MediaZone4K

Im surprised I haven't seen some station anchors go the work from home route for the holidays

It's always cool to see field reporters like Tony Aiello and Dave Carlin anchor over the holidays.

17 hours ago, RealNews18 said:

I get what everyone is saying… but it was Christmas Morning… not many wake up and say let me turn on the news… if anything it would be background noise while you’re opening gifts… I don’t see this as a huge deal especially if it means the staff gets time off with their family. Also GDNY ran a taped special at 9, not a live newscast as expected 

14 hours ago, Abraham J. Simpson said:

Good. 
 

For crying out loud, it’s Christmas. Skipping a morning newscast is perfectly fine. 

Agreed. Let's be fair. People work 300+ days out of the year. I see no issue in setting aside a few holidays for rest. We really need to drop our live to work attitude.

Let's be reasonable. One of seven stations slashed a news block designed for people waking up for work, where not many are going during America's biggest holiday. That's totally fine. On a day like Christmas, all you really need is morning news starting late, and 10/11pm. Previewing the day and end of the day wrap up. 

Christmas is typically a slow news day. In the internet age, skipping a newscast is nothing. Even Today and GMA usually go pre recorded on Christmas with a live headline insert. I'd say it's cool to see the world pause, even the always on TV institutions, for just ONE day.

16 hours ago, SnellKrell said:

Two wars in full bore - death and destruction!

 

If you want to spend the holiday with your family, work somewhere else!

 

Empathy. The notion that because someone works in news they don't deserve to be with their family and should be at work on a day with below average ratings and dry content is overkill. 

1 hour ago, HSV cheesehead said:

I would say either Nexstar or Gray.

I think HSV means tv channel affiliation.

On 12/18/2023 at 9:39 AM, MarkBRollins88_v2 said:

This is the exact mindset killing this industry.

Current Boomer-aged executives are they to have their cake and eat it too.

Agreed. And let that mindset be a warning to anyone thinking about entering the industry. If you have to move away from home, don't do it unless you have enough savings to carry you through a few contracts of small market sweatshop pay. Being on tv is not worth being working poor.

This applies to almost every job, not just news: your job does not care about you. You are just a number. Ideally, companies would exist for the shared wealth of every one involved. Realistically they're set up to befit the owners, share/stakeholders, and to a lesser extent the customer. The employees be damned. People realizing this has feuled the "great resignation". On top of all this, employers will cry of a labor shortage while being highly selective despite paying low...back on topic. 

I used to be turned off by big-name anchors demanding huge salaries. Now I see you have to squeeze these companies for as much as you can get because they'll pay you as little as possible given the chance.

9 hours ago, badabing said:

John Elliott announced this morning that the team will be on early tomorrow morning covering the storm, with him in the studio and new meteorologist Tony Sadiku joining from the Mobile Weather Lab.
 

It appears Tony signed off from Fox 13 Tampa Bay in early November, with the anchors announcing he was headed for NYC. 
 

https://www.facebook.com/tonysadikuwx/videos/last-day-at-fox-13/1493233278208256/

 

Unclear if WCBS is expanding the size of the weather department or if Tony is replacing Craig or someone else.

 

On related note: I have grown to consider John Elliott the hardest working on air personality in NYC. When he first came and replaced Audrey Puente, I was annoyed thinking WCBS was replacing a true New Yorker and doing what they were best at in the late 90s and early aughts— bringing outsiders in for a year or two before replacing them.
 

But John has grown on me over the years. He is always a versatile, happy warrior. From the “Live from the Couch” days, when he did 4.5 hours straight, to WCBS-FM after ‘Couch’ ended, to being pushed to weekends where he would somewhat regularly work mornings and nights, he is always there doing it. 
 

