Jess 1110 Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 Just saw an interesting ad running tonight on WPVI. On Friday, and throughout the Olympics, they're going to compete against the pushed-back newscasts on WCAU. The idea is that if you're watching the Olympics on 10, you don't have to miss Action News on 6. Of course, this isn't a full newscast by any means - they're going to run the top stories, weather, and I think sports all in just six minutes. Kimmel follows at 12:07. Are any other ABC O&Os doing this? Because this smells like a move made from Disney/ABC corporate, given what they've done more or less across the board with their O&Os (4pm newscasts, hour-long 11pm newscasts on weekends, etc). I would not be surprised if, say, WABC is doing this as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Rubber 617 Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 This is weird. I don't picture the general public switching over to a competing station to watch the news at an oddball time after Olympics coverage ends. I'm sure it will be promoted aggressively on WPVI, but if I were the average viewer watching the Olympics on WCAU, I would stay there and watch the news because I wouldn't expect it to be on any other channel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidwestTV 1174 Posted July 25, 2012 Share Posted July 25, 2012 ...I'm sorry but that's stupid. Why the hell would I wait an extra HOUR for literally SIX MINUTES of news, JUST so they can compete with WCAU? It's ridiculous and in my market, people would call that a "desperate act by a leading news station for they cannot STAND the fact of a lower rated news station to outrate them for once." Literally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhratbrat 423 Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 This just sounds really bad for WPVI to do considering they are a number one station. I would expect FOX29 or CBS3 to pull this but not WPVI. Part of this is that most of the olympics will (gasp) be on time delay again this year (albeit not by a considerable margin). Just took a look at ABC O&O KTRK and they are not running an olympic newscast neither is WPLG (ABC Affiliate against NBC O&O) or WSOC (ABC Affiliate against NBC Affiliate) Seems to be very desperate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeters 1812 Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 This is one of those ideas that looks good on paper, but not so much in reality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted July 26, 2012 Author Share Posted July 26, 2012 Like I said, the main gist is "if you're watching the Olympics, but you hate NBC 10 News, come on over and watch us!" I agree it sounds good when you come up with it but it's ridiculously flawed. The six minutes part isn't the problem, though. WCAU, when they're in olympic mode, packs everything into the first ten (though they do run a full newscast). The problem here is twofold: 1.) This assumes that people are willing to wait to watch Action News. Honestly, if people gotta hear it from Jim, they'll switch over to 6 at 11 like they usually do. If they're watching the olympics, they probably don't want to stay up after it ends. WCAU promotes their 12am Olympic news as "please don't go to bed yet!" 2.) It assumes that the Olympic coverage ends at 12am sharp. Uh.... does it ever do that? I know they go over some of the time. Meanwhile 6 has to show Nightline and Kimmel, so they can't break in - it's a dedicated spot. So even though they're supposed to compete with 10, that might not happen every night. I also forgot to mention that the first time I saw anything mentioned about this thing was yesterday during the 5 and 6. That was a short promo just with black background, stock footage of Jim and Cecily, and Charlie Van Dyke announcing. It looked like it was rushed together at the last minute by 6's talented Creative Services staff. You're right - it does seem desperate, and not something WPVI would normally do, as they're so entrenched and everyone knows it. That's why I'm assuming this had to come from Disney/ABC, because it fits with some of the stuff they're making the O&Os do. And since this was announced so late, I wouldn't be surprised if the other O&Os just started hyping it up today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
24994J 5280 Posted July 26, 2012 Share Posted July 26, 2012 Yeah, they're not promoting this at all... Let's see...3 times on one page? Not at all overkill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeters 1812 Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 Yeah, they're not promoting this at all... Let's see...3 times on one page? Not at all overkill. I see creative services is keeping the interns busy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mre29 1343 Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 The image looks like it's about the right size and has the right aspect ratio for a full-page newspaper ad. Unfortunately, it's way too big for a webpage -- you can barely see half of it without scrolling. I'm thinking it was designed by someone who really doesn't understand designing for the web. But the bigger issue is the complete and utter lack of accessibility for that content. It's just the image. Someone who has images disabled or who relies on a screen reader won't have any idea what the page is about (the page title "Action News starting at midnight" doesn't convey enough information on its own). There isn't even alt text for the image. Really poor form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted July 27, 2012 Author Share Posted July 27, 2012 Seriously, I still see no sign that WABC or any other ABC O&O is doing this... which is curious. This is NOT a move that 6 really makes, because people tend to watch 6 no matter what - and 6 knows that. Most of their promotions hinge on the very fact that people watch and trust this station. If this didn't come from Rebecca Campbell, then I don't know what the motive is. Maybe (and most likely) it's what Weeters said, an idea they had that looked great on paper but is desperate and stupid in reality. Or maybe, just maybe, they looked across the street at what WCAU is putting out these days and got legitimately spooked. Which... wouldn't be unreasonable. WCAU's performance under Comcast, and particularly in the last six months with the GM and ND change, has been nothing short of remarkable. The news product that 10 is currently producing is, legitimately, the best I've seen out of that station in at least a decade. They're sending more reporters, they're focusing on hard news, they're building on their biggest strength (weather coverage)... just all around that station has made a gigantic leap in terms of quality. And that's not taking into account the fact that they're getting their own chopper again and pulling out of the pool thing. The Olympics is one of the best chances for people to sample the improved NBC 10 - and they might like what they see. Maybe 6 realizes or thinks that and wants to snuff it out. Either way, it's uncharacteristic. And this is a thing they literally started promoting only two days ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhratbrat 423 Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 I wonder if a part of the 6 minute newscast is are they going to have there normal open or a very cold open? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
