nycnewsjunkie

6 minutes ago, Georgie56 said:

Turns out WLNY and maybe a few of the existing independents are getting the new “City#” logo as well.

 

 

I guess it’s better than the butchered KCAL logo, but geez that looks awful. I know these stations are far from CBS’ priority, but you’d think they’d put a little bit of effort here.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Well, so much for the "SuperStation" that launched basic cable ending up as a network affiliate after all of these years.

 

I mean, that “SuperStation” died in 2007, so this isn’t much of a change. They’re going from an independent that aired news and reruns to airing 2 hours of the CW per day (along with said news and reruns). Nbd imo, although it really shouldn’t have taken this long to announce this.

13 minutes ago, IceManNYR said:

For the 4pm newscast, they are using the new weather graphics.

Hallelujah

Although, those big weather icons in the 7-day clash with the rest of the graphics, but I’m not complaining.

3 hours ago, CircleWXYZ said:

As for 62’s lack of coverage on last night’s storms, that was a corporate decision that came from NY.  WWJ is a CBS O&O.  This is why storm coverage was on WKBD.

 

The ND at both stations is doing a great job.  Just dealing with short sided folks at corporate that’s all.

Just curious, how do you know that this was a corporate decision? It’s not like they were airing national preseason football last night. To me there’s no reason they couldn’t break into programming on both channels. It happens in Oklahoma, for example, all the time. Just saying.

1 hour ago, Georgie56 said:

KTVT is dropping their 6pm newscast for a block of J! and Wheel.

 

 

In terms of viewership retention, it makes sense to put the J!/Wheel block on one station instead of making viewers switch between two. But one would hope they’d at least consider 6pm news on KTXA.

9 hours ago, Megatron81 said:

NewsNation has jumped the shark on UFO reporting LOL :P.

Speaking of sharks, is the long-extinct Megalodon shark secretly lurking in the waters of the Pacific? Are marine biologists hiding something that the government doesn’t want you to know about? Hell if I know, but I’m sure we’re all just itching to find out on the next NewsNation exclusive. /s

1 hour ago, Georgie56 said:

KMOV has changed their branding from News 4 to First Alert 4. 

Consultants strike again. Do we have a vomit emoji reaction on here?

2 hours ago, qunewsguy said:

Not quite a "desk in the corner" but close enough. I have to say I liked the previous set a bit better since it fit with the circle motif.

 

 

The new set doesn’t look too bad, but I really don’t think the old one needed replacing. It still looked fine to me. I guess they wanted to maximize the use of the space and get rid of the green screen? Just a guess.

The graphics are kind of a mess imo. There are some elements that look ok, and there are some elements that look as if they recycled parts of Linear Drift’s CBS O&O package. There’s no consistent color scheme either; it’s as if they couldn’t decide between turquoise/white and blue/yellow. And those intro graphics look older than the old graphics.

Bumping this thread; Neeraj Khemlani is out.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/cbs-news-neeraj-khemlani-exit-1235694556/

49 minutes ago, MediaZone4K said:

I wonder what the local numbers look like now, and who exactly is in last place.

All newscasts look virtually smiliar these so its amazing to picture now that the Eyewitness News style was ground breaking. 

 

@nycnewsjunkie Out of curuosity, what criticisms do you have for WABC.

I remember criticizing Bill Ritter for making occasional opinionated quips during newscasts. I generally prefer that opinions and commentary be labeled as such and separated from the news, but in hindsight, there are reporters and anchors who have done far worse. Otherwise, Bill’s a good anchor and he’s earned his due.

Also, their quasi-tabloid style can be a bit off-putting for me at times, but it *is* reflective of the area the station serves, and if it’s still popular all these years later, I suppose there’s no reason to fix it.

14 hours ago, MorningNews said:

Agree that the 75th anniversary specials have been really nice to see. Some great footage of Grimbsy, Beutel, Johnson, and Williams days. I’m harsh on the EWN style they use but the history of WABC cannot be denied.

I’ve been harsh on WABC in the recent past too (and probably too harsh in hindsight), but it can’t be overstated that we probably wouldn’t have local news as it exists today without the Eyewitness News format. When it debuted, it must’ve been a complete shock to people who were only used to hearing TV news from a rehearsed, baritone announcer preaching it to them, or from some newsreel. In a city like NY, the format still fits like a glove IMO.

1 hour ago, Georgie56 said:

Effectively succeeding KRON’s 8 and 9pm newscasts, when they sign on with The CW.

 

Interesting there’s no 10pm. I guess CBS is going to continue with Now News after all?

Or maybe they’ll just pull news from the 10pm hour entirely and pump in some rerun.

14 hours ago, TheOneManHerd said:

Nobody circles the wagons like Newscenter 13. 

