nycnewsjunkie

1 hour ago, WCAUTVNBC10 said:

Having it horizontal actually looks a lot better than that stacked logo in previous spots.

 

I'll also say that definitely is vestigial given they aren't mentioning the 3 at all verbally.

Honestly, that makes it even more puzzling. Why even ponder including the 3 if you’re not even mentioning it? Of course, this is assuming they even use that 3 as a visual brand for the station and its newscasts, and not just for promos or something.

The one pet peeve I have about the new package so far is the font; it looks a little bit outdated to me. Still, considering how old the previous Gray packages looked, beggars can’t be choosers.

24 minutes ago, sfomspphl said:

Also think of these three surprising things that give strong local news brands an advantage...and wise operators are leveraging and listening to them along the way

 

- 50% more OTA homes than 10 years ago. Who would have predicted that the drive to digital on demand viewing would result in more over the air households?  

 

https://www.nexttv.com/news/nielsen-sees-uptick-in-over-the-air-households

 

- An aging population - news viewing has always skewed older, and the size of the cohort with the time and desire to consume news is rising 

- Mistrust in national news brands. Whether you like it or not, for decades a sizable minority has felt unheard by the NY-based network news operations. And local brands at least have some dissociation from that for the cohort that cares about it. Awareness and action on that mistrust is higher than it was 10 or 20 years ago for better or worse. On the flip side who would have guessed 20 years ago the evening news on 3 networks plus cable would still be around? 

 

Remember in the 90s and 2000s we were lamenting the stations in big markets that lost their affiliate status as dead men walking?

• KRON beat KTVU at 10pm recently. 
• Who would have thought WHDH even more recently as an example would remain a contender without NBC, let alone lead some ratings after the split?
• WSVN still means 'news' more than any other english station in Miami.
• KUSI is a perennial contender in the San Diego market to the chagrin of some
• WGN leads many time slots 
• The streamers are signing carriage agreements with the locals

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nexstar-reaches-multi-agreement-youtube-110000355.html

 

Fact is we've already seen 25% of cable households cut the cord. Smartphones are ubiquitous as are the socials they feed.

 

The disruption based on the elements we see today is very far along, and what you see today in habits and financials already reflects that. Future change will be things we can't see (who knows what AI does to productivity for example). 

 

CBS can brand all it wants, but NBC has played the network/local combo brand punch in O&O markets for years and it's no magic sauce for NBC. Heck the top web search term for them in LA is....KNBC...which hasn't ever been used in their on air news branding. Consumers will do what's easy for them to reach the talent telling stories they want to see, graphics be damned.

 

The company that's most deftly handling change in the industry at scale is in my opinion Nexstar, and in ways I wouldn't have guessed 5 or 10 years ago. But investors already figured that out, perhaps too widely, given Nexstar's valuation today. 

This is a long one, so my apologies in advance. TLDR, Nexstar isn’t the future, local≠always better, and accessibility is paramount.

I’ll have to disagree on quite a few of your points. First, Nexstar is not handling change in the industry well at all. They don’t have many other assets other than a mammoth amount of TV stations, which, in an industry that’s on the downswing, is like being the king of the coy pond. They’ve also put all their eggs in the proverbial basket of a floundering cable channel that has been hampered by distribution from the start. Also, it certainly doesn’t help that Nexstar actively restricts local streaming in order to “fulfill obligations to cable providers” or however they spin it. When you still live and die on retrans money, to the point where I can’t live stream a newscast, you aren’t handling change in the industry well.

Also, where did you get the ratings info for the stations you cited? I find it rather surprising that KRON was able to beat KTVU. That said, if they did, I doubt it’s because KRON has more of a local brand; on the contrary, I would credit the amount of upheaval and turnover at KTVU more than anything innovative KRON has supposedly done. Also, no offense, but KUSI is a joke. Appealing to angry boomers is not a sustainable plan that anyone should follow. Granted, if WGN decided to call themselves “NewsNation Chicago,” people would notice. However, just because a station slaps on a local brand doesn’t mean they’re a better station, or one that has an advantage in the market. There are some stations that have enough legacy and clout to have a unique local brand, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. Most TV stations are bland, boring, and stuck in the 1990s in terms of branding, accessibility, content, and relevance.