24994J 5280 Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 The image looks like it's about the right size and has the right aspect ratio for a full-page newspaper ad. Unfortunately, it's way too big for a webpage -- you can barely see half of it without scrolling. I'm thinking it was designed by someone who really doesn't understand designing for the web. It took 3 full-screen screen grabs copy/pasted together to get the full page. Either way, it's way too big. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.L. Hughes 760 Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 Just to clarify, is WPVI just airing this temporary midnight newscast during the Olympics in addition to its normal 11 p.m. newscast or in lieu of it (as in preempting the 11 p.m. news and airing the late newscast around when WCAU runs theirs following Olympic coverage)? I get this is temporary, but a local newscast at midnight that isn't a rebroadcast of the earlier late news seems strange to me, since fewer people watch TV around that time. Not that many stations have actually tried it, the only midnight newscast I've heard of on a local station anywhere in North America was a defunct effort on WXIX/Cincinatti during the late 1990s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhratbrat 423 Posted July 27, 2012 Share Posted July 27, 2012 This is an additional effort on WPVI. They will be running there 11 PM and then run Nightline than run 6ACTION News At Midnight and then Kimmel Live Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted July 27, 2012 Author Share Posted July 27, 2012 Just to clarify, is WPVI just airing this temporary midnight newscast during the Olympics in addition to its normal 11 p.m. newscast or in lieu of it (as in preempting the 11 p.m. news and airing the late newscast around when WCAU runs theirs following Olympic coverage)? I get this is temporary, but a local newscast at midnight that isn't a rebroadcast of the earlier late news seems strange to me, since fewer people watch TV around that time. Not that many stations have actually tried it, the only midnight newscast I've heard of on a local station anywhere in North America was a defunct effort on WXIX/Cincinatti during the late 1990s. It's in addition to the 11pm news. The promotions for this have a lineup at the end to assure viewers they'll still be on at 11 - they're slotting this between Nightline and Kimmel. In fact, they've been mentioning it on the air today, but they've been calling it the "Action News Update", which is slightly less stupid and much more accurate. From what I've seen it looks to be new content, but whether they'll actually be live or they're just taping it after the 11pm is unknown. (My guess is they'll be live since it's a gap of just 25 minutes.) Oh! To make this more insane, the weekend 11pm Action News is already an hour long; if they run it during the weekends, which is implied, they're essentially extending that newscast by six minutes. Logic would dictate they'd just add on to the end, but I'm expecting they'll do the news close, THEN run the update as a separate thing. Which would make this even more idiotic. I wonder if a part of the 6 minute newscast is are they going to have there normal open or a very cold open? If they ran the normal montage, it would take up nearly a sixth of the update. They'll either run a sting or do what they do at 5:30: (God, I never realized those graphics from 09-10 looked so shoddy.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted July 28, 2012 Author Share Posted July 28, 2012 So WPVI was on the air promptly at 12am for the Action News Update. 10 is a minute behind, so if people watched up to the end they missed the beginning of the update. Content-wise, this is more or less an extended GMA update only with a few more stories and sports updates instead of traffic. Oh, and with Jim Gardner and Cecily Tynan. Yeah, this is a dumb idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Action Newsroom 1151 Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 So WPVI was on the air promptly at 12am for the Action News Update. 10 is a minute behind, so if people watched up to the end they missed the beginning of the update. Content-wise, this is more or less an extended GMA update only with a few more stories and sports updates instead of traffic. Oh, and with Jim Gardner and Cecily Tynan. Yeah, this is a dumb idea. Please tell me why this is a "dumb idea", because I'm confused as hell about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WXmanTim 88 Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 So far as I can tell, Houston's KTRK is not producing an extra newscast/update at 11pm. But then again, they also haven't expanded their weekend late news to an hour, either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caliwxdude 252 Posted July 29, 2012 Share Posted July 29, 2012 KGO is doing a seven-minute news update, starting tonight at midnight and running through the Olympics. So I guess it's spreading... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess 1110 Posted July 29, 2012 Author Share Posted July 29, 2012 KGO is doing a seven-minute news update, starting tonight at midnight and running through the Olympics. So I guess it's spreading... This makes me feel a hell of a lot better because that means this actually came from corporate. Anyway, here're some edited highlights of the Action News Midnight Update: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhratbrat 423 Posted July 29, 2012 Share Posted July 29, 2012 So far as I can tell, Houston's KTRK is not producing an extra newscast/update at 11pm. But then again, they also haven't expanded their weekend late news to an hour, either. KTRK has more sense than to be wasting people's times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
24994J 5280 Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 WLS just announced their own post-Olympic update at 11...however, the anchors are making fun of it and the website has nothing more than a "Programming Note" at the top of the page. Somehow, it doesn't seem as stupid this way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Local_First 1 Posted July 30, 2012 Share Posted July 30, 2012 KTRK has more sense than to be wasting people's times. KTRK just announced they are doing a 7-minute newscast at 11pm. They are calling it "Eyewitness News Olympic Edition." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
24994J 5280 Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 KABC's in, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WXmanTim 88 Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 KTRK just announced they are doing a 7-minute newscast at 11pm. They are calling it "Eyewitness News Olympic Edition." Yep...waited until Monday to start it. When I checked the TitanTV guide Saturday, it wasn't listed and there had been no promotions for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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