nycnewsjunkie

20 hours ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

As per The Athletic, three Chicago major league teams who presently call NBC Sports Chicago home will be moving on later this year.

 

(The article is behind a pay wall.)

 

"Standard Media Group in partnership with the Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox will be the new television broadcast home for all three teams beginning in October, according to an internal document obtained by The Athletic.

 

"The media group is expected to make the network, which is unnamed, available across 'multiple platforms,' including over-the-air and carriage agreements with cable and streaming providers.

 

"NBC Sports Chicago is the current broadcast home for the Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox. The teams’ contract with NBC Sports expires in October.

 

"Standard Media Group, which is based in Nashville, Tenn., is a local broadcast and digital media company. According to its website, the group has television stations in Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska and Rhode Island.

 

"The new network will not be associated with Stadium, a multi-platform network, which Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf purchased majority control of in 2023."

Standard? No pun intended, but that one came out of left field. You’d think Reinsdorf would just repurpose Stadium into the new RSN.

I’m not sure how Standard is going to be able to run a regional sports net when it seems like they can barely run their local TV affiliates.

6 hours ago, Newsjunkie24 said:

If he's able to and wants to, would it really be a good idea for CBS to bring back Dan maybe for one last election night? It seems that since this was his first appearance since his ouster years ago, it seems like CBS was able to give him a second chance and the controversy is all behind them. He still seems very sharp for 92.

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.

2 hours ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

WPIX was branded as CW11 for the first two years of the CW, before going with the more-appropriate PIX 11 branding.

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.

21 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Talk about full circle.  It was WGN and Tribune that held out 8 years ago sending The CW on a soul-searching journey in Chicagoland through WPWR and WCIU, and now with Nexstar in charge and in control of the CW, it's back on WGN.

 

As long as they don't rebrand WGN as CW9.  I don't think the folks at WGN could ever live it down.

 

I wonder now what WCIU will do with their  current "U" subchannel?  Change it to U-too?

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.

On 4/26/2024 at 8:39 PM, nickp said:

If TNT loses the NBA this is the biggest loss of the entire process Turner being with the NBA for 40 years  Inside the NBA ends it will be the biggest mistake in the history of the league

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.

On 4/17/2024 at 11:24 AM, Georgie56 said:

Less than 100 days out.

 

Here's CBC's coverage plans.

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.

On 3/30/2024 at 7:10 PM, Abraham J. Simpson said:

Setting aside Nexstar/Mission for a moment, technology and generational shifts result in fewer eyes on all kinds of news sources. The pie has been sliced into far smaller portions, and consolidation didn’t cause that. 

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.

10 hours ago, Breaking News said:

I hate to say this, but the poster does have a point. Yes, there's alot of ageism goes on in many work industries. Television news is no exception either. Chuck, still might be spry, but Sue Simmons got the boot and he didn't is very telling.  Sue a year older than Chuck, and he still get to anchor one newscast where her contract wasn't renewed. Chuck and Sue were an institution together on WNBC and a pillar in NYC area, but he should of been ushered out along with Sue.  The question is why? Was it because he was a man? Again, their age only separates them a year apart.

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.

5 hours ago, TVNewsLover said:

No matter how great of a career, there’s no need for people to be anchoring into their 80s (I’m looking at you Chuck). 

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.

On 3/21/2024 at 6:39 PM, Geoffrey said:

This bug appeared at 5:30 for about a minute this evening, before being taken away and replaced by the normal blue one.

 

Pretty weird. The ugly gradient reminds me of CBSN's old "Red & Blue" look (and also 1990s web design).

 

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

17 hours ago, TheNewsTV said:

Maybe Pedro Rivera or Michelle. It's just strange that Sandra isn't there at 11pm, the other times she was there with David Navarro.

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.

1 hour ago, Howard Beale said:

I don't think there's a need to "fire/cancel the guy."  If this was an honest mistake, treat it as such, and learn from it.  But don't sweep it under the rug either.  I doubt many people would have known about this if the NABJ didn't issue a statement.  KMOV owes its audience an explanation of how and why this happened.

