nycnewsjunkie

I completely agree, but I think it’s important to emphasize that, as others have noted, management royally screwed up. The station owns the airtime, but they could have used it better re: Lynette Romero. Sure, it may be the norm at many stations to handle it as KTLA did, but it doesn’t make it right. Mark Mester was still extremely unprofessional in attempting his “I am Spartacus” stunt, but he’s only half the reason KTLA looks bad right now. If we insist on there being smarter ways for Mark Mester and company to say goodbye, it’s only fair to say that there were smarter ways for management to address Lynette Romero’s departure. Here’s one example from Buffalo: Kevin O’Connell left WGRZ under less than ideal circumstances, but was allowed to say goodbye through a prerecorded message. https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/local/a-message-from-kevin-oconnell/71-574424657 Conversely, the anchors at WGRZ didn’t air dirty laundry regarding O’Connell’s departure. They didn’t try to speak for the entire station or fly a damn prop plane with a banner. They handled it professionally, as professionals and journalists should. That is how both management and station staff should handle a high-profile departure.

On YouTubeTV, both are on the schedule for 11am and 11:30am next week. So does WABC’s program guide on their website.

It actually checks out in Boston too. WSBK has WBZ News, a Jeopardy rerun, the Phantom Gourmet, and comedy reruns scheduled for Monday night. I was curious to know of a source because I haven’t seen any announcements, although I suppose this isn’t the type of thing most people will actually notice/care about.

On the one hand, Nexstar is a big station owning company with a small market mindset. Lynette Romero’s goodbye could’ve been handled much better than it was. In hindsight, not only was Lori Stokes allowed a goodbye in NY; Roz Abrams, Ernie Anastos, and Amy Freeze were able to leave on reasonably good terms when they left stations for other opportunities. Lynette Romero should’ve been given a bit more acknowledgment for her years of service, and KTLA/Nexstar blew it. IIRC, she was working there without a contract, and they owe her for that. On the other hand, is Mester’s suspension really all that surprising? If you badmouth the company you work for, of course there are going to be repercussions. It doesn’t matter if that company is Nexstar or NBC. He’ll be lucky to have a job after all of this. I still maintain that there were better (and smarter) ways to give a proper goodbye to Lynette Romero without A) making both local and national management look bad and B) making it all about you. It was a needlessly foolish gesture on Mester’s part. Also, FTVLive is reporting that “KTLA management” (read: local management) isn’t happy with Mester either. I’ll reiterate that I don’t like Scott Jones’ antics and petty behavior, but he’s usually on the money with these kinds of stories.

Source? And where is MyNetworkTV moving?

Sounds like it, given that Mester was more than complementary toward Janene Drafs. The thing is, like it or not, immediate dismissals after signing with a competitor are the norm, regardless of the station owner. If Lynette wasn’t leaving voluntarily and was fired like Demetria Kalodimos and Lisa LaFlamme were, I’d have a lot more sympathy for Mark Mester doing what he did. That isn’t the case here. I’ll echo what @MorningNews said; one can understand frustrations with corporate, but there are much better ways to handle this.

So much for dumping opinion.

Wow, what a loss for NY news. It’s a shame she left WABC because of…well, let’s just call it poor management, and she made a great anchor on Fox 5. Agreed on all points. Christina would’ve been perfect for the job, but Teresa would be good as well.

Well, looks like I got that totally wrong then. In hindsight, they took her off the 6 even before maternity leave. EDIT: And they didn’t hire Christi Paul for nothing either.

Honestly, it’ll likely be longer than that. There are clearly things they’re trying to iron out behind the scenes. Maybe we’ll see them when CBS Detroit launches? There’s still no date for that, although they’d be stupid not to launch before the midterm elections. If my posts on KCNC are cluttering the thread, I will happily hide them. My apologies.

To be fair, their syndication agreements might’ve been made before the sale.

