nycnewsjunkie

I’ve always thought that the website rebranding was more of a way to connect the stations’ often glitchy websites to the CBS News website, and in turn drive internet traffic to the national side of things. There has not yet been definitive evidence of dropping local branding wholesale. AFAIK, the only mentions made about dropping local branding were comments on this website, and that was nothing more than speculation. Of course, my theory is also speculation (they could theoretically drop local branding on air and online while keeping it in the sky), so I wouldn’t take this as a sign of anything until we have a better idea of the upcoming new look.

And it’s a shame that neither WABC nor WSVN seemed to give any tribute to him whatsoever. Even KODE in Joplin noted his passing. Even if he didn’t leave WABC on the best of terms, the fact that they didn’t even acknowledge it online is neglectful at best and low at worst.

Fox 5 may not stand out these days, but I think they benefit from WPIX going through several anchor/personnel changes every few years (especially in the morning). PIX’s newscasts have always been inferior to their Tribune/Nexstar counterparts in Chicago and LA, but they at least used to have some character. They now have newscasts that are even more bland and uninspiring than Fox 5. IMHO, they never fully recovered after dumping Jim and Kaity from evenings, and that’s worked to Fox 5’s benefit.

Yesterday’s parade shooting in the Chicago area received coverage from the big cable networks, and of course from local stations like WGN. Per FTVLive, this was not the case at NewsNation. In the immediate hours after the shooting, their Twitter page posted a single article on the shooting that contained reporting from both WGN and the Chicago Sun-Times, but not from NewsNation itself. While WGN was live and on the air, NewsNation was showing the famous award-winning news program… Blue Bloods. They did not go live on air or update their digital content with their own reporting until much later. It should be emphasized that NewsNation is located in the same building as WGN. In Chicago. I think we can finally pronounce this thing dead. No need to give any more attention to a network that can’t take itself seriously enough to properly cover a story miles from where they’re located.

Just caught a peak of New York Live. The show itself is basically a reformatting of the lifestyle-oriented 10am show, minus the news and weather segments. As mentioned, Chris and Marysol are now the primary hosts (as opposed to having an anchor front the bulk of the show.) Ben and Ojinika continue to host segments. The show is utilizing the traffic set (at least for now) and graphics look to be a modification of the existing news graphics.

If anything, they'll probably end up using the traffic/NewsNation set, given its relative versatility. I doubt they'll want to launch from the cramped space in the newsroom. I wouldn't expect it to be much different from the other lifestyle/pay for play shows out there, but we'll see.

I know that Altice is horrific when it comes to how they run News 12, but to hire Audrey Gruber *after* the NY1 fiasco is a whole new level of incompetence. Then again, Altice probably doesn’t care. They seem to have been moving toward integrating the News 12 networks anyway, and these resignations will give their out-of-touch management team an excuse to move further with that effort.

Wirtz and Reinsdorf wouldn’t need to start entirely from scratch. They could feasibly buy out Comcast’s 25% share of NBCS Chicago and they’d have their own RSN. Given that Comcast can’t find a buyer for their RSNs (since they aren’t in demand,) this would be an easy way for Comcast to sell one of them. Both sides would essentially get what they want.

I initially thought they modified the duratrans a bit, but it turns out that had more to do with the lighting and placement of the monitors. Hopefully the new set doesn’t look as cramped as the last one.

So they basically just did what MSNBC did. They dumped the tickers as well. Outside of Bret Baier and Fox News Sunday, their programming has been mostly talk/personality shows for a while. The “newsroom” shows have always been slanted to the right (not explicitly, but in terms of story selection). I don’t like Fox News (or any other American cable news channel for that matter,) but I’m not sure this counts as a drastic change from what they’ve been doing before.

Agree. The show is great, but it’s best suited for prime time.

Bill, Liz, and Lee shared sports for the 6pm, to rather hilarious results. They actually did a decent job (even if Lee is a closeted Celtics fan,) though I imagine Ryan Field’s job security is intact. EDIT: @wabceyewitness beat me to it at the exact same time. Apologies for the redundancy.

