nycnewsjunkie

Come to think of it, that might partially explain the shift to being commentator-heavy. Talking-head programs can’t be that expensive to produce. All you need is one person with an opinion, a reasonable backdrop, some guests that will appear on any network that throws cash at them, and you have a show. Why fill your schedule with original documentaries, international news coverage, or investigative specials when you can generate more revenue with talking heads? And while Nexstar will certainly be paying the stars of such talk programs generously, their salaries will likely pale in comparison to the Carlsons and Maddows of the world. Not to mention, some of those personalities aren’t even exclusive to NewsNation. I remember reading a quote from Perry Sook from a conference call regarding the Tribune acquisition. This was his statement on Tribune’s management of WGN America (via Deadline) This was in reference to WGN America cancelling nearly all of its expensive original programming in favor of cheaper syndicated reruns. This should’ve been an indicator that Sook wanted his new cable network to generate revenue on the cheap, rather than investing in expensive programming to draw eyeballs. Now, Nexstar not only invests in cheap programs; they invest in cheap programs that they own. Horrible move for journalism, but smart business move for a cable network that few were (or are) watching.

I completely agree, and I would certainly hang on to local identities at the top-rated stations if I were running the joint. That said, Wendy McMahon isn’t exactly a stranger to this industry. I imagine that if CBS really is going full-Macy’s, she and the rest of the management team have taken all of this into account. Local stations in Canada used to identify with channel numbers like their American counterparts. However, as the national networks in that country expanded their footprint, the local stations began identifying by their network, rather than “Channel X.” Even though leading stations like CFCF, CHAN, and CFTO dumped their longtime monikers, they still lead their respective markets, and they also contribute to the success of their networks’ national news operations. If I had to guess, CBS concluded that at worst, standardizing their stations’ brands won’t change their current ratings positions. Granted, these moves would not be “innovations” or ratings game-changers by any means. KYW, WFOR, and WBBM aren’t going to shoot to first place because of a brand change, and it’s unlikely that KDKA, WCCO, and WJZ will drop to last. However, standardizing station identities could give a relatively weak national news brand (CBS News) a much-needed boost. And besides, with the growth of streaming, people don’t tune in to “Channel X” anymore. They tune to the network. Will it work? Dumping established identities risks throwing away a station’s legacy, and established local stations usually help boost the national network (see WRAL.) However, if people are tuning into WJZ/KDKA/etc and turning off when the Evening News comes on, that doesn’t really help CBS. I highly doubt it will change anything at all on the local level, but there’s a chance it will improve the reputation and ratings of their national morning and evening news programs. Time will tell.

I have a feeling that the WGN people knew what they were doing when they put in the “embarrassingly bad soundbite.” FWIW, it’s getting the amount of attention it deserves: a whopping 13 likes. I don’t know if anyone here works at a Nexstar station or knows someone who does, but I’d be curious to know how local newsrooms feel about promoting this garbage. One small problem: that title’s been taken for Jeffrey Toobin’s new show on NewsNation. Harsh joking aside, given that they’re now going after every creep and talking head reject out there, it wouldn’t even shock me if they tried to hire Toobin, or even someone like Matt Lauer, and dump more fuel on this dumpster fire. The real journalists at that network can’t get out of there fast enough.

That announcement was so interesting that I forgot to watch it. And so did pretty much everyone else.

Caught this interesting tidbit from tonight’s 7pm news on WFOR. The open transitions into a “Next Weather” intro, with “CBS News Miami” branding. Complete absence of “CBS4” in that weather intro too. Alright, you’ve all convinced me. The local identities are likely going away. FullSizeRender.mov

They probably won’t rebrand as “X’s NewsCenter” or “X News Now,” but I could see the Peoria operation rebranded as “21 News,” as both ABC and NBC are on WPTA now. I don’t know if Gray has been doing the same “consolidation via attrition” strategy in Duluth, but if they are, I imagine they’ll do something similar and take the name of the stronger newscast (KBJR I assume.) I agree with your sentiments of everything being boring and cookie-cutter, but they already do this now. Everything has been consolidated under the same umbrella for a while, and I don’t think having different studios and anchor teams changes that. Besides, the content is pretty much the same anyway. Gray doesn’t want to spend on different studios, anchors, etc. to put out essentially the same newscast from the same news department with the facade of looking different. It makes financial sense to consolidate everything under the stronger news brand (25 News) than to spend on a facade. It might actually drive more viewers to the ABC station. I imagine more people watch “25 News” than “Heart of Illinois News” even though they’re both from the same operation. Ideally, I would rather the two stations have completely different newscasts, staff, newsrooms, identities, etc., but we sadly don’t live in that world anymore.

