bammy9 26 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Mike Barz, Tera Barz, Lynnsey Gardner, Mark Spain, and Jacksonville mainstay Paige Kelton have been reportedly been let go from COX's Jacksonville duo, WTEV and WAWS. The report was confirmed by morning anchor Lynnsey Gardner and 5:30 and 10 anchor Tera Barz. The anchor not being let go is Dawn Lopez. http://jacksonville.com/business/2014-05-28/story/major-newsroom-shake-reported-actions-news-jacksonville-letting-5-morning Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewsMaster 226 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 WOW. Just...WOW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheOneManHerd 553 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 If you were getting shellacked in the ratings by an independent station, you'd want to make changes too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToriElectra 291 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Yikes, it's a repeat of the 1996 WCBS mass firings. Only it's in a smaller market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4168 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Yikes, it's a repeat of the 1996 WCBS mass firings. Only it's in a smaller market. WCBS cut all those anchors loose without any warning whatsoever. The WTEV/WAWS anchors all will be dismissed on September 1. So it's not a perfect comparison. Still, though... DAMN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha 2878 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 If you were getting shellacked in the ratings by an independent station, you'd want to make changes too. To be fair, Jacksonville news went through earthquake after earthquake in the 90s and early 2000s. In order: 1991: WJKS, then ABC affiliate, starts WAWS newscast. December 1996: WJKS shuts down news operation in response to impending loss of ABC. WAWS starts its own news operation and produces a 10pm news. (These two things happened on consecutive nights.) 1997: WJXX, the new ABC affiliate, debuts newscasts at long last. WJXX news is seen as better than what WJKS was producing (WJKS really needed a big cash infusion into their news department) but still has trouble making headway. November 15, 1999: WTLV buys WJXX, forming the first ever real Big Three duopoly. WTLV promptly begins running 12 News on 25 and takes a few personnel from 25; in 2000, the First Coast News name is returned to Jacksonville television. January 1, 2002: WTEV, which had already ran one or two newscasts from WAWS (notably 6:30pm), becomes the new CBS affiliate in Jacksonville after a contract dispute. WJXT looks like an independent, but it's got affiliate blood in its news department. Think KTVK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhratbrat 423 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Wjxt's news department literally shellacks not just action news but first coast news in quality. The station is run like a big three station and puts a lot of other orgs to shame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenShine9 1509 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Jacksonville has to be the most bizarre market in the US when it comes to news production. How come WJXT succeeded as an independent when others like KRON failed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha 2878 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Jacksonville has to be the most bizarre market in the US when it comes to news production. How come WJXT succeeded as an independent when others like KRON failed? Because WJXT already was a strong station in the market. In the early 90s it was probably 4-12-17 in news (in that order). 4 and 12 were and are the main stations in Jacksonville, though 30/47 has been around long enough to be an OK third (though third in Jacksonville is last place). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bammy9 26 Posted May 28, 2014 Author Share Posted May 28, 2014 How come WJXT succeeded as an independent when others like KRON failed? Nothing's really changed at WJXT. Sweeting, Gaughan, Wills, Baer, and Kouvaris (to list a few) have been at the station for years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caliwxdude 252 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Jacksonville has to be the most bizarre market in the US when it comes to news production. How come WJXT succeeded as an independent when others like KRON failed? Budget. It looks like WJXT is still working within a similar budget as they had in the CBS days. They can still afford to pay their high-profile talent, and I'm sure their numbers reflect that. WJXT and KRON were both high-profile, market-leading network affiliates before going independent. One today remains successful, the other blows. At KRON, Young gave the news operation the kind of money that allowed it to stay competitive with the rest of the market for its first four years as an independent. They could retain top talent (anchors, reporters and photographers) and the 9:00pm newscast was doing extremely well in its time slot—beating out a number of the primetime shows on the networks. Then in 2006, Young embarked on some serious belt-tightening as the debt load from the 2001 purchase of KRON caught up with them. KRON experimented with MyNetworkTV, canceling its most successful show—the 9:00pm news—as a result, and made the switch to VJs which doomed the news product. MNTV failed, news numbers fell and advertisers left, starting the vicious cycle that continues to this day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnya2k6 171 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Nothing's really changed at WJXT. Sweeting, Gaughan, Wills, Baer, and Kouvaris (to list a few) have been at the station for years. Deborah Gianoulis left a few years ago to (unsuccessfully) run for a state Senate seat and is now an executive at an education center. By the way, Dana Tyler and Cindy Hsu were the only two survivors of the 1996 WCBS massacre, which David Letterman poked fun at. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4168 Posted May 28, 2014 Share Posted May 28, 2014 Jacksonville has to be the most bizarre market in the US when it comes to news production. How come WJXT succeeded as an independent when others like KRON failed? The Graham family has owned WJXT for decades. Young outbid NBC to buy KRON for $800M, with NBC promptly retaliating with their purchase of KNTV, which destroyed much of KRON's value almost immediately. In fact, stations like WJXT, WSVN and KTVK have succeeded as news-intensive indies after their respective disaffiliations because they all had long, established ownerships which invested into the stations as a result. KRON only stayed the course, then started to fall apart once Young came to terms that they literally threw $800M into an incinerator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrannical bastard 3471 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Jacksonville has always been a screwed up market, signal wise, even though its a moot point these days with digital TV. It's one of the few markets where a NET/PBS station snatched up a prime-real estate VHF allocation (WJCT 7) leaving WJXT and WTLV to duke it out amongst themselves until WJKS signed on with ABC. Things got screwed up when Allbritton signed on WJXX in 1997...with it came a group deal with ABC that stole it from WJKS. The result killed an established news department at WJKS as one started up at WJXX, and WAWS started their own. Things got even more screwed up when Gannett purchased WJXX.....down went another news department. Since WJXX was so new, it could be purchased because it was out of the top 4. Then came the spat with CBS and WJXT. WTEV (now co-owned with WAWS) snagged the CBS affiliation while being under the duopoly radar since it was a low-rated UPN station before snagging CBS. WAWS took their news department and started doing shows on WTEV. The end result was between what was commonly perceived as prime television real estate, you had an independent station, a PBS station, and an NBC affiliate. Everyone else (ABC, FOX & CBS) was relegated to "second-class" UHF. Very unusual for a market of this size and of such prime real estate. Had the Allbritton deal with WJXX had not taken place, Jacksonville could be very different, TV wise. ABC would most likely still be on Channel 17 with a full news department and be owned by Media General, and WJXX would probably not even exist, and CBS may have relented in their issues with WJXT at the time. Signal-wise, it's a moot point anymore, the stigma of VHF and UHF played a large role in who succeeded and who didn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha 2878 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Had the Allbritton deal with WJXX had not taken place, Jacksonville could be very different, TV wise. ABC would most likely still be on Channel 17 with a full news department and be owned by Media General, and WJXX would probably not even exist, and CBS may have relented in their issues with WJXT at the time. WJXX would have become Jacksonville's WB affiliate, but WJKS would have received a big cash infusion from MG to modernize the news operation. By the time it shut down it really did feel cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TexasTVNews 1366 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 - The answers were on the final episode of WJKS Face Off from 12/29/96 in which I uploaded a few months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnya2k6 171 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 In fact, stations like WJXT, WSVN and KTVK have succeeded as news-intensive indies Um, didn't WSVN go to Fox after longtime Miami CBS station WTVJ become an NBC O&O? Another news-intensive indie is KCAL, who has been beating KTLA on occasion for some years now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mike91 66 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Um, didn't WSVN go to Fox after longtime Miami CBS station WTVJ become an NBC O&O? Another news-intensive indie is KCAL, who has been beating KTLA on occasion for some years now. FOX was like one night a week in the 80s, so they considered it to be an independent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrtraveler01 737 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Um, didn't WSVN go to Fox after longtime Miami CBS station WTVJ become an NBC O&O It did. But it was the loss of the NBC affiliation that really forced WSVN and their news director Joel Cheatwood to really beef up their news operations to make up for the loss in NBC network programming because as someone else pointed out, the amount of Fox programming was significantly less than the programming they had with NBC. The WSVN we all know and love/hate originated with them losing the NBC affiliation back in the late 80's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4168 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Um, didn't WSVN go to Fox after longtime Miami CBS station WTVJ become an NBC O&O? Another news-intensive indie is KCAL, who has been beating KTLA on occasion for some years now. FOX was like one night a week in the 80s, so they considered it to be an independent. Correct. Right upon disaffiliating from NBC, WSVN stuck a primetime movie package in primetime, which of course was phased out with Fox's glacial expansion to seven nights a week. For all intents and purposes, WSVN still insists on branding itself as an independent. It's always been branded "WSVN 7" and "7 NEWS," with no mentions of Fox whatsoever (granted, their website will show the occasional Fox logo). Only when shows like American Idol and X-Factor are in-season do they make ANY mention of Fox. Note that KCAL (née KHJ-TV) has been an indie since the early 1950s, which only became news-intensive with the culmination of RKO General's implosion and a takeover by Young Broadcasting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TVIntheDesert 183 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Note that KCAL (née KHJ-TV) has been an indie since the early 1950s, which only became news-intensive with the culmination of RKO General's implosion and a takeover by Young Broadcasting. Actually, it was Disney that expanded KCAL's news presence. After they bought ABC (and KABC), they sold off KCAL to Young, back in a time before duopolies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToriElectra 291 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Don't forget, KCAL was owned by Disney when RKO sold them off initially; KCAL was sold to Young after the CapCities/ABC merger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4168 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Don't forget, KCAL was owned by Disney when RKO sold them off initially; KCAL was sold to Young after the CapCities/ABC merger. Damn, I forgot. **facepalm** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRob 920 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 The GM at 47/30 is a distant cousin. He is a shrewd guy, a news guy, but this sounds like a financial decision. No one is beating WJXT until that station goes through some massive turnover of its own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bhratbrat 423 Posted May 29, 2014 Share Posted May 29, 2014 Even then the grahams are just laughing their butts off Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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