Since Elise’s passing, he has really shown how hard he works. There was one period when he did 10 days straight, including a Thursday where he did weather on every broadcast from 4:30am until 11:35pm and then back on air Friday at 4:30. He has filled in on weekend mornings for Craig (including today), he has done on the road hits on weekend mornings even when he isn’t doing weather. Last week he did 7 in a row, including filling in for Craig from the food bank with Dana and Johnny Green, back in the studio for a 12pm digital update, then doing the evening forecasts on Saturday and Sunday. And this is on top of the 6 live hours of television he plays a substantive role in every weekday. 
 

And… he isn’t bad! We’ve seen him save awkward interviews and he transitions seamlessly with ANY anchor he is working with. While he may be goofy sometimes, I think he generally makes anyone he is on air with appear stronger.

John just like Marcia Kramer and a few others have what CBS o&o's need more of...uniqueness and personality. This in contrast to the the clean corperate Spectrum News feel that they're going for.

6 hours ago, IceManNYR said:

Kaity Tong posted on IG that she is back at home recovering from lung cancer surgery. She hopes to return mid-January.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C06uZYLOfIs/

Oh no.

On 12/4/2023 at 7:12 AM, Denver Murray said:

 

Well, I certainly appreciate that they did not pick an entirely red theme for the graphics.  Gray doesn't look bad at all... Way better than what WWBT Richmond has. It's SO red you cannot even see what's in the background of the graphics! Very distracting.

I actually like this!

Agreed. The new color scheme, logo, and anchor desk are all pretty decent. The branding is  questionable. I'd call this a better looking WANF.

On 12/5/2023 at 3:47 AM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

This is absolutely awful. First, the fact that they are using red tends to indicate Breaking News, which is exactly what Alert insinuates. This is why First Alert Weather has always struck me as bad branding for weather too. You're going to burn out your audience if all news product is branded as "First Alert" instead prioritizing the content. Ultimately, having clear brand and design language is really needed to inform viewers and boost ratings... This won't do it.

I'm not against the use of red as main station colors but it conveys unncessary urgency just like the "First Alert" branding. 

3 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

Mayim Bialik is out on syndicated J!

Bialik and Jennings were pretty good. Found it strange that they opted for alternating dual hosts, but it worked.

Bialik aside, Jeopardy had a gargantuan task in filling Trebek's shoes, unfortunately it seems any successor candidate has come under intense public scrutiny. It's just a gameshow hosting job, not the presidency, give the new host a chance.

12 hours ago, TVNewsStan said:

That would be the goal for CBS, wouldn’t it? To retain as much of the lead-in as necessary. Stations could have the option of airing the hour right after Price, after their expanded hour newscast, or at 2PM/3PM to compete directly against Daily.

 

If the networks aren’t making money for these media companies, that’s exactly what will happen. If programs Daily can make money for broadcast to keep them in the black, then it possibly keeps Comcast from selling the network and the news division. Same for Paramount, who is already flirting with AMG ahead of their big sale(Comics Unleashed/Funny You Should Ask)… 

 

I’m a lifelong soap fan… I certainly get why fans don’t want to give up their shows. But we don’t represent the viewership the networks want… we haven’t for over a decade. And spamming the NBC News Daily thread with negative comments, quoting Jamey Giddens (who spent over a decade enabling showrunners’ bad writing and creative decisions under the guise of journalism at Daytime Confidential) and preaching about executives lacking creativity in programming(which is rich given how YR/Bold/Days aren’t even trying and save for the recent Colleen Zenk stunt at YR, are totally on autopilot) isn’t enough of a sell to save the genre in its current state. There are plenty of forums devoted to serials where you can bash network news.

 

It says a lot when the most provocative stories on daytime are being told on NBC News Daily instead of a serial… once lauded as *the place* for relevant social commentary and takeaway for its viewers. If networks are done with serials, give me a hard-ish news show over The View, The Talk, or GMA3 any day of the week.

EDIT: Agree to disgree.

I'd like to think of this as ideaological back and forth rather than spamming.

To it's credit, News Daily much like NBC News Now is a straightforward newscast. Something MSNBC and the rest of cable news could use more of. It's just one of too many newscasts. 

