WPLG & ABC Parting Ways

[MarkAnimates 26]

I don't like this at all

[NYAZSporty 150]

20 minutes ago, TheRolyPoly said:

 

They did. They had Ross Palombo doing it for them until he left for KCBS/KCAL and the role hasn't been filled since, I believe.

I know WPLG also has correspondents in Washington as well as Havana, Cuba.

[TheRolyPoly 2658]

34 minutes ago, NYAZSporty said:

I know WPLG also has correspondents in Washington as well as Havana, Cuba.

 

They once did in Cuba but I think its been shut down. They also once had correspondents in Venezuela and Colombia. They weren't shared bureaus either, they were WPLG's own in-house news bureaus in those countries but I think they've since closed them due to the political climate in those countries as well as here.

[Rusty Muck 4429]

On 3/28/2025 at 2:33 PM, Georgie56 said:

WPLG has announced their post-ABC news schedule:

 

Weekdays:

• 4:30-11am
• noon-1pm
• 3-7pm
• 9-11:30pm

Weekends:

• 5-11am
• 5-7pm
• 9-9:30pm
• 11-11:30pm

There will also be half-hour sports shows Saturdays at 9:30pm and 11:30pm and a 9:30pm show on Sundays in addition to the existing 11:30pm Sports Sunday.

I cannot think of anything more value destructive. Just because Ed Ansin got away with it twice doesn't mean it can work when the product is diluted this much. In a billingual market, no less.

 

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised to see Warren Buffett take the L after a year or two and unload WPLG to Mission so Nexstar can have a CW O&O for Miami. He's had some bad business moves re: media (buying the Media General newspaper chain, helping Scripps buy Ion) but this might be the biggest oopsie.

[Recovering Producer 234]

Less than three months until the change, and WSVN/Sunbeam is asking the FCC to return to only broadcasting in ATSC 1.0 and ending its channel sharing agreement with WPLG. Currently, the WSVN spectrum has WSVN and WPLG's ATSC 1.0 channels, while the WPLG spectrum has WSVN and WPLG ATSC 3.0 channels.

 

No similar filings from WPLG/Berkshire Hathaway to request a return to ATSC 1.0 transmission that I could find. Likely just a matter of when that is filed.  

[ABC 7 Denver 1741]

14 minutes ago, Recovering Producer said:

Less than three months until the change, and WSVN/Sunbeam is asking the FCC to return to only broadcasting in ATSC 1.0 and ending its channel sharing agreement with WPLG. Currently, the WSVN spectrum has WSVN and WPLG's ATSC 1.0 channels, while the WPLG spectrum has WSVN and WPLG ATSC 3.0 channels.

 

No similar filings from WPLG/Berkshire Hathaway to request a return to ATSC 1.0 transmission that I could find. Likely just a matter of when that is filed.  

 

When is WSVN going to adjust back to NTSC?

[nathannah 2538]

17 minutes ago, Recovering Producer said:

Less than three months until the change, and WSVN/Sunbeam is asking the FCC to return to only broadcasting in ATSC 1.0 and ending its channel sharing agreement with WPLG. Currently, the WSVN spectrum has WSVN and WPLG's ATSC 1.0 channels, while the WPLG spectrum has WSVN and WPLG ATSC 3.0 channels.

With the folks behind the standard doing all they can to sabotage ATSC 3.0 as a DRM'ed mess with weakened coverage areas to distribute FAST channels and websites nobody needs, this is just another nail in the coffin for it.

 

Sunbeam is right to just give up on it and end the farce and focus on just channel 7 alone and figure out something else for their 3.0 plans; ABC and Fox don't even take advantage of 3.0 90% of the time.

[Yankees4life 566]

  Don't know what Warren Buffet is thinking with this decision. They're gonna rue the day they did this. Nobody my age is interested in watching a quasi all news channel.  

[Georgie56 3349]

1 hour ago, Yankees4life said:

  Don't know what Warren Buffet is thinking with this decision. They're gonna rue the day they did this. Nobody my age is interested in watching a quasi all news channel.  

Boy, are you gonna hate watching KTLA then.

 

WPLG is the top-rated English-language station in Miami. WJXT has similar success in Jacksonville. They’ll be fine.

[Georgie56 3349]

WPLG is launching their version of World News on August 4th.

 

 

[sfomspphl 517]

Clever, just can’t unsee the oxymoron of “Local” 10 “World” News

 

The network evening newscasts are heavy on feature style human interest reporting, curious how their ABC World News audience will respond to this version 

[TheRolyPoly 2658]

4 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

WPLG is launching their version of World News on August 4th.

 

 

 

So they're going the WJXT route when they first went Independent and had Eyewitness World News for a short time. However, they may also look to KHON's Hawaii's World Report for some inspiration.

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 984]

I will say at least the new set will help with the seamless transition between "local 10 news" and "local 10 world news"

[bmasters1 418]

12 hours ago, sfomspphl said:

Clever, just can’t unsee the oxymoron of “Local” 10 “World” News

 

I think in this instance that Local 10 is the branding of the channel, and World News is the name of the broadcast on Local 10.

[Samantha 2907]

I said this in BP and I think it goes here too.

 

There are two markets above all where you could produce a newscast of international and national news that has a meaningful difference in a local market. Honolulu is one, and KHON has kept World Report on its lineup now for 29+ years. Miami is the other. The mix of international stories of relevance is very different in a Miami than even in Orlando or Jacksonville, with a stronger Latin American and Caribbean pull. Think how a Spanish-language newscast's mix of national and international differs from the Big Three and you might get a sense of what they can do. (WPLG has a bureau in Havana, and that's one piece of the big-picture puzzle.)