I’ll go as far as to say that the outgoing package looks better than some of the newer graphics packages being churned out by Gray and Nexstar. That said, the new Wx graphics look fantastic. If they are a harbinger for a group-wide package, that will be a welcome development, especially for WABC and other stations with aging/less than stellar graphics.

I’m surprised it supposedly isn’t COVID-related, given that the other anchors (at least from what I’ve seen) are distanced on the desk together, rather than being in separate studios.

Thanks for the info, I must’ve just missed seeing it on air. Several other Nexstar stations have their helicopters in the air, so taking one down in a place like NYC didn’t sound right to begin with.

I haven’t seen it on air for some time, but I don’t know if they dropped it entirely. Would not be a very good move if so.

Imho, CBS screwed themselves more than they screwed Jeff. One can argue that Jeff somehow has the better end of the deal today. He works almost exclusively on Saturday mornings with a good cohort of people, and might even get another shot at the big chair down the road if/when CBS decides to fill its ranks with people who know what the hell they’re doing. In the meantime, he can sit comfortably knowing that he’s not involved with this current fiasco.

I guess when you have a penny-pinching, micro-managing boss, an alleged narcissist as your chief anchor, and friction between the two, that doesn’t translate to high ratings or a good product. The relationship between O’Donnell and CBS News seems to be a marriage of convenience, and a dysfunctional one at that.

That NewscastStudio article cites a single Broadcasting & Cable article, which suggests that both stations will move into a shared workspace. I assume both stations will get new sets when they do, but the B&C article doesn’t mention that. The “Potential Studios” section of the NS article doesn’t cite anything, so I’m assuming it’s speculation on the part of the author.

It’s going to be an uphill battle on two fronts. First, ratings. Many of us (myself included) wish CNN could transform into its 1990s self and just do the darn news instead of running whatever hyper-partisan narcissism they ran under Zucker. I’d also like to see long-form reporting/documentaries on “investigations or far flung human dramas.” However, straight news and in-depth reporting don’t make for high viewership on a rolling news channel, and documentaries are more expensive to produce than shows where pundits rant into a camera. There’s a harsh reason why every cable news channel (including the zombie that is NewsNation) ends up as some variation of Fox News instead of France 24: many Americans (regardless of party/belief) would rather be coddled to instead of seeing politicians questioned rigorously. Second, reputation. Over the past decade or so, CNN has become known for catering to Northeastern middle/upper-class liberals. That image has become especially problematic under Zucker, and it won’t be easy to erase. CNN would have to completely overhaul opinion programming and clearly separate it from the news division before it even begins to shed Zucker’s influence. Here’s hoping Licht & Co. pull it all off, but there is a long road ahead.

I was confused about that as well. Does the streaming service have any features other than extra severe weather coverage?

ABC has been reading the news in the present tense for a while, although that really accelerated after David Muir took over WNT. I guess that style of delivery is supposed to make the news sound like it’s happening in real time, but it’s devolved into being unintentionally hilarious, given that they aren’t even speaking in complete sentences anymore. It’s certainly a departure from Peter Jennings’ style of delivery.

It honestly benefits TWC to have weather coverage in prime time. Even from a ratings standpoint, severe weather is far more interesting than whatever they put on after 8pm. Do you know if their derecho coverage was paywalled for those in the affected area? Would be disgraceful if so.

In terms of the newscast format, this isn’t the first time WABC broke convention. Witty anchors like Roger Grimsby and the whole concept of “happy talk” were specifically implemented to break from the traditional newscast of the period and stick out from their competitors. However, deciding not to cover a news conference on TV and breaking into programming late don’t fall under the “breaking convention” strategy. WABC still does a solid job overall, but they could’ve done a bit better with today’s coverage IMHO.

Something tells me management actually likes having the anchors editorialize. I guess it’s supposed to make them more relatable, but it’s a bit condescending to those of us who would rather not hear opinion on a straight newscast. Reminds me more of Bill Bonds than Bill Beutel. That said, the format works for NYC.