 

The only thing missing from this promo is a “WHOOP!” from Chris Berman.

11 hours ago, Samantha said:

The KTVI piece is fascinating. Let me shed some light on what KTVI was like at the time, and you might understand how this one never saw the light of day.

 

KTVI had adopted Hello in 1984 alongside the other "major" Times-Mirror stations (KDFW and KTBC). They all had similar open animations. All three of those stations (KDFW, KTBC, KTVI) plus WVTM Birmingham then adopted the same look in mid-late 1987: JAM's Yours Truly and the diagonal stripe bar graphics. I believe this comes from that time period. The ND of KTVI from 1986 to 1989 was Sue Kawalerski.

 

Times-Mirror tended to make a lot of decisions at the level of corporate. (A corporate graphics package of the kind the Times-Mirror stations rolled out in late 1987 was not common then!) And they made some disastrous ones at KTVI, the market's third-rated news station (with KMOV and KSDK, two goliaths, in front of them). In November 1986, Lloyd Immel was hired to be one of the lead anchors. Then, just months after the Yours Truly look debuted at KTVI, it was gone. And so too were all the news presenters.

 

 

In February 1988, KTVI debuted a new anchor team (see the very laughable promo above), which gained the nickname "Gang of Four" in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They all came from elsewhere: Kevin Cokely was working for Storer in Washington, Iola Johnson was in radio in Dallas (previously of WFAA), Stu Klitenic came from WXYZ, and Miles Muzio had been a journeyman weatherman already by this point (I believe his last posting was KOIN prior to this). The existing look was blown up (this is when they switched to the Great Prospect track from Bruton, then to Palmer, then to News Central, all in about two years). Apparently their installation had been in the works since August 1987 when a new promotions director came to KTVI. (There's a sign of something.)

 

St. Louis viewers—famous for their resistance to change, as KDNL would later learn—never took to the Gang of Four, all of whom left the market within two years. Kawalerski was evidently forced out, not long after Times-Mirror broadcasting president John McCrory was replaced. In the KTVI newsroom, the news she was out was met with "jubilation" and "euphoria". (She landed at WCIX.) But the hiring of the Gang of Four was a corporate decision, beyond Kawalerski. McCrory was known for his intense involvement in KTVI's affairs. It took Bud Carey, the new T-M broadcasting head; Wayne Thomas, the new GM; and a salvage operation to return them to respectability. Losing ABC for Fox helped; ABC was never much watched in St. Louis, something else for KDNL to learn.

 

Clearly In Touch was far along. It was finished work from Gari, the same company that had already done resings of Hello for them. But the change in promotions director and possibly other factors (the Times Mirror stations graphics package of 1987), and likely the forthcoming revamp of news anchors, likely left this to sit on a shelf.

That must’ve been a hell of a lot of research on your part to track this stuff down. I get the feeling that promoting your anchor team as a bunch of people from out of town probably got a very different reaction from the one the geniuses (/s) in management had in mind. It sounds like the station was a mess before Fox entered the picture.

36 minutes ago, rdtv said:

The font is Barlow. It’s free to use. Makes sense why multiple station groups use it, one less thing to pay to license for 100+ stations…

Yeah, I definitely understand that aspect of it; that’s money better spent on the actual news product. I still can’t say I’m a big fan of Barlow though. There are plenty of free knockoff DIN fonts out there that would’ve looked better IMO. But it’s not the biggest deal in the world relative to everything else.

24 minutes ago, LexTVandRadio said:

Wonder if WLEX would be a part of the "smaller" market. 

Yeah I have no idea what the meaning of “small” is in this scenario either. I’m assuming markets 100 and below, but that’s just a guess on my part.

3 hours ago, Greggo said:

What is the newsroom “structure” FTV is talking about when he teases small-market newscasts without anchors? 

From what I gather, they would essentially cut out the middleman of a traditional local anchor at these smaller stations, and the newsroom would be centered around reporters and MMJs. Any gaps in content could be filled by Scripps News.
 

I think it’s a decent idea at stations like WGBA. However, if it were implemented at an outlet like MTN, which covers an entire state, it would be a massive downgrade imo. I understand why they feel the need to implement something like this at their underperforming small stations, but I would hope that this strategy doesn’t fully extend to their few small outlets that put out a high-quality, competitive product.

15 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Sale to Scripps, you mean.

They already own WFTX.

1 hour ago, mrschimpf said:

Ehh, some of them have deteriorated to third-fourth place (or never got out of the basement under previous ownership) and have entrenched management that should have been gone a decade ago. For many of those stations, without the police comms officer in charge of their Nixle/Facebook writing up police PR and the craven accident-chasing social media accounts they happily take content from, they'd be even worse off.

