ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 After getting a new lead anchor, new set, Jeff Harris immediately moved to WEWS as News Director leaving a stunned staff with a dysfunctional and sparse news set, reduced staff and little creative direction (having been without a Creative Service Director for 8 months). Now comes Lindsay Radford previously of KSTP, News Director at Eric Kahnert's alma mater, who hires Creative Director Matt Laws from WCAU where he served as VP of Creative Services. Having spent years as a distant market third, KMGH is finally getting the update that it deserves. The first order of business are a new anchor desk which will be finished before sweeps. Currently in the assembly process by the Scripps engineering department, this desk is designed by Devlin Design Group originally for WAGA. The finished concept is below: A few of the other things to expect both off-camera and on are a fully staffed news team and a branding overhaul. While Laws is beginning to make his mark with this temporary open cue,: (Note the use of the 2009 logo variant) he is pushing back against Scripps management to begin airing POPs and topicals during primetime programming, which the stations hasn't done in many years. Additionally, he is seeking to eliminate the word 'News' from across all branding and migrating to 'ABC 7 Denver'. Finally, Storm Station 7 is being replace by First Alert 7 and 'The Now' will likely be overhauled with Molly Hendrickson continuing to lead the helm. We look forward to all the changes yet to come at the Denver ABC station and are excited as the competition tightens. Look here for continuing updates! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C Block 1488 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Thanks for all the updates. I don't really spend much time in Denver anymore, and I don't really watch quite as much Denver news as I used to. If I do, it's definitely not KMGH. It's good to hear they're making some changes away from their hyper-speed news-that's-really-just-wire-stories format. It seems to have worked for about a year or so until most viewers either went back to KUSA or KCNC. A lot of mistakes were made, from making the newsroom even smaller while expanding news hours at the same time, to branding as Storm Station 7? Really? They should just look back to what they were doing 10 years ago and stick with that -- heavy on investigations, weather, and local and regional stories. So are all the newscasts still using cold opens? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MidwestTV 1173 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 The more Scripps stations I see getting uniquely designed sets, the more annoyed I am that my local Scripps station (KSHB) got some cookie cutter set from Park Place. It's also interesting to see what's happening at KMGH. Almost like they're giving the middle finger to all of Scripps' orders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tvtime07 250 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 What a majestic looking desk. Wished KGTV over here in San Diego would get new furniture like that, their current anchor desk (just looks ugly) and weather podium (looks overpowering) does not suit their talent well. It's certainty a surrender to a design flaw when you start seeing the evening anchor team standing up behind the desk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
channel2 869 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Thanks for all the updates. I don't really spend much time in Denver anymore, and I don't really watch quite as much Denver news as I used to. If I do, it's definitely not KMGH. It's good to hear they're making some changes away from their hyper-speed news-that's-really-just-wire-stories format. It seems to have worked for about a year or so until most viewers either went back to KUSA or KCNC. A lot of mistakes were made, from making the newsroom even smaller while expanding news hours at the same time, to branding as Storm Station 7? Really? They should just look back to what they were doing 10 years ago and stick with that -- heavy on investigations, weather, and local and regional stories. On the subject of inane branding, they need to stop calling Mike Nelson "Colorado's Weather Guy" too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oklahomanewsman 210 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Or how about just adding "ABC" to the "7 News" title, call it "ABC 7 News" just make the "ABC 7 Denver" name just for general purposes and call it a day. Maybe KMGH is setting the standard for other Scripps stations to follow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