As a longtime soap watcher my self I can see why networks would have to cancel them. Ratings are low, they're expensive, the demos are old, they've been in a crap quality production and writing state for years. They aren't exmept from a lack of creativity, you are totally right that they're running on auto pilot. Watching B&B you'd almost think the writers were deliberately trying to get the soap axed.

Ideally we could salvage them though a number of methods but that is unlikely.

The crux of my ranting is...if or WHEN soaps do get cancelled, can you find something, anything, other than another newscast (or infomercials) to replace them.

I say this as someone working in news, watching the trajectory of the industry turn journalism into time filler, not just as a disgruntled viewer that's "bashing news". 

But alas we are all free to watch whatever we want on streaming---to the detriment of linear TV, and myself a linear tv employee.

All I can say is, If a job insists on paying people near minimum wage, stop asking them for experience or a degree. We have a major issue in this country with employers demanding ready-made employees, ripe with experience or education, yet no salary to back it up. 

1 hour ago, TVNewsStan said:

 Sinclair Broadcast Group or Byron Allen Media(I have no beef with them owning a broadcast network, but many do) then that is a win for viewers.

 

Sidebar: Given the cheap quality of both their products —as well as Sinclair's media bias — these companies need to be nowhere near owning a broadcast network. 

16 hours ago, Abraham J. Simpson said:

Facts aren't blame, really. Some things just are. And there isn't always a unicorn out there, "if only" someone spent more or wrote better or whatever. People were leaving soaps for  long time. Then gas tanks almost empty there; throwing more money at a dying genre is pointless. Its not blame to say key audiences in 2023 aren't the same as in 1983. 

 

It's also overly broad to just label all news division programming with one brush. It struck me on a recent NY visit to the NBC store the distinct merchandise for the third and fourth hours of Today. There is, of course, the main show umbrella, but the other hours are treated as somewhat unique entities. The content isn't identical, and that is typically true at the local level as well. There's a whole thread here somewhere about how the 10 am hour on WABC is noticeably different from the other newscasts, and even among more traditional newscasts, tonality varies. 

 

If there was some magic formula for success and a profitable bottom line, someone would be trying it. Millions upon millions of dollars overall are at stake, people's jobs are at stake. No one is just sitting around ordering up another hour from the news division on a whim or so they can get out the door in time to make it to happy hour.  

 

You have a population segment that gravitates toward the likes of Maury and Springer. Some that like the Kelly and Mark or Kelly Clarkson type shows. Some who can't get enough court shows. And then there are a bajillion streaming options, sports galore, cable channels with movies out the wazoo, dramas, sitcoms, etc. That pie has been sliced six ways from Sunday. It's easy to say "do something different." It's much harder to actually find that "something" that delivers the profits it needs to. 

This is really interesting. Cutting back from 5 days is one thing, but that is a guarantee you're off the broadcast network. You're not getting a three-day a week slot (or whatever) there. But to the point of less characters and sets...from what I saw of those days seeing Y&R, there were very few characters. Generally the same old actors from before and a few seemingly disposable new ones--generally offspring or other relatives--and that's it. Two or three people to a storyline being told that day, and maybe 2 or 3 storylines being covered max. Even then, the characters seemed to them mix and match among scenes, so you really weren't getting more actors, they just shuffled among the sets and fellow castmates in some kind of weird, soapy square dance. Also didn't count many sets. At least a half dozen over that span looked pretty much like they did years ago. I'm assuming they got some fresh paint here and there. The others looked like SNL skit sets--in that they could easily be repurposed with minimal effort to become something else generic for limited use. 

 

Of course, casts and crew cost money, so I am not literal when I say this, but I have to wonder where the money is going. It isn't into the product. And I know the soaps were never high production value. They were cheesier than cheesy. Always. But it looks like they're down to fumes, and that makes sense. Tastes change. 

Hope I haven't veered too far from NN Daily.

