After Midnight canceled; CBS leaves 12:30am slot

[Big Rollo Smokes 260]

14 hours ago, obxwatcher said:

 

What confuses me in the last few years is more ABC affiliates (especially the O&Os) dropping World News Now in favor of daytime reruns. There is an alternative to ABC News Live but at some point is it just better financially to rerun WNT and local news 11pm re-broadcast or does WNN still get good numbers streaming? They have solid likable anchors right now but some years WNN has anchors who have no chemistry and just do it for the network experience. 

 

I've often wondered about that also. I figured that once World News Now disappeared from the O&Os, the ticks on the clock would ring louder...but the newswatch continues. It is a relic of a bygone era, a time when the Big Three embraced the emerging 24-hour news cycle after the Gulf War and during the '92 U.S. election cycle. But NBC ended Nightside in 1998. CBS's Up to the Minute lasted a little longer, making it into the 2010s before morphing into its current incarnation.

 

My guess is that while WNN can't be making that much money for ABC News' bottom line, that show must be really cheap to produce.

Edited March 28 by Big Rollo Smokes

[mre29 1544]

7 hours ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

I've often wondered about that also. I figured that once World News Now disappeared from the O&Os, the ticks on the clock would ring louder...but the newswatch continues. It is a relic of a bygone era, a time when the Big Three embraced the emerging 24-hour news cycle after the Gulf War and during the '92 U.S. election cycle. But NBC ended Nightside in 1998. CBS's Up to the Minute lasted a little longer, making it into the 2010s before morphing into its current incarnation.

 

My guess is that while WNN can't be making that much money for ABC News' bottom line, that show must be really cheap to produce.

 

What does ABC News Live run during the hours that WNN is available?

17 hours ago, Jase said:

If they were to drop Colbert, they could bring back a new version of ‘Crimetime After Primetime’. I think there could be an audience for that.

 

Because what CBS needs is more cop shows.

 

[HanSolo 183]

6 minutes ago, mre29 said:

 

What does ABC News Live run during the hours that WNN is available?

 

Because what CBS needs is more cop shows.

 

NCIS: Albuquerque and FBI: Office Cleaning Crew look to have potential. 
 

But seriously, let’s stop with the “let’s do what they did decades ago” reactions. This ain’t then, and that ain’t happening. 

[mre29 1544]

4 minutes ago, HanSolo said:

NCIS: Albuquerque and FBI: Office Cleaning Crew look to have potential. 

 

I would see it as an opportunity to do a show about NCIS's Army or Air Force counterpart. Why should the Navy CIS get all the shows?

 

Personally, though, I've been waiting for CSI: Podunk. "Solving crimes...in the middle of nowhere!"

 

[l_miro 6]

On 3/27/2025 at 1:49 PM, Hometown News said:

 

At the risk of getting off-topic, if I recall correctly, New Zealand is the only other country in the world that does allow pharma ads on TV. It's at least the only other developed country. And even there, it was only legally formalized in 2023, and a lot of people (including doctors) want it banned.

 

The market in Europe is a bit more complex than you're making it out to be. Ad revenue is falling and there's still plenty of angst about streaming replacing linear TV someday. It's also not unheard of for networks in Europe, like Channel 4 in the UK, to make cutbacks as severe as what CBS is currently doing. Channel 4 just went through a few years of greenlighting significantly less programming than usual and cancelling series they had greenlit during production because the money wasn't there to support it.

 

I have a theory about why it still doesn't seem quite as dire for traditional TV over there. European countries were always much better at making TV feel like an event consistently. Just look at all the extra effort they've always put into presentation - the idents, live announcers introducing the shows, etc. It sounds silly, but psychologically, I do think it matters to viewers on a subconscious level. Outside of the local news (which itself is becoming increasingly centralized), American TV has always lacked that personal touch. Linear TV in America and in countries with a more Americanized style of television seem much more vulnerable to streaming because there's so little to differentiate it besides the negative aspects: more ads and less choice.

