Recovering Producer

It's comparable to my doctor praising me for losing 3 pounds this year compared to one pound last year. Sure, the percentage of growth is big - but the reality is the audience is still not substantial. Their PR team does a great job selling a story that's all smoke and mirrors.

KTIV continues to poach the remnants of Siouxland News https://www.ktiv.com/2023/05/30/news-anchor-larry-wentz-returns-home-ktiv-news-4/ And, at least SBG isn't holding the employees they screwed to non-competes. Not that they would hold up in court if they tried.

Not to mention Tegna not taking LIV golf on CW stations they own is almost certainly a sign the relationship between the two companies is probably messy already.

The FCC paperwork makes it very clear: Hearst agreed to buy the option to purchase WZVN that Waterman held should it become legal for them to do so. Any talk of an outside sale is pure fantasy.

This is from 10+ years ago, but promos that taunt the other station for their perceived shortcomings, orders from management for field crews to go scorched earth with the competition when out on stories everyone was covering - block other stations from getting interviews that they happened on first (witnesses to car crashes, fires, and crimes and other things where there's really no meaningful reason to sandbag the competition), on one occasion WBBH deceived the widow of a murdered police officer saying they would share an interview they did with every other station but really used it as a heavily-promoted exclusive (to be fair, they did give WINK and FOX4 the video a few days later after it aired and other stations learned of the sketchy tactics they used to get the interview and possibly a chewing out from the police department PIO) And management where I work definitely frowned upon being friendly with people from the other stations socially. All things that didn't happen in any other market I worked in. Healthy competition? Yes. But respect and understanding the biggest difference we all had with the people working at the other stations was the name of the company on our direct deposit.

The answer probably is wildly inconsistent. I've seen people who have fallen out with management at one station in a group land at other stations in the same group. I know HR systems, as part of the termination process (be it voluntary or involuntary), have a question that asks if it is beneficial for the employer that they are leaving. I'm sure the answer there can determine a possible future. I also know people who took buyouts had to sign paperwork saying they are ineligible for employment at a station group ever again. And chances are a release from a contract would include similar language. But, considering how difficult of a time TV is having hiring people... there are probably exceptions that can and will be made.

I'm surprised it took this long for Waterman to sell after Bernie Waterman's death several years ago. It is great to see Hearst buying. It will be interesting to see how it shifts the culture of the market, which as someone who worked there for a few years, is beyond toxic competitively. And all the stations have toxic internal cultures too. Now we wait and see if the McBrides realize now is the time to cash out WINK.

The NY Times has a very brutal and honest article on the contracts/noncompetes many anchors, reporters, and producers must sign with many station groups - and how TV stations are convinced they're still an in-demand employer like it is still 1985. Broadcast News Is at Center of Fight Over Noncompete Clauses

Not sure how YTTV picks up stations, but hopefully they won’t use the borderline unwatchable super low resolution SD WDVM feed on WDCW’s bandwidth onto their service. Another layer of compression on that would be… not good. (And to be fair, the news product is also borderline unwatchable!)

As of Saturday morning, they are on the flash cam which shows the feed room setup in their temporary newsroom. Presumably solo anchors until new set debuts, which would only affect their Sunday morning newscast on the weekend.

It's not a one-city or one-newsroom problem. This example of a newscast getting canceled is the visible "canary in the coal mine dying" of where the industry is with recruiting producers right now. If you're looking to advance, are marginally good at producing, and want to stay in the business, you can be selective about where you choose to work. The broadcast side of many local TV newsrooms are being held together by producers doing multiple hours daily, EPs managing and producing, and other creative solutions to stay on air that could fall apart with a single sick call. Recruiting producers was a mess before the pandemic. It has only gotten worse since then. Many companies have members of their recruiting staff dedicated exclusively to recruiting and growing producers and managers. But, it felt like for every producer a company can recruit, at least three are looking to get out because of the low pay, bad hours, extreme workload, and trauma by repetition that comes with a lot of newsroom jobs. There are opportunities out there to use those skills in an environment where the job is just a job - not an all-consuming lifestyle.

