how and low bar some of the kids YouTube content is ex: Dobby ASMR. Gone are the days of Cartoon Network Fridays, saturday morning Disney and Nick Jr reruns on ABC and CBS, good shows on Nickelodeon, or actual new Sesame Street episodes on PBS. Big events like Fairly Odd Parents tv movies or deep shows like Avatar the Last Airbender would be hard to find today. 

Children's television seemed to fall off somewhere around 2012-13. That was around the time Victorious ended on Nick and Good Luck Charlie ended on Disney. Since then, both networks have failed to produce a consistent class of hit shows. What sucks is that despite the lack of programming, they won't rerun the old stuff (and not in a decent time slot if they do).