*Network executives keep soely pointing to (rather saying blame) shifts in viewing habits without recognizing bad writing plays a role. 

If you look at the trend of when viewers 

started leaving soaps--the mid 90s--that's when alot of bad writing trends began, in addition to the OJ trial, shifting viewing habits, etc.

"If there was some magic formula for success and a profitable bottom line, someone would be trying it. Millions upon millions of dollars overall are at stake, people's jobs are at stake. No one is just sitting around ordering up another hour from the news division on a whim or so they can get out the door in time to make it to happy hour." --- I would like to belive that, but it's clear, whatever sells milk it.

We see it in the movies with heavily recycled franchises and now we see it on tv with news. 

Not to stray too off topic but As for soaps, they don't have to be five days weekly. They've locked themselves into that model. As we can see having one hour scripted content five days a week with no summer break is an expensive model that is collapsing. If they did Y&R Mon to Wed and one hour  B&B Thu/Fri *might* work.

You are absolutely right, tastes do change, but the appetite for serialized drama is still there as we see with streaming. Y&R just got a ratings bump from bringing back old characters, showing that there is still an interest (the demo is a different story).

All in all, the worse programing gets, the remaining viewers will also turn away and networks heads will still point to streaming as the only reason they can't pull an audience. Just like cable execs keep citing cord cutting as the only reason for it's collapse, without acknowledging the loss of niche programming and poor content. 

NBC News Daily is just symptomatic of a larger programming issue. We saw it with the over proliferation of soaps, talk shows, and cable dramas. The bubble burst and the same is likely to happen for news. 

5 hours ago, Abraham J. Simpson said:

It is often popular and easy to blame some general group of people and paint them as some kind of Snidely Whiplash cartoon villain, but sometimes people with a specific skill set who excel in their field make what the market will support. Is it fair someone who can hit a baseball will collect whatever hundreds of millions the most recent contract was for? Makes me roll my eyes, but in reality, if they think that investment will fill the seats and move the merchandise to recoup the cost (and of course, I know it's part of a team, and the team being successful is part of the filling seats/selling merch equation), then whatever. Lots of other people in the organization undoubtedly work hard and do their best, and they aren't making that bank (I'm talking staff here, not players). 

 

Strikes are powerful tools, and if someone can organize one and make it successful, more power to them. It's not easy. Hell, it's often very risky to understate it. It's also not always an easy sell to garner public sympathy--sometimes yes, sometimes no. We're in a bit of a time in the nation where more attention is paid to the CEO/average worker gap, and there may be ways to leverage that, or it could end up backfiring, so to speak. I would suggest that the best target is the CEO type position, it's an easier concept to sell. Joe the sales guy who happened to make a nice living because he's darned good at selling doesn't make the same compelling comparison when you're trying to get sympathy on a large scale. Bob Iger? Ok, that's doable. Not going to win over everyone, but there's a difference there. (And not to pick him specifically, he was just the first example that popped to mind.) 

I respect your 'life is unfair so buck up and keep going' attitude but these news heads don't dererve the magnanomousness you are affording them.

The journalists making the product (news) that's being sold, deserve to benefit in it's profits aswell. I'm not saying a reporter needs to be paid $300K, but there is no excuse for a television news job requiring a bachelor's degree to pay the salary a teenager can get at Dunkin Doughnuts.

At the end of the day, journalists don't have to go into the industry...but again, no journalism isn't exactly great for democracy. 

On 12/11/2023 at 9:23 AM, noggi said:

While a refresh was somewhat needed, this feels more like a mockup of a design you'd find on this forum than something worthy of cable news. I mean, it's not bad... but... it's not really all that good either? Of course, I'm commenting having only seen just this one screenshot... 

Totally agree. The look is very Sprectrum News. Flat. White. Uninspiring. Not awful but not remarkable. As we know from their tract record, NBC can do better than this.

People may object because news is not supposed to be "flashy", but whoever handles graphics and sets for sports networks like FS 1, ESPN, and NBC sports, need to help out network and cable news. 