To get back to what this thread is about, what CBS has done is an effort to future-proof the company’s local newsrooms. Their stations are far more accessible than ever before; I can go on the CBS News app and see any CBS owned station’s local news, plus additional local content. It’s the best approach to accessibility that any station group has implemented so far. Compare that to your example, Nexstar, which does absolutely nothing on this front. That said, if some successful stations hold on to legacy brands either temporarily or permanently (like WBZ or KDKA, for example), I don’t think it matters as much as we think it does, especially since every station so far (except KCAL) visually emphasizes their presence on the CBS News app. Conversely, if most CBS stations drop their channel number, I don’t think it will either positively or negatively affect their ratings or viewer trust; there was neither outcry nor excessive curiosity among most viewers when KPIX and KCNC switched over. While *some* stations don’t need to drop legacy brands that are already working for them, they do need to reinvent themselves a bit, and prioritize accessibility in order for both older viewers and people in my age group to consider them relevant. So far, while the implementation hasn’t been perfect, CBS has done a decent job of that.

2 hours ago, tvtime07 said:

Oh yeah, the Romero/Mester mess was darn awful and shouldn't have happened, they should have properly given Lynette a nice farewell even is she was leaving for a competitor, it wouldn't have blown up amongst viewers and Mester would have kept his cool and would probably be there today. Then a few months later the favorable 5 Live gets cancelled... looks like one bad decision after another for KTLA, thank goodness at least one good thing happened in the past several months: the set redesign looks beautiful. 

I’ll admit that I’ve changed my mind on that a bit; I know I said that Mester should’ve been more professional, but it was apparent that Pete Saiers didn’t exactly endear himself to the staff by giving Lynette Romero such a terse dismissal. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was only one of many missteps that he made.

1 hour ago, patsx3 said:

Absolutely, I’m not arguing with the rationale. It’s a much easier url to remember and type. 

 

The point I was trying to make is that it sort of contradicts some of the comments I’ve read here over the past month or two that local identities like WBZ News were going to be sidelined in favor of CBS (city name) either now or in the very near future. If they plan on rebranding to just CBS News Boston, they may as well have left it as cbsboston.com rather than reverting to WBZ.com.

Wendy McMahon basically said that the approach to the rebrand would be conducted on a market by market basis. There were some assertions made that WBZ and KDKA would drop their brands entirely because of the radio stations that share those call letters; as we know now, those assertions were inaccurate.

Edit: I probably asserted something here or there too, so my apologies.

22 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

More like Soo Kim trying to perform CPR on a cadaver.

29 minutes ago, Breaking News said:

Once again WSB on top with over 50% of the audience share. In Feb 2023 WANF beat WXIA. 

Meanwhile in 2022  WGCL  & WXIA were neck to neck or GCL was beating them. With WXIA ownership imperil it caused

their stations to somewhat flat-line.  

 

With all due respect, I doubt their ownership situation had anything to do with their ratings. Most viewers don’t know or care which station group is being sold to whom. I’d attribute it to WANF gaining traction in the market with their new product.

I guess they’ve walked back the “CBS New York” brand, at least for now. Even the newscasts are still called “CBS2 News.” If I had to guess why, perhaps it’s because there are a lot of OTA viewers in NYC? That’s the only reason it would make sense to me.

1 hour ago, mrschimpf said:

Just as I feared...YouTube TV is up to $73.

The annoying thing is, it’s still less than cable (at least where I live), and as @MD TValluded to, the prices for similar services (like fubo and Hulu) have gone up by about the same rate. I would happily switch out YTTV for multiple streaming services, but for something like March Madness, it doesn’t really work when the Turner games aren’t on a streaming service.

Meanwhile, the Utah Jazz are looking at providing a hybrid linear/DTC offering next season.

https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/utah-jazz-looking-at-hybrid-linear-direct-to-consumer-broadcast-model-for-2023-24-season-and-beyond.html

On 2/25/2023 at 1:25 PM, DENDude said:

Put baseball back on local broadcast stations again & add a streaming partner.  Broadcast worked for years before the RSN's, it can work again.