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

20 minutes ago, SnellKrell said:

Yes, there is concern!

 

It's rank amateur that things keep changing depending upon who's in the control room.

 

After a newscast, that's when you experiment and settle upon a shooting style/pattern, you don't do it on the air.

 

This is market #1 and the Flagship station of the NBC Television Network!

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.

1 hour ago, Howard Beale said:

I didn't find the video on their website.  Someone else did and posted the video to TikTok.  I searched KMOV's website and did not find the initial video or any subsequent apologies.  However, from what I've read online, Cory Stark did apologize.

"Poor word choices" is an understatement.  Yes, mistakes happen, but we're talking about an outdated and racist term for Black people that somehow made it into a news broadcast in 2024.

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.

7 hours ago, kdex86 said:

In Boston, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, a CBS O&O competes with a Hearst owned station.

Boston and Pittsburgh are unique in the fact that both markets have CBS O&O's, Hearst owned ABC stations, and a Big 4 station owned by Cox Media Group.

 

WBZ has actually fared well in Boston TV news ratings.  I haven't seen any official press releases for Boston station ratings in recent years, but they've consistently been #2 behind WCVB, sometimes winning a timeslot here and there.  The fact that WBZ has been around since 1948 also helps it be a strong station in the market.

Unfortunately, Next TV doesn’t seem to provide full ratings data in their Local News Close-Ups, but they do note that in the September 2023 ratings period, WBZ placed third behind WHDH at 11pm (in both the demo and total viewers). It wouldn’t surprise me if they were second in other time slots, though. Regardless of ratings, I think they put out a fantastic product; they’re definitely one of the better CBS O&Os IMO.

https://www.nexttv.com/news/local-news-close-up-better-things-are-bruin-in-boston

9 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Dammit.  The Bally Sports dumpster fire gets a new source of kindling....

 

https://awfulannouncing.com/sinclair/against-all-odds-diamond-sports-group-looks-set-to-rise-from-the-ashes.html

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.

7 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

O&O wise, CBS lags in the largest markets while ABC dominates.  NBC varies, but seems to be in the middle.

 

Of the top 5 markets, Chicago is where Fox gets their clock cleaned by WGN on a consistent basis while NY & LA seem to be doing better, WNYW does way better than WPIX and what's left of WWOR (but does KCAL and KTLA outrank KTTV?)

 

Generally, ABC has held up the best as the network owners have "borged" their stations.  CBS took a hit in the 80s from the Tisch era and Jeff "Zucked" the NBC stations during his disastrous tenure.

In LA, KTTV actually doesn’t perform as well as its competitors. In the mornings, KTLA is in first both in the demo and total households. At 10pm, KTTV is behind both KCAL and KTLA.

Getting back to CBS, one silver lining for them is that KCAL is still doing well (they actually won both the demo and total households at 10pm). Unfortunately for them, it doesn’t seem to have translated to ratings growth at KCBS.

https://www.nexttv.com/news/local-news-close-up-la-news-battle-begins-before-sunrise

What a horrible turn of events for Newshub and for New Zealanders. WBD has already been making cuts to its NZ division, but to close the entire newsroom is diabolical. A lot of good people are going to be out of work, and most importantly, it’s a disaster for New Zealand. TVNZ (the state-owned “public” broadcaster that operates more like a commercial channel in practice) is going to have a monopoly on TV news. What a joke.
 

I don’t know of too many healthy democracies with a lack of media diversity. You can’t adequately scrutinize people in power when there’s only one, state-owned outlet available to do it. I’m hoping there’s a way to save Newshub before June, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

14 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

At least it looks better with the new package then it did with the other one.  And the team colors are also used by the Pirates and the Penguins, so they do transcend beyond the Steelers to being more of a "Pittsburgh" thing.

 

I like Pittsburgh, But being from Northeast Ohio, you get the idea .