 

Europe is varied, and fragmented. But it's not dire yet for various reasons - a lot has to do with the fact the media there is fed by taxpayer money. Even the private channels. The EU doles out tax money as subsidies, and countries' governments do that too separately. Whether anyone watches or not they throw money. The rating trends with the young are the same, and in some ways worse than the US. Add to that the fact that star anchors rarely if ever make 6-7-8 figure salaries, there are no networks to bleed the retrans fees from cable, and sport isn't eating up the budgets to the same level. The NFL bags $13B/yr in broadcast rights, the NBA $2.7B. UEFA is around $3B/yr for broadcast rights and unlike the US, various channels acquire the rights some of which operate like an HBO does. In Eastern Europe, where I'm from originally, will have some games air on broadcast but a lot of the games will be on a pay channel in the style of HBO that sits on top of your cable/satellite subscription. If not fans pull up some foreign satellite channel out of Germany/Italy and watcht that way

I was talking to a friend in the biz the other day, and he said they're surviving because they aren't news focused. EU broadcast TV has never been news-focused like the US. bTV/NovaTV in Bulgaria has 2hrs of a GMA-like morning program, then it's coffee talk, gossip, cheap Turkish and Indian soaps until 6pm with a few minutes of noon news, and a 1 hour in-studio political program. The 6-7pm news follow and then it's Masked Singer or whatever bullshit show is on with another 10-15 minutes of news at 11pm. So 3-ish hours of news total in a weekday.

 

Overall the trends of the young not watching are the same or worse as the US. At least for Eastern Europe they're worse, we're leaping right into social medial and our young people are constantly out with their friends. On weekends especially.

 

[Hometown News 56]

On 3/29/2025 at 1:30 AM, l_miro said:

I was talking to a friend in the biz the other day, and he said they're surviving because they aren't news focused.

 

I didn't think about that, but it's a good point too. I'd add that the non-news programming (especially syndication and cable) has become mind-numbingly repetitive in its own way. American TV has always been lazy in terms of its presentation, but it seems like around the mid-2010s, streaming became an excuse for the linear TV industry to give up and become just as lazy with everything else.

[nathannah 2475]

On 3/28/2025 at 2:36 PM, Big Rollo Smokes said:

I've often wondered about that also. I figured that once World News Now disappeared from the O&Os, the ticks on the clock would ring louder...but the newswatch continues. It is a relic of a bygone era, a time when the Big Three embraced the emerging 24-hour news cycle after the Gulf War and during the '92 U.S. election cycle. But NBC ended Nightside in 1998. CBS's Up to the Minute lasted a little longer, making it into the 2010s before morphing into its current incarnation.

 

My guess is that while WNN can't be making that much money for ABC News' bottom line, that show must be really cheap to produce.

I'm guessing since the same staff does GMA First Look they justify a two-hour shift (outside sudden breaking events where the GMA cast isn't on-site yet) and keep running it in that manner for cost efficiency purposes.

[TVLurker 204]

1 hour ago, nathannah said:

I'm guessing since the same staff does GMA First Look they justify a two-hour shift (outside sudden breaking events where the GMA cast isn't on-site yet) and keep running it in that manner for cost efficiency purposes.

So basically they've become "Early Today"...

[LMTO 0]

On 3/29/2025 at 1:30 AM, l_miro said:

 

Europe is varied, and fragmented. But it's not dire yet for various reasons - a lot has to do with the fact the media there is fed by taxpayer money. Even the private channels. The EU doles out tax money as subsidies, and countries' governments do that too separately. Whether anyone watches or not they throw money. The rating trends with the young are the same, and in some ways worse than the US. Add to that the fact that star anchors rarely if ever make 6-7-8 figure salaries, there are no networks to bleed the retrans fees from cable, and sport isn't eating up the budgets to the same level. The NFL bags $13B/yr in broadcast rights, the NBA $2.7B. UEFA is around $3B/yr for broadcast rights and unlike the US, various channels acquire the rights some of which operate like an HBO does. In Eastern Europe, where I'm from originally, will have some games air on broadcast but a lot of the games will be on a pay channel in the style of HBO that sits on top of your cable/satellite subscription. If not fans pull up some foreign satellite channel out of Germany/Italy and watcht that way

I was talking to a friend in the biz the other day, and he said they're surviving because they aren't news focused. EU broadcast TV has never been news-focused like the US. bTV/NovaTV in Bulgaria has 2hrs of a GMA-like morning program, then it's coffee talk, gossip, cheap Turkish and Indian soaps until 6pm with a few minutes of noon news, and a 1 hour in-studio political program. The 6-7pm news follow and then it's Masked Singer or whatever bullshit show is on with another 10-15 minutes of news at 11pm. So 3-ish hours of news total in a weekday.

 

Overall the trends of the young not watching are the same or worse as the US. At least for Eastern Europe they're worse, we're leaping right into social medial and our young people are constantly out with their friends. On weekends especially.

 

Thats a small sample size...German and other countries have plenty of networks that are news focused. Das Erste, ZDF and others in Germany have alot of news product. Same in Belgium and France...