Agree, and if MLB had a streaming app where I could watch all games of every team without region locks, I’d shell out the money for it. I’m sure a lot of other people would too. Same goes for NHL/NBA.
 

The NFL essentially has that service already with Sunday Ticket; why can’t the other leagues have something like that?

2 minutes ago, Georgie56 said:

WCSC is preparing for the GrayONE package.

 

https://fb.watch/jghpyr_9ra/?fs=e&s=cl

I wish they’d change that logo, but those graphics look like they’ll fit the station well.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I'm just glad that OG WGN will be available (in Chicago) when I "visit" !

 

This move may be a prelude to some of their non-CW stations switching to the CW.  Many of their affiliate contracts are up this year, and there could be many opportunities for Nexstar to bring CW to one of their stations where it may not be already....

I think I might make a few “visits” to Chicago and LA as well, just to check it out, you know…

2 hours ago, DirtyHarry said:

My argument is that this is just like a retail store. If they're not open when you need them, and you're forced to go somewhere else, sooner or later you get out of the habit of going there. So if Kroger closes at 9:00, but Meijer's is open until midnight, you're going to get into the habit of going to Meijer's and Kroger's fades away for you.

 

Radio tried that. The argument is that they have so few listeners after 7:00 p.m. that it's not worth it to have live talent. You can see how relevant radio is everywhere except for the car anymore.

I generally agree, but I think radio was heading in that direction whether they had live talent or not. Musical artists, talk show hosts, and anything else that’s on the radio have never been more accessible, so most people (especially my age) aren’t going to consume content via an outdated medium unless we’re driving. Even then, I usually listen to either a podcast or my Spotify playlist. People are already “going somewhere else.”

I think NBC’s 10pm proposal is a symptom of a bigger problem. Other than live sports, I can’t remember the last time when there was an original show on one of the major networks that I actually wanted to watch. “Abbott Elementary” and “Ghosts” are pretty good, but most shows are either safe, unfunny comedies (the “Night Court” reboot,) cheesy crime dramas (most of the CBS schedule), or game shows. There’s also outright garbage like “Farmer Wants a Wife,” which is better fit for meme material than something I’d actually want to watch as a full series.

7 hours ago, JTT said:

Why didn't NBC try to make a deal to put some more college basketball and football on USA network with the Big 10?  They are trying to build content for Peacock, but I thought they wanted to turn USA to the destination for sports like what TNT / TBS are.

 

I think NBC should drop Nascar and get the NBA back.  They can put games on NBC, USA, and Peacock.

I think Peacock is a much bigger priority for them than USA. Trying to make a sports destination out of a cable network that isn’t ESPN is an uphill battle in 2023, and NBC has severely lagged behind in the streaming race. The problem with their strategy is that a few live sporting events alone won’t convince enough people to subscribe to Peacock. Other than “The Office,” much of their content is awful (this video takes a good look at it).

FWIW, they are looking to make a run at NBA rights, so there’s that.

18 minutes ago, NewEgg00 said:

For the first time since 2014, CBS News New York is bringing live morning news back to its sister station WLNY that'll air at 7am.

The station' previous incarnation, "Live from The Couch," aired from 2012 to 2014. It had a different premise, which was offering a bit of news, and a lot of interviews, and light-hearted segments. Obviously, this one is going to have complete news. 

 

They’ve been doing this for several months now; the promo is the only thing that’s new.

On 3/6/2023 at 7:41 AM, Georgie56 said:

Reggie Miller is out (again) on March Madness coverage.

 

 

That’s a shame. I really like Reggie as a broadcaster, and he and Dan Bonner had some good chemistry with Kevin Harlan.
 

Considering that Stan Van Gundy has previously defended the government that just flew spy balloons over the US, I can’t say that I’m a big fan of him. I really hope they don’t pair him w/ Harlan.

13 minutes ago, dabx said:

Did WPIX pick up the Yankee games? On their website about page says “In addition, PIX11 is the first New York over-the-air station to carry both the Mets and Yankees at the same time in their history. PIX11 has been the broadcast home of the New York Mets since 1999, and broadcast home of the Yankees since 2015.”  