CNBC has always been heavily graphics oriented so it can apply.

On 12/13/2023 at 8:35 AM, Abraham J. Simpson said:

We all know, however, the issue is demographics and the bottom line. You can’t spend on a soap in 2023 like you did in 1983 (adjusting for inflation, of course). The audience isn’t there and the ad revenue isn’t there. There may be “many people,” but that isn’t what it once was and isn’t as profitable as it once was. 
 

There are theoretically infinite choices available for people who want “escapism.” Corny soaps may work for some, but there are streaming options and satellite channels out the proverbial wazoo offering other options.

 

How Y&R continues to milk the same stories from the 1980s confounds me. My mom was a Y&R and eventually B&B viewer. As her mental state failed in her final days, I’d put on her recordings of them  on occasion, not really expecting it to break through the haze of dementia, but maybe something familiar could be comforting on a subconscious level. Dear lord, it was the same people on the same sets telling the same tired stories as when it was on in the college lounges back in the day. It looks stale and cheap to be blunt.

 

There will always be people who resist losing something, and their complaints tend to be disproportionate to the actual viewership. The audience, of course, is the product. And if you don’t deliver the product the client wants…even this non-business major knows that’s a bad business plan. You don’t need the same raw numbers, you need an audience that clients want to buy and pay decent money to do so, while controlling your expenses.

This is also true. Soap executives cheifly blame splintered audiences and working women for poor ratings, when bad writing is also a factor. The genre may have to cut back from a one hour, five day per week model so they can need less characters for airtime, less sets, and less scripts to write, reducing costs if any supposed to be rebooted.

On 12/6/2023 at 12:50 PM, Abraham J. Simpson said:

I’m not sure I see news as low effort. People do put in work to do their parts and do it well. No one I know in that space dials it in. Are there exceptions? Heck, of course. There’s not an industry where that isn’t true somewhere. But people put in the effort to present content that gets viewers in a world where viewership is ever-more fragmented. But that’s just me.

It's not the fault of news emplyees, it's the network heads who keep demanding more news. They keep blaming splintered audiences for low ratings. That's only part of the puzzle.

Low effort or *low quality* programming is also to blame. Spitting out cheap Byron Allen court shows, repeditive newscasts and recycling tired police procedurals is bound to negatively affect ratings. I know countless people who say TV sucks now so they watch Netflix

It is lazy in a sense. Rather than being creative with programming, networks can simply have their news crew that's around (doing a lot as it is) churn out yet another newscast for no added cost.

Profit comes first but, there has to be a way to achieve that without showing news 17 hours a day. 

42 minutes ago, noggi said:

Local television news isn’t journalism. It’s a business. 

Amen. TV news started out as networks filling their government mandated public service quota. Once they realized news divisions could be profitable, the problems we have today began. 

It's the American way. The people running the business make all the money while the people at the ground level make small potatoes.

49 minutes ago, Abraham J. Simpson said:

Many things in life aren’t excused, they just are. Some careers pay more. Some fields pay more. Sometimes those overlap. Every place I’ve worked, sales got perks beyond what anyone else did. Life isn’t perfectly even.  

What you're saying is not wrong but I'm gonna have to hold greedy executive's feet to the fire more on this one.

We proclaim that journalists are these "beacons" who hold truth to power. Yet, we don't pay journalists a livable wage, so they leave and work in PR for people like politicians who spin reality. That can't good for a democratic society.

Not to sound extremist, but journalists need to be the next group to strike. This especially as stations rely more on news departments for direct ad revenue with syndication options drying up. 

39 minutes ago, MediaZone4K said:

Thank you for starting this, I think we need more insider advice threads for those in the industry.

 

I used to wonder this myself until I saw it firsthand....the short answer is money.

 

A reporter contract is 1-3 years. Reporters typically ask for more money every time they extend their contract. It's cheaper for stations to have a revolving door of one contract term reporters than to keep paying them more every renegotiation.