channel2 869 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 I remember, back in 2009, when they were trying to phase out "Denver's 7" and replace it with "ABC 7". For whatever reason, that didn't stick, and it never went beyond verbal references. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 846 Posted October 21, 2015 Share Posted October 21, 2015 Or how about just adding "ABC" to the "7 News" title, call it "ABC 7 News" just make the "ABC 7 Denver" name just for general purposes and call it a day. Maybe KMGH is setting the standard for other Scripps stations to follow. God I hope so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Thanks for all the updates. I don't really spend much time in Denver anymore, and I don't really watch quite as much Denver news as I used to. If I do, it's definitely not KMGH. It's good to hear they're making some changes away from their hyper-speed news-that's-really-just-wire-stories format. It seems to have worked for about a year or so until most viewers either went back to KUSA or KCNC. A lot of mistakes were made, from making the newsroom even smaller while expanding news hours at the same time, to branding as Storm Station 7? Really? They should just look back to what they were doing 10 years ago and stick with that -- heavy on investigations, weather, and local and regional stories. So are all the newscasts still using cold opens? Storm Station 7? That's what the market analysis told them. You should note, though I didn't post it, that Brad Remington was rehired as VP/GM. So I think a lot of these changes are indirectly due to him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Or how about just adding "ABC" to the "7 News" title, call it "ABC 7 News" just make the "ABC 7 Denver" name just for general purposes and call it a day. Maybe KMGH is setting the standard for other Scripps stations to follow. I don't think that is true. Matt Laws is having to fight Scripps to change the branding to ABC 7 and increase topicals and POPs. Scripps isn't having it right now, but I think that this change will be good in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oklahomanewsman 210 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I don't think that is true. Matt Laws is having to fight Scripps to change the branding to ABC 7 and increase topicals and POPs. Scripps isn't having it right now, but I think that this change will be good in the long run. I mean just tack on the "ABC" name to the "7 News" brand and just call it day just become "ABC 7 Denver" for all General purposes and for Newscasts just rebrand it to "ABC 7 News". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 I mean just tack on the "ABC" name to the "7 News" brand and just call it day just become "ABC 7 Denver" for all General purposes and for Newscasts just rebrand it to "ABC 7 News". That's sort of what will be happening. It will be "ABC 7" or "ABC 7 Denver" for general branding but will be "ABC 7 News at #" for newscasts eliminating the general 'News' branding for general reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 846 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Storm Station 7? That's what the market analysts told them. You should note, though I didn't post it, that Brad Remington was rehired as VP/GM. So I think a lot of these changes are indirectly due to him. Market analysts never come up with bad ideas.. No sir... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Market analysts never come up with bad ideas.. No sir... Haha! Actually, I misstated myself. I meant 'market analysis'. They surveyed the community. Everything was done in-house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 846 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Haha! Actually, I misstated myself. I meant 'market analysis'. They surveyed the community. Everything was done in-house. Yeah when you said market analyst I thought consultant but internal research makes more sense here. How do they currently brand anyways? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Yeah when you said market analyst I thought consultant but internal research makes more sense here. How do they currently brand anyways? General and News branding is 7News. Website is TheDenverChannel.com. There isn't a slogan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4167 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 General and News branding is 7News. Website is TheDenverChannel.com. There isn't a slogan. Did the current branding date back to McGraw-Hill ownership? Curious if he's also fighting for a logo redesign, too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 Did the current branding date back to McGraw-Hill ownership? Curious if he's also fighting for a logo redesign, too. Yes. It was a ripoff of the Hearst web branding. No. I don't think that a logo change is likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A3N 996 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 I don't think that is true. Matt Laws is having to fight Scripps to change the branding to ABC 7 and increase topicals and POPs. Scripps isn't having it right now, but I think that this change will be good in the long run. Why is Scripps giving them such a hard time in changing the branding to ABC7? They already have several stations that brand as ABC XX News, so it's not as if adding ABC is unprecedented. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
