nycnewsjunkie

I'm not familiar with Steve Eager's work, but I'm not a fan of this practice either. Granted, commentary is fine when it's a clearly labeled editorial (or when it's an offbeat newscast like "Next" at KUSA). And I know Bill Beutel at WABC occasionally inserted some mild commentary (ex: John Gotti "can only look at the moon through jailhouse bars"), but I don't think he ever waded into politics to this degree. Generally, there's a time and place for editorializing and commentary, and the middle of a supposedly impartial newscast isn't it IMHO.

At this point, I feel like that’s up to NBC; they seem to have all the leverage right now, and I imagine they’d want exclusivity if they’re able to get it. Granted, if I were David Zaslav and I knew the NBA was going to increase their rights fees, I would’ve reached out to NBC (or someone else) from the get go to partner on the second package. It’s exactly what CBS did w/ Turner when they were at risk of losing Men’s March Madness to ESPN. There’s no guarantee it would’ve worked, but I think it would’ve been a far better strategy than Zaslav’s horrid public negotiation (“we don’t need the NBA”).

I don’t think it’ll happen, but I could certainly see him filling an analyst/contributor/commentator role. Charlie Gibson did that for ABC in 2016.

I’m aware of that, I live in the market. Point is, they don’t identify that way now, and I don’t think there’s anything indicating that Nexstar is going that route with their legacy stations.

WPIX and KTLA never went that route. KPLR just rebranded, and they didn’t go that route. I think it’s a safe bet that they won’t mess with what works.

Unfortunately, I think the rumors about NBC have something to them. David Zaslav, in a rather idiotic move IMO, went on record to say “We don’t need the NBA.” In other words, they need us more than we need them. Not only is that an extremely foolish and arrogant thing to say in public; it’s patently false. TNT’s entire sports division is built around the NBA; their plans to start a streaming service w/ Fox and ESPN revolve around having the NBA. It would be disastrous if they lose it. Source: https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/david-zaslav-nba-rights-deal.html If TNT doesn’t pick up a package of games, I just hope one of the other broadcasters picks up the Inside guys. It would be a shame to lose that show like this.

Interesting. Looks like they’ll have Scott Russell (normally the prime time host, IIRC) hosting during the midday/afternoon hours. That makes a lot of sense, given the 6 hour time difference.

If anything, I think consolidation was a symptom of that technological shift. I suppose an excess of deregulation didn't help, but there's a reason why virtually all of the smaller and/or family owned TV station groups saw the writing on the wall and cashed out when they could. In the long term, it won't be viable to have a small piece of a smaller pie. And forget news for a second; aside from sports and a few other exceptions, the vast majority of my entertainment fix comes from somewhere other than the four (and a half, if we're counting the CW) major networks.

I’m not privy as to why Sue’s contract wasn’t renewed. If it’s a case of ageism/sexism, that’s horrible and there’s zero excuse for it. However, it’s also entirely possible that she was ready to retire and he wasn’t. There’s also internet gossip (which I won’t link to because it’s not credible) that suggests that Sue was “phoning it in” and that management at the time wasn’t willing to give her a new contract; again, I’d take that with a grain of salt. If we go off the assumption that Sue’s dismissal was unfair, however, I don’t think one unfair dismissal demands another. It wouldn’t have made it right for both of them to be forced out for their age instead of just one of them; amplifying ageism in the workplace is not the solution to sexism IMO.

I know you probably don’t mean it this way, but this comes off a bit ageist to me. Chuck is willing to work, NBC is willing to have him work, the viewers love him, and he’s still good at what he does, so I don’t see any reason for him to stop just because he’s old. It’s not as though he’s impeding younger journalists from greater opportunities. Besides, David Ushery and Natalie Pasquarella are the primary anchors there now, and if anything, having someone like Chuck in your newsroom to mentor younger journalists is an asset, not a liability. As far as Dana’s concerned, I’ve never met her, so I can’t speak to what others have said about her. Some people talk about her being supposedly difficult to work with, others have nothing but great things to say about her. That said, she was a good anchor who did her job well for decades, and I think she deserved acknowledgment for that. Ideally, one could argue she should’ve been given a bigger sendoff, but considering the nature of the TV news business, I’m glad she was given any sort of sendoff at all.

Weird. Perhaps they were taking after the NYC flag? But I agree, that gradient does not look good.

I’d bet on Pedro Rivera; nothing against Michelle, but sometimes it seems as though she doesn’t proofread her scripts before going to air.