I’m not sure if the Saudi-backed LIVGolf has been discussed on this forum yet, but I thought it would be a good idea to start a thread on the subject. There have been several high-profile golfers that have left the PGA Tour and joined LIV after being offered large sums to do so. While LIV has a stated goal of growing and revolutionizing the game of golf, its Saudi government ownership has raised concerns over sportswashing, given Saudi Arabia’s human rights record. Despite a lack of global TV partners, LIVGolf has already signed some high-profile voices in the broadcast world. Arlo White, Jerry Foltz, and David Feherty are just some of the people that have already joined the the LIV Tour as broadcasters. Now, two other well-known voices are in talks with LIV about broadcast roles: Former CBS broadcaster Gary McCord is in talks with LIVGolf CEO Greg Norman for the 2023 season. He’s expressed particular interest in working with Feherty, as well as Charles Barkley. Speaking of which… In an even bigger shock, Charles Barkley confirmed on the Dan Patrick Show that he was considering a role with LIV after they reached out to him. LIV has not yet made an offer to Barkley, but when asked if he were offered triple his current earnings from TNT and endorsement deals, Barkley stated he would accept the offer. Barkley is set to play in the upcoming LIVGolf pro-am, and has given the group until this Thursday to make him an offer.

They got 1.52 million for the championship game, and about 715k on average. Not superb, but not bad for a startup league. Also, they finished the season, which is more than could be said for the AAF/XFL. And they’re renewed for a second season.

I’ve come around to thinking this way myself, but in all likelihood, station groups will continue to add newscasts for the time being. The amount of ad revenue they generate will be attractive to station owners, and they don’t yet see the implications of overworking the staff. There has to be some sort of breaking point for this expansion, but I don’t see it happening yet. If they don’t slash the non-core time-slots entirely, I’d like to see stations do news differently in those time slots. I’d love to see a local Ros Atkins-type analysis show at 4pm, where major stories are broken down/explained, and multiple perspectives are examined. I actually give Tegna a bit of credit for trying alternative newscasts in certain time slots at KUSA and KTVB. I personally wish they would focus more on analysis instead of commentary/opinion, and Kyle Clark can come across as being a bit arrogant at times, but the format seems to work, at least at those stations. Plus, they relieve the pressure on the rest of the staff and make the station stand out. I don’t think they have to revive “Bozo the Clown” or anything, but it would be refreshing to see local stations produce their own content. The way the TV market is going, they might just need to in order to stay relevant. The networks are prioritizing streaming, and the affiliates have become a secondary concern (Ex: CBS was willing to leave top-rated WRAL for basement-dweller WNCN just so they could receive reverse compensation.) Producing local programming other than news and the generic pay-for-play crap would at least be a step in making stations more relevant in their own communities again.

The better-performing newscasts on the non-CBS stations aren’t going anywhere. That goes for WPCW’s 10pm news and all newscasts on KCAL 9. I’m pleasantly surprised that WSBK kept their 8pm, which makes sense since they’re the only Boston station carrying news at that hour.

And certainly not worthy of its own news segment. IMO, there are discontinued sets from over a decade ago that look better. For a good reference, see WSYR’s 2011 set. I guess they finally figured that doing their shows in a newsroom reminiscent of Bushwick, NY turned out to be a dud (in addition to dumping the longtime anchor team a few years back.) Apparently their solution is to build a set that appeals to absolutely no one. The newscasts themselves, which needed even more fixing than the set, don’t seem to have changed. They focused on fixing the wrong thing, and they even managed to screw that up.

So we’ve officially gone from “all facts, no opinion” to “here’s every rejected, big-mouth talk show host with an opinion that didn’t even attract good ratings on the big networks. Also, Blue Bloods.” Social media sycophants do not create credibility. If that’s the case, then you might as well say that Alex Jones is a credible journalist because people like him on social media. It should not be surprising that Chris Cuomo’s social media comments are filled with people who could care less about journalistic ethics. Twitter has a block button, and it would not surprise me if Chris uses it. As for Megyn Kelly, she has under 500k subs on YouTube. That’s respectable, but compared to other current affairs channels out there, it pales in comparison. If she can’t generate more subscribers on YouTube despite her fame, she won’t magically generate viewers for a network with distribution/content/editorial/behind the scenes issues from the beginning. Long story short, Nexstar will spend 8 figures to make 7. Oh well.