detroiter313 178 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 They already have several stations that brand as ABC XX News, so it's not as if adding ABC is unprecedented. Not all of Scripps' ABC affiliates brand with the "ABC Mandate": WCPO = "9 On Your Side" WEWS = "NewsChannel 5" WRTV = "RTV6" WXYZ = "Channel 7" or simply "7" As for Scripps' newly acquired Journal ABC affiliates: KGUN = "KGUN 9" KTNV = "Channel 13" KIVI = "Today's 6" KSAW = "Channel 51" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRolyPoly 1847 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Not all ABC stations follow the mandate, just like a few in my home state of Florida: WEAR 3 = "Channel 3" WMBB 13 = "WMBB News 13" WCJB 20 = "WCJB-TV 20" WFTV 9 = "WFTV Channel 9" WPBF 25 = "WPBF 25" WPLG 10 = "Local 10" And tbh, I don't think neither Cox or Hearst's ABC stations follow the ABC mandate at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4167 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 WKBW does use "7ABC" for non-news branding, and IIRC, that WAS implemented shortly after Scripps took over. There is no such thing as an "ABC Mandate" beyond the branding convention of using the network logo in affiliate logo designs/redesigns. The network doesn't force their affiliates to be branded as "ABC XX." Even the notion of "[insert Network Here] Mandate" irks me and quite a few others, as no proof of such mandates exist beyond myths created by bored Wikipedia writers. (Branding conventions for affiliates, however, are a different story.) Don't want to sound like a grump, but this is also to kill off the "list" direction for this thread before it began... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ABC 7 Denver 1554 Posted October 23, 2015 Author Share Posted October 23, 2015 WKBW does use "7ABC" for non-news branding, and IIRC, that WAS implemented shortly after Scripps took over. There is no such thing as an "ABC Mandate" beyond the branding convention of using the network logo in affiliate logo designs/redesigns. The network doesn't force their affiliates to be branded as "ABC XX." Even the notion of "[insert Network Here] Mandate" irks me and quite a few others, as no proof of such mandates exist beyond myths created by bored Wikipedia writers. (Branding conventions for affiliates, however, are a different story.) Don't want to sound like a grump, but this is also to kill off the "list" direction for this thread before it began... I agree with the last thing. To the network mandate idea, TEGNA requires all of their stations to apply the network logo to their branding, though they don't necessarily have to refer to it in-reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ns8401 846 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Not all of Scripps' ABC affiliates brand with the "ABC Mandate": WCPO = "9 On Your Side" WEWS = "NewsChannel 5" WRTV = "RTV6" WXYZ = "Channel 7" or simply "7" As for Scripps' newly acquired Journal ABC affiliates: KGUN = "KGUN 9" KTNV = "Channel 13" KIVI = "Today's 6" KSAW = "Channel 51" At least in WXYZ's case Scripps disconnected the Channel 7 (that's what everybody around here still calls it) from the Action News brand and destroyed that news operation in the process opting to use the simpler and less powerful "7"... It didn't work and it's made such a small impact that most of their new hires (and a few old ones) have made the mistake of using Channel during newscast tosses. Of course if they are saying something is coming up later on then they use Channel 7 again. Apparently they get in trouble for using channel in the tosses too.. It is awful and doesn't make sense. It also has Cincy written all over it. Nobody really realizes ABC Hasn't owned the thing in 30 years... Heck I even heard a reporter apologize for using it when her mic came back up long after her story had ended right in the middle of the next live shot. She knew she screwed up as soon as she said Channel 7... Wonderful. At any rate the above is a primary reason I don't trust Cincinatti to rebrand any stations ever again so if KMGH is fighting corporate than that's probably a wise move on their part. I hope they knock some sense into the brass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A3N 996 Posted October 23, 2015 Share Posted October 23, 2015 Not all of Scripps' ABC affiliates brand with the "ABC Mandate": WCPO = "9 On Your Side" WEWS = "NewsChannel 5" WRTV = "RTV6" WXYZ = "Channel 7" or simply "7" As for Scripps' newly acquired Journal ABC affiliates: KGUN = "KGUN 9" KTNV = "Channel 13" KIVI = "Today's 6" KSAW = "Channel 51" No one said that all stations branded as ABC XX News. I said several... KXNV, WMAR, WFTS. LIke I said, there is some precedent of Scripps stations using the ABC branding, not sure why they would all of sudden have an issue with KMGH using it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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