 

Sales department, management, and the corporate bosses make significantly more than reporters/MMJs and anchors. Trust me, the pay at alot of stations is a few dollars above minimum wage for reporters, even less for producers and photographers.

Adding to this, smaller market stations pay less money. If a reporter is in market 115 for example, they might keep climbing up markets until they can make it to a top 30 market station where the pay is better.

Larger markets require experience. If your hometown is a larger market like NYC, you're at a disadvantage trying to enter the industry. You'll most likely have to move to a small market (away from eveything you know) and rack up years of experience in order to make it back home.

I respect the fact that someone has to toil in the D leagues before reaching the NBA.

But to set up the industry in a way that talent has to move their life for a job that pays near minimum wage --despite being required to have a bachelor's degree -- and be locked into a near two-year contract at often toxic newsrooms is pretty nasty.

This is a huge reason why so many people leave the industry.

On 12/6/2023 at 3:33 PM, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

Not sure if this is the place for this question or not, but please move it if it isn't...

 

Anyways, my question is: What's up with anchors/mmjs/etc constantly moving after 1-2 years?? Doesn't this make them less credible?? I'm just curious why stations are hiring people, only to have them leave after a year...  I've been doing some searches and haven't come across a somewhat clear answer...

Thank you for this question.  A lot of us are enthralled by tv news,  but learn the harsh reality upon working in the industry.

The short answer is money.

A reporter contract is 1-3 years and reporters typically ask for more money every time they extend their contract. It's cheaper for stations to have a revolving door of one contract term reporters than to keep paying them more every renegotiation.

Sales department, management, and the corporate bosses make significantly more than the news.

Trust me, the pay at alot of stations is a few dollars above minimum wage for reporters, even less for producers and photographers.

WCBS 2006. Big visual improvements to graphics and set over 2003-2005. The skyline lookes better than the plain blue backgrop they had for a while. I dont recall this graphics era but it looks good. By 2007 the station would be back on track after going off the rails since about 1996. 

EDIT: Dare I say this graphical look is better than their current.

1 hour ago, cg41386 said:

 

It's a common theme with most of the ABC O&Os. They're stable and well-run.

That's refreshing when you hear so much negatives about companies like Nexstar etc.. 

24 minutes ago, 24994J said:

 

BUT DAVID MUIR IS THE DEVIL! IT MUST BE HIS FAULT! The show was completely perfect and flawless with Diane Sawyer!

 

Remember, David is also responsible for CBS's anchor instability, Nightly's shitty graphics, Fox's abuse lawsuits, CNN's inability to create a watchable morning show, NewsNation's non-existent ratings, and he destroyed the documents that prove Brian Williams was on that helicopter.

Who here is saying any of those things?

56 minutes ago, mountainave said:

It's not new.  WNT has had correspondents doing live shots on West 67th St or Columbus Ave outside of ABC for years. 

In your personal opinion, does doing that add anything to the broadcast? In the same way, if WABC did a live shot from Columbus Ave to talk about a shooting in Newark would that make sense to you?

2 hours ago, 24994J said:

They're never saying that the reporter is actually at the site of the story.

??? The entire purpose of a reporter doing an outdoor stand up is to have them at the scene or a related location.

On local news you don't see a reporter standing on a random street in the Bronx in front of nothing to talk about a shooting on Long Island. 

48 minutes ago, Geoffrey said:

"New York" refers to the city, not the state. It is the style of most news organizations not to put the state after a large city. 

 

I agree that it does seem weird to have a reporter standing outside in Manhattan to do a live shot on something that happened in Albany if there is no tie-in to the location. Like you suggested, they could say "we're outside a synagogue here in New York, where security has been beefed up after what happened in Albany." But I don't think they were trying to imply New York City = New York State = Albany, NY.

Exactly.

The NY thing is my cynicism getting the better of me but they could have thrown "Upstate" into the lower third.