 

It's giving 1994, but unlike some attempts post-New World that responded to "how can we look like we care about non-local news" (WDAF, for instance, did this for all of 12 months shortly after New World), Miami is not Kansas City. If they produce this correctly, this could actually be a useful news product. That's a big if.

Edited yesterday at 08:24 PM by Samantha

[TheRolyPoly 2658]

28 minutes ago, Samantha said:

(WPLG has a bureau in Havana, and that's one piece of the big-picture puzzle.)

 

I think WPLG only has a news bureau left in D.C., but has closed everywhere else, including Cuba and Colombia.

[Rusty Muck 4429]

The notion of over-diluting one’s brand with too much local news continues to feel self-destructive. In what way is WPLG going to benefit by airing more news to a smaller overall audience? And especially when they are simply Xeroxing the 6:30 network newscast, which is itself a game of total attrition?
 

To be blunt, WPLG might just be the biggest blotch on what was a sterling career for Warren Buffett. His successors can’t wait to offload it to Nexstar.

[nathannah 2538]

30 minutes ago, Samantha said:

It's giving 1994, but unlike some attempts post-New World that responded to "how can we look like we care about non-local news" (WDAF, for instance, did this for all of 12 months shortly after New World), Miami is not Kansas City. If they produce this correctly, this could actually be a useful news product. That's a big if.

The thing I dread most is if this down the line just becomes a timeslot to dump 'viral video...but around the world' content rather than being made up of quality international news. The appetite for 'it was on TikTok and Storyful authenticated it, so it's news' content is wearing out very quickly (especially with AI making it much harder to verify), and most stations already dismiss world news because it either doesn't have video, it has no hook (South Korean parliament fights), or they want stories pre-edited by a wire so they don't have to translate anything.

 

It feels like they want to copy WSVN's 'around the world' format, but also keep WNT's style of anchoring, which just doesn't work without someone who handles it well like David Muir who somehow makes their 'happening now' vernacular work. I just don't think Louis Aguirre has that gravitas.

 

(and yeah, I remember those New World years where those stations had multi-screen 'satellite centers' and promoted 'the power of CNN'...then barely used them after awhile and once FTS took over, that focus and the CNN affiliations quickly evaporated.)

[Rusty Muck 4429]

34 minutes ago, nathannah said:

The thing I dread most is if this down the line just becomes a timeslot to dump 'viral video...but around the world' content rather than being made up of quality international news. The appetite for 'it was on TikTok and Storyful authenticated it, so it's news' content is wearing out very quickly (especially with AI making it much harder to verify), and most stations already dismiss world news because it either doesn't have video, it has no hook (South Korean parliament fights), or they want stories pre-edited by a wire so they don't have to translate anything.

That’s probably going to happen within weeks. It underscores how much of a contradiction Miami is. One half is extremely superficial and transient, the other half are the deeply paleoconservative Cuban emigres for which WPLG was blatantly pandering to with the “no bias” tagline. Neither of those groups would seem receptive to national and world news (the latter likely only regarding Cuba and for the most cynical of reasons).

 

Unlike others here and elsewhere, to me, this feels like a recipe for disaster for WPLG. I can’t exactly give them or WANF any real chance for success when the industry is encountering so many headwinds and with syndication becoming extinct.

Edited 23 hours ago by Rusty Muck

[Georgie56 3349]

ABC Miami will also be offered on channel 18.1.

 

[Rusty Muck 4429]

On 5/28/2025 at 1:08 AM, Georgie56 said:

Boy, are you gonna hate watching KTLA then.

Los Angeles is the market that can sustain such ludicrous amounts of newscasts (and that's including stuff not really news i.e. police chases with people doing it solely for the attention). And it's not like Nexstar wants to use KTLA to actually develop non-news shows, that's crazy talk.

[MorningNews 1543]

I don’t think it’s a bad idea for WPLG. I mean, what else can they do when losing network affiliation other than fill up on news and syndications?

[carolinanews4 392]

20 hours ago, Rusty Muck said:

And especially when they are simply Xeroxing the 6:30 network newscast, which is itself a game of total attrition?
 

His successors can’t wait to offload it to Nexstar.

 

Over 17.1 million Americans watched a national evening newscast last week. In this fragmented media environment, that is a sizeable audience. 

What's your source on this? Have you spoken to his successor? Is he set on selling to Nexstar, or will he entertain offers from other groups??

 

I'll put my sarcasm aside to say, I don't understand this overly dramatic doomsday prediction for WPLG. Dropping a costly network affiliation is a "self-destructive" effort that is a"recipe for disaster" and "the biggest blotch" on Warren Buffett's career (as if he made the decision himself). The people who made this decision at Local 10 have a wealth of data to consider. They know what they are paying to ABC. They are aware of their news production costs, syndication programming costs, and so on. In short, they have made a business decision that leaving a 70-year partnership is the more financially beneficial path. 

 

Now, not all business decisions work out for the best. WPLG may very well come to regret this decision. But it may be a success. Remember, you don't have to be #1 to be a financial success - owning all of their inventory sure makes that revenue column balloon. I'm not trying to force anyone to root for WPLG's success or failure. I just think it is a bit extreme to make such a bold prediction of a catastrophic collapse without knowing the business factors and fiscal numbers that went into this decision. 

[TheRolyPoly 2658]

1 hour ago, Georgie56 said:

ABC Miami will also be offered on channel 18.1.

 

 

Good luck with that. WDFL's signal is very weak and unless they significantly upgrade it, more people will access ABC Miami via WSVN 7.2 than WDFL 18.1.