The producer brain drain is going to force stations to make a lot of difficult decisions moving forward. After I left my last newsroom to make a career change, I received so many unsolicited inquiries asking if I had any interest in getting back into the business. I was surprised we didn't hear stories of stations scrambling to keep newscasts on air or abrupt one-day cancelations of some shows when Southwest had its operational meltdown after Christmas. Staffing levels are already low, and at least when I got time off during the holidays, I did not book flights with any room for error.

Matches with the branding of SiouxFallsLive.com that Forum has launched...

Uhhhhh, who is going to tell them CBS doesn't have any college football left for the season other than the Sun Bowl?

I remember reading the paperwork for the KSFY/KDLT waiver. Granted, that was written to convince the FCC to allow the waiver to approve that deal, but it painted a bleak picture for KDLT under Red River and made it sound like a stand-alone KSFY was hurting as well. The financials of launching news on a station with no established brand, no network available, and many hours of programming to fill are yikes. Not to mention finding a way to staff it. We're in an environment where stations in much larger markets and an established history are struggling to recruit employees. Maybe they do news on the cheap from existing facilities in Fargo with MMJs in Sioux Falls... but still... trying to think about spending that money in 2023. Weird.

You must be a pretty sadistic GM or ND to do a set launch on election night. Yes, you have a lot of eyes on the product. But the collision of the chaos of everything that goes on behind the scenes of election night and producers, anchors, and production crew being live on a new set for the first time... YIKES.

Train. Wreck. In every way possible. Technical, understanding of the market, talent. Don't have any intel on numbers. The news judgment is still very much "Hagerstown" - for example, when POTUS traveled to Hagerstown, they treated it like how any small market would treat a Presidential visit. Multiple reporters, lead story, etc. The problem is, you're appealing to a market where having POTUS around is normal. He lives here. Content is repeated and uninspired. Nothing new or distinctive. Talent isn't distinctive. Many of the holdovers from Hagerstown are clearly in over their heads. Some of the new hires are uncomfortable to watch as well. The partnership with "DC Realtime News" stringer is uncomfortable because they'll use his commentary on crime from Twitter as content in newscasts. Only having NewsNation and other Nexstar stations for outside content presents major problems and leads to a lot of 2-3 day old filler content. Lots of political spots in newscasts right now, with MD-6, VA-7, and VA-10 house races. It will be interesting to see what fills breaks after November 8th. Channel numbers aren't as relevant as they once were, but on most systems, you won't find WDVM anywhere near WRC, WTTG, WJLA, WJLA 24/7, or WUSA. So finding viewers through channel surfing won't be easy. They might have a better chance on that front if they programmed more news on WDCW and threw syndicated leftovers onto WDVM.

Looks like someone trespassed into WINK. It is difficult to tell how high the water went. Still a major mess. Unclear what equipment is salvageable.

The owners of WINK are damn lucky nobody inside the building died. Charley in 2004 was a warning of what would happen. While they were able to stay on air through that storm, nerves were high about this exact scenario. There was never a contingency plan. Never a backup broadcast site planned. Just "our building is strong and can handle any storm" despite being all but surrounded by water. The SHADE retired Chief Meteorologist Jim Farrell throws at WINK leadership at the end of this interview with (long ago WBBH alum) Shepard Smith says it best. I wish the current employees of WINK the best as they rebuild their lives after Ian. I hope it includes new jobs, in or out of the business, for all of them. I hope the insurance company doesn't pay the owners a single penny for their reckless decisions and endangering the lives of their employees.

These graphics also appear to be the graphics for WDCW/WDVM.

One-time WINK employee here. Old doppler was rarely used when I arrived in 2006. Archive video from Hurricane Charley in 2004 had heavy use of it. My understanding is it was near it's end of life, several high-rise condo buildings were built across the street from the station in the mid/late 2000s- and those buildings blocked it from being effective to the north. It may have still been a source on the switcher when WINK went HD in 2007 - but the output was SD and graphics didn't match the look.