While they’re at it, they might as well throw some ads on the headline ticker, since they aren’t using it for, you know, headlines.

Probably because they’re putting it on stations that were pulling zeros the ratings even when they had actual newscasts (and not, say, KCAL.) This newscast is not good, but it’s not supposed to be. It’s cheap by design. It’s there for the ad revenue, not public service. Unfortunate, but that’s the way the business has gone. FWIW, Detroit’s situation should be somewhat rectified when they launch their own news department, so they probably won’t be outsourcing the local segments for long. I doubt this is CBS’ idea of a new news operation. It should be noted that we were all wrong when we called this a rebrand, which it isn’t. It’s a completely different program. Mea culpa.

Nope, there is one other answer he could’ve given: no answer at all. Yet, Lee Goldberg clearly replied “addition only,” so I’m not sure how else to spell it out. There is no sacred rule in the TV News Ten Commandments that limits stations to four (and no more than four) meteorologists. Instead of making wagers on who’s leaving based on evidence-free speculation, let’s wait until there are signs of an impending departure *before* starting the guessing game. It’ll at least save you a few bucks on your next bet.

Thank you. Sister station WPVI has 5 meteorologists on staff as well. Hell, PIX11 has 5 forecasters. It’s not unheard of.

Thing is, WLNY wasn’t getting viewers (for a number of reasons that I won’t get into here.) In WBFS’ case, there was no news at all. CBS is probably thinking “why spend more on a newscast that won’t get much viewership when we can rake in the same ad dollars with less effort?” Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t watch this newscast either, but since CBS owns a ton of non-competitive, non-CBS stations, it will last as long as the ad money comes in. Also keep in mind that we’re in an election year, and the 2024 presidential campaign begins next year. Stations will rake in political ad money, and CBS can maximize its profits by spending less on certain newscasts.

This isn’t just a branding change for the newscasts on the CW/myNet stations; this is a completely different newscast. It looks a lot like Sinclair’s News Central experiment in the 2000s, as it combines national content with local inserts. I wouldn’t call it a true local newscast. It’s more of a way for CBS to collect ad revenue with minimal effort/expense on their non-competitive, non-CBS stations. I suppose it’s better than no news at all.

I’d honestly rather they go by “Weather.” It’s simple, unpretentious, and it’s what everyone calls it regardless of how much money stations spend on a weather brand. Names like “First Alert” and “Next” sound awfully tacky, and it’s the exact opposite of the forward-thinking approach that CBS is supposedly going for at its stations. People check the weather, they don’t check the “First Alert Forecast™.”

WESH isn’t Hearst’s flagship station (even though they have their graphics hub there,) so I’m not exactly sure what you’re on about. It’s not even their largest market. In any case, this whole “X should merge with Y because reasons” discussion is absurdly hypothetical and it’s WAY off topic.

And I should have a million dollars. It doesn’t matter who buys whom. The main issue is consolidation in general. We don’t even know if the existing deal will go through as intended yet. Chances are CMG and Standard will end up merging while the conflicts get spun off (which would’ve made sense if they’d just done that from the start.) Regardless of what you call the thing, it would all be under the Apollo umbrella to some extent. Whatever legacy CMG had under the Cox family has been irrelevant since 2019, and doesn’t apply here.

Yup, that too. Again, not indicative of anything, just interesting to point out.

A few comments on the branding side of things: FWIW, there isn’t a single 3 in sight on the set itself. However, you’ll notice that the desk and one of the big screens have “Eyewitness News” logos imposed over what looks to be the new graphics. These details aren’t indicative of anything (and they could very well be temporary,) but they’re interesting to note. As far as the set itself, it’s a massive improvement, and it feels much more spacious than before.

Some pics:

I agree, and I don’t think CBS is expecting to cut into KTLA (that would be more of an added bonus than a realistic expectation.) I think it’s mainly about putting on programming that’ll at least get better ratings than morning programming they currently offer on 2/9. And if KCBS takes a ratings hit (as if it hasn’t already,) it doesn’t matter. They’re all under the same umbrella anyway.