MediaZone4K

The surrealness seeing CNN simulcast on Fox!

Menefee seems to be a good calm presence. Is he best with Rosanna? Debatable. Rosanna needs someone like Greg, someone who can match her energy.

Good. From experience, waiting for sports to end to do a live shot that would work just as fine pretaped is a waste of time.

My thoughts exactly. To me, local stations sending reporters to national stories with no market ties are a stunt move to flex their resources on the competition. Personally, I don't care about seeing my local anchors at the presidential debate if none of the candidates are tied to the DMA. I'll watch the national news for that. Sending local reporters to national events were more commonplace back in the day when stations had more resources, and weren't part of large station groups.In today's era of mass ownership and budget cuts, it wouldn't make sense for a Nexstar station in Vermont to send a reporter to a California wildfire since the company has stations in 200 markets including Cali, plus they can get a package from network. I understand wanting to control how the story is presented, but as @C Blocksaid is it worth the cost? On the flip side I've wondered... Why do networks spend money to fly correspondents all across the country when they can just take a package from, or ask for a live shot from, one of their hundreds of local affiliates who are right next to the matter. Quality control I suppose? A fresh out of college reporter in market 100 won't turn a package of Nightly News quality?

CBSEN is doing a top story rundown format now.

I'd say mornings after 7 am are the flagship for many Fox/CW stations with their own news departments. Again, six o'clock is traditionally considered the flagship show but many stations have their close-to-retirement anchor or B team, rather than their A team, doing the 6. Examples: WCBS's Dana Tyler, WNYW's Ernie Anastos, and WNBC's Chuck Scarborough.

Sidebar, thanks to whoever brought up the WAGA set. I've been griping that it looks waaay too blue, lol. It's better than KDFW but definitely not one of the better FOX owned sets.

Going back to Atlanta, the exception to that 6pm rule is WSB. From observation they usually do live hits in the 6 (even for stories that don't require them). But it's still repeated content from 4 & 5. The logic stations give for new at 4 repeat for the remainders is "audiences stick around for quick hits and don't watch newscasts straight through or for hours". How true that is, IDK? EDIT: To WSB & WXIA's credit, from watching their evening newscasts it looks like they switch up the order of stories between shows. I might run the TV for hours on one station if I'm doing something else, and the repeats are noticeable. A creative thing a station in my market does is a live VO/SOT at 4, half the story in a PKG at 5, and the complete PKG at 6, to give the illusion of new content and to keep people sticking around through shows. From a viewer POV I like it but I've heard reporters complain that turning the package multiple ways adds to their hefty workload. And I get it. 4:00 newscasts often don't leave reporters enough room to make slot. This especially if your editorial meeting begins at 9:30 a.m, and you may not be out the door until after 10:00, plus travel time, editing, etc. The vo/sot at 4 method might alleviate this. And from an employee standpoint the problem with unnecessary live shots, especially at night, is going past your shift hours. If your shift ends at 11:35pm and your 11:00 live hit is an hour away from the station, that has you getting back past midnight which can be a bummer for work-life balance.

It seems 4pm is the most important evening show now-a-days. In many markets I have seen 4:00 getting all the new packages and then being recycled throughout the later shows, with 10/11-pm maybe having some fresh nightime news. Despite 6 PM having the highest ratings, 6:00 newscasts are often rehashes of the 4pm. In Atlanta, I've seen 11 Alive and Fox 5's 6 PM newscasts featuring mostly pretaped look live shots. This most likely because a day side reporter's shift runs 9-5ish.

Look AA

Niceeee!

In general live shots at night where the scene is not visible are pointless. The main point of a live shot is to display an active scene or breaking news, the second is putting a report on the air in which there isn't enough time to package. Big markets like Atlanta are the king of pointless live shots. I doubt the audience cares if the reporter is live at an inactive scene, especially if they are consuming news after the fact on YouTube. I had a news director say he didn't want a daytime stand-up for a report airing at night, but the bridge or the cutaway two shots (and the interview) could be in daylight which made no sense.

Not terrible, not remarkable. Gets the job done.

Per the IG page of a News 12 Brooklyn journalist, I see she MMJs. NYC is a chaotic market to do that in. I would imagine the conditions are similar in Jersey, pushing people out the door. I've been told by some Nexstar employee friends that there is MMJing at PIX 11, which could be a contributing factor to turnover.