All good lol

(And in fairness, man do those colors look ugly…)

1 hour ago, carolinanews4 said:

For the CBS owned stations, I think comes down to a lack of budget and the resulting lack of identity. CBS O&Os historically have spent less than their ABC and NBC counterparts leaving them with fewer resources. To play catchup stations like WCBS and WBBM have gone through numerous rebrandings.

 

From a corporate standpoint, CBS has undervalued the "presentation" portion of TV news which has been reflected in the way they fund their local stations. They live in the Walter Cronkite era of storytelling. Admirable? Sure. But television is a visual medium and newscasts are built on a relationship with the viewer. I don't feel like CBS has ever truly embraced either of those things. The lack of investment was easier to hide in the 70s and 80s because everyone's presentation was crude. But as technology has evolved, CBS always seems to be playing catch-up. 

 

When Jeff Zucker cut NBC budgets in the early 2000s, WNBC went into their "WCBS era" where they lacked identity and money. The NBC O&O group launched Daily Connection which was a "newscast" that featured repurposed content from across NBCU properties. The pieces of the show were assembled in NYC and then fed to stations to be produced with local talent. (Sound similar to the equally generic CBS News Now broadcast from Texas?) Cost efficient? You bet. Compelling tv? Not at all.

 

WNBC eliminated Live at Five in favor of News4You and Extra. When that didn't work, WNBC played musical chairs with timeslots, anchors, and formats for years. WNBC their newsroom into a "Content Center" which was nothing more than a gimmick, like the gimmick WCBS tried in launching the short-lived CBS 2 Information Network. It was during this time when WCBS was able to move up to #2, not because Channel 2 was doing anything particularly compelling but because they offered stability where WNBC didn't.

 

Valari Staab, formerly with the ABC O&O group, has spent over a decade rebuilding the newsgathering resources of the NBC group. New radar technology, studios, increased digital resources, heck even new buildings have been added. CBS meanwhile appears to continue the "more with less" mantra that has been in place for over 40 years. While NBC was rebuilding, the ABC stations, with their well-defined local identities, have steamrolled everyone with a consistent and well-funded product. Meanwhile the FOX O&O group, with seemingly endless hours of local news, generates strong local revenue. 

 

What has CBS done? Slapped the last-place 'CBS News' brand onto their local stations. Most of the CBS stations lack the type of true community investment it takes to be a strong player. With audiences for linear TV newscasts continuing to shrink, one could argue it Is way too late for them to catch up. 

I think you nailed it. I’ll continue to give CBS credit for launching the best/most watchable local streaming newscasts, but even aspects of that whole endeavor (like CBS News Now) were seemingly done on the cheap.
 

I would just add that Paramount’s current financial situation probably isn’t helping either. IIRC, the O&Os were hit with layoffs in June and December, and CBS News laid off 20 people this month as part of company-wide layoffs.

6 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

How is Pittsburgh doing these days?  Even though the newscast is pumping out the same garbage that all the other CBS markets are, they're allowed to use the ugly black and yellow to cater to the "Stillers" fans, and probably get a lot more traction by doing so!

I don’t mean to offend, but I really don’t understand why this bothers people. They’re not my favorite colors either, but we’re talking about Pittsburgh here. Sure, there are better ways to execute the black and gold look, but is it so bad that a station’s visual identity reflects the city it serves?

2 hours ago, CoopInTheHouse said:

I mean, given that those 2 stations are the only CBS O&O’s in their states (Colorado and Texas, respectively), you can’t really blame them.

I understand Colorado (the Denver market covers a majority of the state geographically), but given that Texas is also home to a big city like Houston and growing cities like Austin and San Antonio, the brand just doesn’t work IMO.

4 hours ago, NYNewsCoverage said:

Either way I'm also surprised CBS is allowing both Andrea and Doug to speak the truth about the change, since that will obviously fuel anger and hate towards WCBS (and heck, if enough speak out maybe even reverse that decision)!

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.

On 2/22/2024 at 11:51 AM, Abraham J. Simpson said:

. I could be named People’s Sexiest Man Alive. Neither is going to happen. 

On the off chance Nightline actually does expand, I'm bookmarking this. Just saying