That has to be outdated; if they did, they would be the “broadcast home of the Yankees since 2023,” since PIX hasn’t carried them for some time.

On 2/28/2023 at 5:44 PM, The Frog said:

Sook said advertising on LIV Golf was selling “very well” and that Nexstar stations were generating three times the revenue from LIV Golf than it was getting from other network programming.

 

Sounds like they're happy with it.

Probably because they got paid to air live sports and didn’t have to pay production costs. We might see bad ratings and a harmful association w/ Saudi Arabia, but Nexstar sees an opportunity to run low cost programming on a low rated network and make a quick profit. It worked.

For better or worse, this kind of thinking is perfectly in line with how Nexstar runs the rest of its media operations, including NewsNation.

2 hours ago, Adam MadMan said:

And here comes the defense squad.

The columnist in question comes off as a lackey for large media groups. He seems to run defense for every M&A.

2 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

Standard General and Apollo had one full year to get this right. Either party could have offered to divest market conflicts in Atlanta, Seattle and Jacksonville. Apollo could have asked the deal be amended so they don't get WFAA, KHOU, etc. Standard could have offered Graham an olive branch and their pick of a station or offered them a stake in the company. Soo could have shown the bare minimum of humility and self-awareness instead of saying the same boilerplate talking points over and over again.

I’m probably going to be preaching to the choir here, but this is precisely what I don’t get about Apollo and SG’s handling of this. If they had just spun off the conflicts in Cox markets, and possibly a few other stations, I’m pretty sure they’d own Tegna right now. How could they be so greedy and arrogant as to shoot themselves in the foot?
 

I’d go as far as to say that this was more incompetent than the failed Sinclair/Tribune merger. Sinclair/Tribune established the precedent that even an M&A-friendly FCC wouldn’t tolerate companies trying to blatantly circumvent ownership rules. Apollo/SG knew that precedent (and knew they were dealing with a stronger FCC), and decided to circumvent those rules anyway. That’s just stupidity IMO.

24 minutes ago, NewEgg00 said:

Sorry for being nitpicky, but they didn't even align the CBS News logo right. Some portions of the graphics aren't aligned right either. 

No need to say sorry, I totally agree; it’s very distracting. And besides, what are we here for if not to nitpick everything.

21 hours ago, PhillyWatch said:

This is my cue to pop in and say I adored the Jodi Appelgate experiment, and I'd stream it almost every night in Philly. Bring back "The Day In PIX"!

If Jodi hadn’t replaced a successful duo, she might’ve gotten better ratings; the unceremonious dumping of Jim and Kaity was why I haven’t really watched PIX since. Looking back, I probably would’ve been welcoming of the changes if they had been implemented at 6:30pm (or another time slot) instead of 10pm.

On 2/20/2023 at 11:32 AM, djlynch said:

The current round of sets for Nexstar's large- and upper-mid-market stations (KDVR, KTLA, KXAN, WPIX) seem to be missing the local touches that the bigger stations from the previous round (KOIN, KRON, WFLA) had. I couldn't even tell you what's LA about KTLA's set other than being bright and shiny and modern.

I respectfully disagree. The KRON and WFLA sets don’t look very local; they just look cheap and tacky. The only prominent elements in most of those sets are the tall array of monitors and the bad lighting.
 

The new KTLA, KXAN and WPIX sets are improvements IMO, and if you’re looking for local touches, WPIX’s set incorporates subway tile. KTLA actually overachieved with their studio; their set looks like something you’d see on a national show, and I imagine they spent a crap ton for it. The new round of sets aren’t any more or less local than the last round, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

30 minutes ago, Viper550 said:

ESPN appears to have iterated from the XFL 2020 graphics. Still a similar design based off the MNF graphics, but the scoreboard is much flatter and brighter (in fact it was blinding until they put the ticker up)

Not sure about how I feel about the timeouts being stacked, but I kinda like it. It’s much better than what they use for the NFL.

Apparently, they also show milliseconds when the clock goes under 1 minute, which apparently confused some people