Atlanta News First

[ATLNewsExpert 384]

Also wanted to mention (if this needs it's own thread or should be deleted please do so) that WXIA has more or less recently updated it's intros with more elements in a way to move away from the generic TEGNA look. Also it is using some music package previously unheard to me, might just be a C Clairty rework but I'm not sure.

 

[ATLNewsExpert 384]

QR code with ANF and F1rst Alert branding shown on air

[Gavin M. 94]

3 hours ago, ATLNewsExpert said:

QR code with ANF and F1rst Alert branding shown on air

There socials have been changed too.

[ATLNewsExpert 384]

Anchor Brooks Baptiste said on a livestream we are in the final hours of CBS 46 before they become ANF, noon to be exact, also there was this from the livestream, the new (only recolored) L3's?

Edited September 30, 2022 by ATLNewsExpert

[Georgie56 3190]

It's launching today. I'm thinking noon launch.

 

 

[ATLNewsExpert 384]

Just seen an ad for the Big Bang Theory, they will be known as Atlanta News First even outside of News

Welcome to ANF!

[nycnewsjunkie 1428]

Well, I guess it’s October somewhere.

Here’s the intro. Note that the WGCL calls are still there for now.

[ATLNewsExpert 384]

Looks like they covered up the studio view from the newsroom with this.

[Manny NYC 29]

2 hours ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

Well, I guess it’s October somewhere.

Here’s the intro. Note that the WGCL calls are still there for now.

Seems like they are keeping the same base design for their new graphics.

[CircleSeven 1946]

On 9/30/2022 at 11:15 AM, nycnewsjunkie said:

Well, I guess it’s October somewhere.

Here’s the intro. Note that the WGCL calls are still there for now.

Callsign change will go in effect on Monday (10/3). Glad to see a rare Friday launch.

 

But not all that thrilled that the new brand is its overall brand. My pet peeve has always been stations using "News" in their brand during non-news time periods. Using the calls WANF (at least verbally) would've been appropriate. 

 

Edited October 2, 2022 by CircleSeven

[atlnews2 567]

1 hour ago, CircleSeven said:

Callsign change will go in effect on Monday (10/3). Glad to see a rare Friday launch.

 

But not all that thrilled that the new brand is its overall brand. My pet peeve has always been stations using "News" in their brand during non-news time periods. Using the calls WANF would've been appropriate. 

 

I agree. I’ve never liked stations that use their “news brand” as an overall station brand (looking at you WFTS) 

 

I'm also not really sold on the name “Atlanta news first” - to me it seems too much like their failed clear news branding from 20 years ago. 

[newsman123 109]

Eh. Lets see the ratings in a year. I dont doubt the new investment and money being spent is nice. But how many times has a station (including this one) gotten excited and said “its a new day!” “This time its gonna work”! Stations have time and time again rebranded, promising to focus on news that “matters” etc and it flops. 

[nycnewsjunkie 1428]

1 hour ago, newsman123 said:

Eh. Lets see the ratings in a year. I dont doubt the new investment and money being spent is nice. But how many times has a station (including this one) gotten excited and said “its a new day!” “This time its gonna work”! Stations have time and time again rebranded, promising to focus on news that “matters” etc and it flops. 

To be fair, the station’s fate isn’t entirely in their own hands. How well ANF does will be influenced by how much the competition slips up (especially WSB/Apollo). That said, given that the station has been remarkably stable as of late, I’m optimistic that this goes beyond a name/set change.

 

IMHO, they don’t have to end up in first place (or even second) to consider this a success. They simply have to be competitive. Gray’s short-term goals were to make investments into the station, hire solid journalists, and maintain stability. So far, it looks like they’ve done that. Even in the worst-case scenario, they are at least putting out a better and more accessible product today than they ever have before.

[MediaZone4K 1872]

I really thought they would've at least kept some reference to CBS 46 outside of newscasts. ANF gives off a NY 1 type 24/7 cable network vibe. I suppose it works being that the station barely has a daytime lineup outside of news. 

 

Even though the importance of channel dials are going down with the Internet, will layman viewers know this is channel 46? 