On the one hand, I’ll admit there are worse ways to make cuts than by producing a Scrippscast. Given that Sinclair has resorted to shutting down entire newsrooms and pumping in a questionable product from DC, it’s not so bad by comparison. Better to have a station continue to cover local stories with less than ideal resources/production than to have a local newsroom shut down entirely. However, I still don’t think that this is good for broadcast journalism. IMO, a lot of these Scrippscasts (for example, see WTXL) look hastily put together, and it seems as though they do the bare minimum to cover local stories. The national content often has little to no relevance to the viewer in that market. I’m not totally against the idea of reducing the role of the anchor to save costs, but unless that money is going into more robust local journalism and providing greater context to local issues, it’s a bit disingenuous for Scripps to frame this as a positive evolution in local news. It’s just cost cutting. It certainly seems like this is the future of local news, but we don’t have to like it.

Understood, and I totally agree with you there. They should be transparent with viewers about this and shouldn’t pretend it didn’t happen.

I don’t mean to offend you, but this is a nothingburger. Changes happen on the fly during a newscast all the time. There are instances where stories are cut due to time constraints. There’s absolutely nothing to get worked up about here when these are things that very few people will actually notice. So they shot the set from a different angle…big deal.

So instead of using it as a learning opportunity for everyone in the newsroom, let’s fire/cancel the guy? I fail to see how that helps anyone. It’s far more productive to heed the lesson from this experience so that people avoid repeating similar mistakes in the future. Not to mention, this cluster f goes beyond one person. If I’m not mistaken, scripts are supposed to be written, edited, and reviewed before going to air. Something went seriously wrong with that process if no one caught that phrasing before hitting air, and work should be done to correct that process. Unless this was done with malicious intent (which by all accounts, it wasn’t), they don’t need to go on a pink slip crusade.

As much as I (and, I presume, most of us) like to hate on Sinclair, the RSN business, and the decreasing accessibility of professional sports, this is probably the best case scenario for the teams. A lot of these teams rely on RSNs for revenue, and the total loss of Bally Sports would have crippled those teams.

Don’t count on that happening. The decision’s been made, and unfortunately, what’s done is done. Not only would that be unfair to the person they hired for the job; news executives generally don’t walk back their decisions like that. They’d have proverbial egg on their face if they did.

That’s a shame. I thought Andrea was a good anchor, and she and Doug had great chemistry. I’m glad they were allowed to be frank and honest about the whole situation on air, though. That said, they’re fixing something that isn’t broken IMO.

Oh, absolutely, nobody notices. As long as the headlines are legible, and the graphics don’t distract from delivering info, nobody gives a crap. I have to agree with this though. WABC didn’t originate the Eyewitness News format (even their logo isn’t original), and yet it has always taken on the identity of the city/region it serves. Most of it is due to the long-tenured anchors/reporters and the longevity/viability of the format, but I do think building around a local identity plays a role too. Much of that would be lost if we woke up tomorrow and found ourselves watching “ABC News New York.” To be fair though, the CBS O&Os were in a different situation than the ABC O&Os. When a lot of those stations are either dead last and/or lacked a local identity to begin with, their approach makes some sense. And full credit to them for beating the other network O&Os when it comes to streaming, and for finally patching up the embarrassment that was their Detroit outlet.

I think there’s a difference between stations sharing a group graphics package and stations taking on the identity of the national network news division. The former is nothing to scoff at imo. The latter is far more noticeable.

I doubt it will be. They’ll probably have an option to show betting info and game stats, sort of like how Amazon has an NFL StatCast feed for TNF. They would be dumb to bake that into the main feed itself.

I think this certainly applies to Don, but I don’t think it’s fair to apply this to Poppy and Kaitlan. The latter two seem to have had a good working relationship. Don shouldn’t have been put on that show to begin with; he was well “past his prime,” as he might put it. IMO, the issue with CNN’s approach to things is not that “no amount of time could have saved” the show; it’s that they keep trying new things only to blow them up. If you keep doing that, you’ll have no audience to speak of. As you said, building chemistry takes time, and CNN This Morning was not given that time.

IIRC, Bill Ritter himself was on weekend evenings before he replaced Beutel on the 11pm. If they're grooming Mike Marza to be Bill's eventual successor, I could definitely see Pedro taking the weekday morning slot.

I mean, the worst case scenario is that they get a station in Salt Lake City in exchange for some stations in very small markets, all without cash considerations. In and of itself, that sounds like a good deal to me. I'm sure they'll do something with that station though. KJZZ currently airs Jazz games, and I don't know when that agreement expires, but I agree that they could be in play to air sports if the NHL moves to Salt Lake City (via the Coyotes or an expansion team).