 

I'm happy to see what Scripps can do, because the Journal deal was an albatross of badly-entrenched management (if you've seen my views over the years, you know exactly who I'm talking about) that they had to wait out before they could make their mark on those stations. Scripps News is a good product that needs more eyes on it and anything that gets away from the social media/Ring/drivecam 'filler news' model for their stations is welcome to me.

I guess that’s fair; a lot of those ex-Journal stations have become downright awful over the years (KMTV, for example).

22 minutes ago, MidwestTV said:

Changes to Scripps' smaller market stations include eliminating some anchor positions, beefing up heavily on MMJs (including, apparently, giving substantial raises on the order of $20k+), eliminating the chief meteorologist title and placing all meteorologists under the purview of the assistant news director.

“Reimagining” my a**.

Reference: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-mind-reimagining-local-news-adam-symson

Beginning today, KGTV moved their morning news up to 5am. “Early Rush” from Scripps News now occupies the 4:30am half hour.

https://www.tvpassport.com/tv-listings/stations/abc-kgtv-san-diego-ca/1877

This certainly follows the creeping trend of stations vacating the 4am hour, and it’s also indicative of Scripps’ plan to integrate Scripps News with their local TV stations.

1 hour ago, JosiahCubed said:

Can we get back to talking about the current ABC logo and the new O&O graphics package please? I swear we get carried away by the smallest things in these threads.

 

All I can say about the new O&O package now that we've seen the full package on WLS is... I don't really like the look of the graphics. It's too cluttered for a (somewhat) simple package. Very few packages have successfully shown the 3D look with simple gradients (both the current CBS O&O look and NBC O&O look). The only thing I can give the look credit for is the time, temperature, and current weather conditions ticker in the opens.

I happen to disagree; I still think that overall, the new graphics look great. These things are subjective, so while I somewhat disagree with you, I’ll try to see where you’re coming from. There are even people out there who like the latest WRIC graphics, and if that isn’t proof that appearance is subjective, I don’t know what is.

I understand the criticism of it being cluttered if we’re strictly talking about the use of 3D in the intros and transitions. These elements would’ve looked better 5 years ago, and they still look ok today imo, but I can see how those transitions may not age well as years go by. Still, I’d argue that these elements still look better than anything coming out of most of the major station owning groups out there. You could easily make the same criticism of the new Gray graphics, but the consensus around here seems to be that those look pretty good.

When it comes to the ticker and L3s, which is what people see most of the time, I don’t see any issues there. Those look more than fine; they’re clean, easy to read, and they’re simple enough. Who gives a damn if there’s a slight gradient? The ABC L3s are far less cluttered than anything coming from the non-O&Os. That even includes Tegna, which recently updated their L3s to take up a third of the screen for some reason. IMO, the new L3s are a massive improvement over what most of the O&Os have at the moment (looking at WABC, especially).

I noticed WFOR quietly dropped the 4:30am half hour too. I think stations are finally realizing that, at least in much of the country, there really isn’t much of an audience/advertiser draw at 4 in the morning.

On 7/14/2023 at 6:28 PM, mountainave said:

Disney is exploring the sale of its linear TV stations including ABC.  This does not include ESPN.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/13/disney-ceo-iger-opens-door-to-unloading-tv-assets.html

If this actually comes to fruition wouldn’t surprise me if Disney sells some of their stake in ESPN to whoever buys the other TV assets. The CNBC anrticle alludes to this potentiality.

Quote

Cable TV channel ESPN is in a different bucket, however. On that front, Iger said Disney is open to finding a strategic partner, which could take the form of a joint venture or offloading an ownership stake.

33 minutes ago, Geoffrey said:

I'm seeing a lot of sympathy going his way and anger at The Sun. There was apparently no crime committed and the "young person" in question says the story was rubbish.

The man’s also been hospitalized over this, so that’s also a factor. The story is complex, and there’s still a lot we don’t know, including both the motives of the accusers and the full severity of the accusations. I think a lot of the anger at The Sun is because they implied criminality; one article implied that Huw (still unnamed) “could face criminal charges.” This wouldn’t look good for them if he didn’t commit a crime, unsavory though his actions may be.
 

There’s also a broader discussion to be had about the right to privacy, if it was violated, and whether it can realistically be maintained in the case of a high profile individual at a public institution. If it turns out that none of the allegations amount to either criminal activity or workplace misconduct, one might ask if this ever should have been a story at all.

As far as misconduct is concerned, I can’t judge one way or another until we know absolutely all of the facts, especially considering that authorities found no evidence of a crime. It’s tempting for people to make a verdict, but it wouldn’t be an informed (or just) one. Sexual misconduct is a scourge on society, but so is defamation.
 

IMO the only appropriate thing I can say is that I hope everyone, including the alleged victims, Huw Edwards, and his family, gets much needed help and support.