 

This feels like a case of if it ain't broke don't fix it as the CBS 46 branding in recent years was perfectly fine. Hopefully it all works out. Let's see how we go from here.

Edited September 30, 2022 by iron_lion

[Gavin M. 94]

4 hours ago, newsman123 said:

Eh. Lets see the ratings in a year. I dont doubt the new investment and money being spent is nice. But how many times has a station (including this one) gotten excited and said “its a new day!” “This time its gonna work”! Stations have time and time again rebranded, promising to focus on news that “matters” etc and it flops. 

It’s funny many of y’all were saying oh this is gonna put a dent in the ratings or perhaps dethrone WXIA from its #3 spot. Now you see the unveiling everything hits rock bottom. But I remain optimistic do I believe I’ll dethrone 2 or 5 no. But it has a great chance on dethroning 11 Alive. And Tenga trash. Also ANF the call letters haven’t been change yet maybe they’ll have a secondary WANF 46 on non news programming once the call letters change goes through.

Edited October 1, 2022 by Gavin M.

[Metrodonmartin 42]

Networks are going away. The GM here has already made the comment, “do we really need to be a CBS/network affilliate ?  They are banking on creating a local brand. CBS owns a station in Atlanta. Gray is well aware that CBS most likely will pull an NBC BOSTON type move in ATLANTA.  Gray is smart to create a non CBS yet local brand. 

[atlnewsfan03 67]

5 hours ago, Metrodonmartin said:

Networks are going away. The GM here has already made the comment, “do we really need to be a CBS/network affilliate ?  They are banking on creating a local brand. CBS owns a station in Atlanta. Gray is well aware that CBS most likely will pull an NBC BOSTON type move in ATLANTA.  Gray is smart to create a non CBS yet local brand. 

With WGCL (soon-to-be WFNA) dropping "CBS" branding and eye logo... It wouldn't surprise me if CBS affiliation was to change channels in Atlanta at some point.

"Atlanta News First" does kind of give off a similar vibe to WJZY which has "Queen City News" as its branding.

[Nelson R. 568]

56 minutes ago, atlnewsfan03 said:

(soon-to-be WFNA)

WANF

[tyrannical bastard 3763]

Sadly, the WFNA calls still exist, on the CW station run by Nexstar's WKRG in Mobile-Pensacola.  It was launched when they were WALA"s counterpart under Lin.

And yes, they infer what you're thinking.  Even launched a marketking campaign around it....FnA baby!

(Florida N Alabama, officially)

[nycnewsjunkie 1428]

9 hours ago, Metrodonmartin said:

Networks are going away. The GM here has already made the comment, “do we really need to be a CBS/network affilliate ?  They are banking on creating a local brand. CBS owns a station in Atlanta. Gray is well aware that CBS most likely will pull an NBC BOSTON type move in ATLANTA.  Gray is smart to create a non CBS yet local brand. 

I’m not familiar with CBS’ mindset here, but would they be that desperate for an O&O in Atlanta? It would make sense if they wanted one, say, 7 years ago, when WGCL was a dumpster fire, but if ANF turns out to be somewhat successful, why bother?
 

IIRC, NBC did what they did in Boston due to preemptions, wanting to dissociate from WHDH’s tabloid news, and the fact that they already had an established operation there (NECN). Those factors don’t really exist in Atlanta for CBS. Why waste money on a startup operation (that will likely bomb, given today’s media environment) when your affiliate is doing all the work for you? 

[Nelson R. 568]

22 minutes ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

’m not familiar with CBS’ mindset here, but would they be that desperate for an O&O in Atlanta?

They already have one…WUPA…they just don’t have the affiliation on there. They have CW on there. Same in Seattle and Tampa. But I guess the CW would move to WPCH…because there’s no need for Gray to have two independents in that scenario. The other scenario would be for CBS to sell WUPA to Nexstar and keep CW on WUPA but the writing seems to be on the wall for WGCL, soon to be WANF,  to drop CBS with the branding changes. That and Nexstar might have to sell a station in another market for cap reasons if they bought WUPA.