No major changes. The intro looks to be done in-house. Excerpt: IMG_5637.MP4

An announcement from KCNC during the Chiefs-Cardinals game, along with the 9am intro on 9/12. IMG_5630.MOV IMG_5638.MOV

WCBS is starting to introduce the CBS New York brand outside of news. Meanwhile, WBZ and WJZ have both dropped the gold from their logos. WJZ seems to be adopting the “On Your Corner. In Your Corner.” slogan seen on promos for CBS News New York. Some images/video: FullSizeRender.mov

Here’s the first I’ve seen of the new CBS New York brand outside of news. This is a promo for their NY Jets insider show. FullSizeRender.mov

Some screenshots of a promo for the 9am news:

This screenshot is from today’s noon news. It’s more than likely temporary, but given the station’s recent history I’m surprised they aren’t going for an immediate launch of CBS News Philadelphia (likewise for NYC and Chicago). Perhaps Denver is a test market of sorts for the branding?

From a purely journalistic standpoint, this is a serious issue. However, I don’t think it will do much to negatively impact CNN here. While the stigma against Muslims in this country has decreased somewhat, news outlets of every sort still have a level of deference toward national security analysts. I’m personally not a fan of having that much deference, but that’s the status quo across every American news outlet, for better or worse.

Look, I’m not some sort of sappy royalist who thinks the American networks should cover nothing but the British Royals for the next ten days. I’m not a fan of the American obsession over British royalty either, and while Queen Elizabeth II was a remarkable woman and head of state, the institution of the House of Windsor is extremely flawed. Also, Prince Andrew can kiss my Royal Irish A$$™. That being said, when a 70-year head of state passes away and news outlets from the UK, the Commonwealth nations, the U.S., and all around the world cover it on the *day* of her death, that isn’t obsession; that’s news. “American obsession” isn’t an excuse for one network’s gross incompetence, ineptitude, and stupidity from the top down. When every network, news outlet, newspaper, idiot with a camera, and their mothers are all reporting on this story, that means it is an event of *international* (a word that NewsNation’s staff likely had to look up in the dictionary) significance. It is not the time to run a Blue Bloods rerun and bitch about the whole thing in prime time. That being said, I will admit to having one obsession: NewsNation itself. As I write this, I am well aware that I am spending WAY too much time and energy on a channel that gets outpaced by Newsmax in terms of both viewership AND news coverage. Yes, even Newsmax, which was born out of an opinion magazine and has always had serious credibility issues, is more of a news channel at this point. NewsNation is not a serious news outlet, and unless there is some cataclysmic event at the network itself, it does not warrant any more of my attention, time, or energy. I imagine many others can say the same. One last thing and then I’ll shut up about this farce of a channel for good: Even NewsNET did a better job with coverage today. They ran this story on their channel at 2:30 PM ET. YikesNation indeed.

I partially agree. NewsNation doesn’t have the resources of other outlets because they never invested in international coverage. As far as BBC America goes, they never break into programs for major events, as it’s an entertainment channel. IIRC, the portion of the BBC that owns BBC America isn’t even funded by the British license fee. NewsNation needs to decide what it wants to be. I’d have no problem with this lackluster coverage if they were a pure talk channel; they’d still be trash, but at least our expectations would be a bit lower. NewsNation wants to be a news channel (I think), and any news channel worth its salt needs to be on the ball when it comes to a story this significant. If NewsNation can’t even get on the air with a report from the Associated Press, that’s not a lack of resources; that’s incompetence. When even NewsMax is beating you, that’s a horrible look. EDIT: As of 4:17pm, they’re still showing Blue Bloods. How embarrassing.

Or, more likely, there was just no other program inventory they were interested in buying to fill out the 3pm hour. I can’t imagine those shows are all that expensive, and they’ll work as lead-ins to their new 4pm newscast.

Nope. Many of their stations don’t even stream on their websites. Even Sinclair does better than that.

He’s certainly earned his pay as a political reporter, but he was just a little bit awkward on his opening night. I’m sure he’ll improve with time. Personally, he isn’t my favorite choice (I would’ve preferred Elaine Quijano), but I’ll admit that having someone of his caliber certainly helps their streaming effort. Again, even at his worst, he’s miles better than Chuck Todd.

Here’s WBBM’s on-air announcement of their 9am show. It’s still being advertised as “CBS 2 News at 9,” and the show starts in 5 days. You’d think that given WBBM’s ratings history, and the fact that half the show is streaming-exclusive, they’d do what KCNC is doing and launch the new branding on Monday.

I checked the program guide 2 weeks ahead out of curiosity, and it checks out. It’s replacing an 11:30pm airing of TMZ Live on WOFL.