Late to the party but....the reporter turnover at WPIX along with WCBS and WNYW seems to be frequent. I could not name half the reporters at those stations compared to years past. And this is market 1, imagine the conditions in mid to low markets leading to this same issue.

I agree with your points but I do support the name change as to distinguish the CBS News streaming site from the TV platform. At this point they might as well give in and call it "CBS News +" Lol. My old school mentality says we don't need more new streaming services, but I'll still take the product on those platforms over what we're given on cable news. How are these sites even doing ratings wise?

Employees at WROC (CBS 8 Rochester, NY) are picketing over Nexstar's refusal to recognize their union. From my experience, you need about 75% of Staff support for the union to be recognized. According to the article, Nexstar tried to claim that producers are ineligible for unions because they serve in a management capacity. The National Labor Relations Board however ruled producers were union elligable. Do you all think the unionization attempts will be successful? https://rbj.net/2024/06/10/wroc-union-plans-picket-over-stalled-contract-talks/

Good Morning America has been this way since the early 2010s, even worse after Sam Champion and Josh Elliott left in 2013/2014. It's become a mix of Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight. Right now, I think GMA's hosts are less of the problem. GMA's story choice, tabloid sensationalized tone, and ADHD pacing are the issue for me Watching a GMA broadcast from 1984 or 2004 versus 2024 feels significantly dumbed down. Today has sucked since Meredith & Ann left but its news element tops GMA. CBS Mornings has its flaws but it's the most mature and news-oriented show among the three.

Yes, sets don't need to match graphics. Sometimes a graphics package looks old but a set looks fine (ex Today updating their graphics but keeping their set in 2009). But, on many of the abc o&o stations, both graphics and set happened to reach its outdated point simultaneously. In that case, they might as well update both to improve the overall aesthetic. The only station that a studio update wouldn't make sense for is WABC since they are moving facilities.

Yup. Right now the NBCs have the best sets of the O&Os I'd argue Hearst and Graham stations have the best sets of the affiliate groups. What ABC O&O would you all say has the best set? KGO? KABC?

WAGA's Sharon Lawson is leaving Good Day Atlanta after 7 years. The reasoning is not clear but her Instagram post says it was her decision. The Atlanta Journal Constitution article notes that two other veteran newscasters left the station after accepting company buyouts. Sucks! Sharon was okay. Welp...this is a creative way to reach a younger audience lol.

MSNBC has been very vocal on matters that could affect company interests. From the Rona McDaniel hiring to this. Loosy related... The only other company I've seen that allows this much criticism on company matters is Fox, with shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy routinely mocking the Fox News Channel.

On a similar note if you notice the time bugs above the station logo you'll see the Biden packages were placed in the A block. What sucks about Sinclair stations is that so much of their local broadcasts are made up of national news. Unless it's a major story, local stations typically resort to nation packages to fill airtime by the b or c blocks. In my market's Sinclair, like these stations in the report, I have seen national packages appear as early the middle of A block. And the reports are usually never from the Affiliated Network mostly from sinclair. The nationalization of local news is another issue. As a viewer I don't want to see the same stories rehashed that I can already get from Network or cable.

Fair points. All in all a job should have no say on when and where you seek employment after you leave said job.

— Except small to mid-market stations do little by way of training employees anymore. In my old mid-market newsroom, there was no formal training for reporters, just learning as you go along. There was no hair, makeup, work phones, or any perks attached for reporters. So their argument that investment in employees justifies post-employment non-compete clauses or contract breach fees is null and void. And so what if they did invest in employees? Why do employers feel the need to exercise control over what someone does when they leave your company? Fear of losing viewers? As Katie Couric leaving Today for the CBS Evening News displayed, talent switching channels doesn't mean the viewers will leave in droves as the CBS EN remained #3 and Today remained #1 in their respective slots. Nonetheless, I doubt audiences will abandon a station because a reporter (a more interchangeable face than an anchor) has switched channels. If it's fear of spreading company intellectual property — cameramen and digital writers who weren't under contract were privy to just as much information as reporters and producers who were contracted. So that policy of subjecting one to contract not the other was inconsistent to me.