[TVNewsLover 750]

11 hours ago, Metrodonmartin said:

Networks are going away. The GM here has already made the comment, “do we really need to be a CBS/network affilliate ?  They are banking on creating a local brand. CBS owns a station in Atlanta. Gray is well aware that CBS most likely will pull an NBC BOSTON type move in ATLANTA.  Gray is smart to create a non CBS yet local brand. 

 

5 hours ago, atlnewsfan03 said:

With WGCL (soon-to-be WFNA) dropping "CBS" branding and eye logo... It wouldn't surprise me if CBS affiliation was to change channels in Atlanta at some point.

"Atlanta News First" does kind of give off a similar vibe to WJZY which has "Queen City News" as its branding.

 

1 hour ago, Nelson R. said:

They already have one…WUPA…they just don’t have the affiliation on there. They have CW on there. Same in Seattle and Tampa. But I guess the CW would move to WPCH…because there’s no need for Gray to have two independents in that scenario. The other scenario would be for CBS to sell WUPA to Nexstar and keep CW on WUPA but the writing seems to be on the wall for WGCL, soon to be WANF,  to drop CBS with the branding changes. That and Nexstar might have to sell a station in another market for cap reasons if they bought WUPA.

 

You all do realize CBS has owned WUPA since 1994, right? If they wanted to move the affiliation, they would’ve done so a while ago. A lot of major market CBS affiliates are in 3rd or 4th place, you don’t see CBS trying to move affiliations there, do you? Also, Gray owns other CBS affiliates, I don’t thing CBS is looking to piss off Gray. What NBC did in Boston is completely different, as they did not own a station there prior.

Edited October 1, 2022 by TVNewsLover

[Rusty Muck 4362]

5 hours ago, TVNewsLover said:

 

 

 

You all do realize CBS has owned WUPA since 1994, right? If they wanted to move the affiliation, they would’ve done so a while ago. A lot of major market CBS affiliates are in 3rd or 4th place, you don’t see CBS trying to move affiliations there, do you? Also, Gray owns other CBS affiliates, I don’t thing CBS is looking to piss off Gray. What NBC did in Boston is completely different, as they did not own a station there prior.

CBS sold WUPA to Viacom the First in 1994 after it was no longer needed. The station became a UPN O&O, then a CW O&O under CBS Corp. control.

 

Now that CBS is giving up their ownership stake in the CW, they have zero incentive to have WUPA be an affiliate of a network they will have no stake or involvement in and every incentive to take the affiliation in-house.

[T.L. Hughes 824]

24 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

CBS sold WUPA to Viacom the First in 1994 after it was no longer needed. The station became a UPN O&O, then a CW O&O under CBS Corp. control.

 

Now that CBS is giving up their ownership stake in the CW, they have zero incentive to have WUPA be an affiliate of a network they will have no stake or involvement in and every incentive to take the affiliation in-house.

Paramount still owns 12.5% of The CW, so they still have a limited interest in the network. It’s not responsible for the day-to-day management of the network, since Nexstar acquired 75% of the equity previously held by Paramount and WBD, but CBSNS could negotiate to keep the CW affiliation on WUPA and its other CW stations once their contracts come up. (Further to that point, CBSNS still has a few affiliates of MyNetworkTV, which is owned by Fox, in its portfolio.)

Edited October 1, 2022 by T.L. Hughes

[Gavin M. 94]

6 hours ago, Nelson R. said:

They already have one…WUPA…they just don’t have the affiliation on there. They have CW on there. Same in Seattle and Tampa. But I guess the CW would move to WPCH…because there’s no need for Gray to have two independents in that scenario. The other scenario would be for CBS to sell WUPA to Nexstar and keep CW on WUPA but the writing seems to be on the wall for WGCL, soon to be WANF,  to drop CBS with the branding changes. That and Nexstar might have to sell a station in another market for cap reasons if they bought WUPA

The could boost those CW affiliates up they still be like O&Os but better there CW and there a lot more time. Plus they have existing news infrastructure. So I’m saying they can treat them like O&Os of CBS.