CBS Moving to WUPA in Atlanta

[GoldenShine_10 115]

I think losing the SEC was the last straw for Gray and CBS in Atlanta, as that was their most reliable ratings draw (other than a couple of Falcons game, which Gray could bid for the OTA rights of cable and streaming games anyway).

 

I've also heard that, in the southern edge of the market, people are more likely to watch WMAZ for CBS programming and related news, even though it's a Macon station.

[Megatron81 296]

Why didn't CBS buy WGNX when Tribune put the for sale sign up in 1999 or 2000 where it could be an CBS O&O sooner than now in my opinion. CBS ATL will be the dog station when it comes to news which is good news for WANF not being the dog station anymore. I don't think CBS has done well in Detroit, but I haven't seen the ratings for them when it comes to news for WWJ.

[AmericanErrorist 168]

cbsatlanta dot com still redirects to atlantanewsfirst dot com at the moment.

[DefinitelyIan 11]

Paramount has started posting sales jobs in Atlanta. Interestingly, no news related jobs. 

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 995]

On 6/10/2025 at 6:11 AM, AmericanErrorist said:

cbsatlanta dot com still redirects to atlantanewsfirst dot com at the moment.

the domain will most likely be cbsnews.com/atlanta or cbsnews.com/georgia depending on final branding 

[DefinitelyIan 11]

Looks like they’re building a full-fledged news operation in Atlanta. I wonder where they’re going to house all those people in WUPA’s current facility. 

[TresGriffin 147]

4 hours ago, DefinitelyIan said:

Looks like they’re building a full-fledged news operation in Atlanta. I wonder where they’re going to house all those people in WUPA’s current facility. 

I wonder if they'll relocate to some of the space that CNN just vacated downtown...

[atlnews2 604]

On 6/10/2025 at 12:11 AM, AmericanErrorist said:

cbsatlanta dot com still redirects to atlantanewsfirst dot com at the moment.

Fun fact. when CBS O&O’s started rolling out the “CBScityname” websites in the 2010s they couldn’t register cbsatlanta.com since it belonged to WGCL…as such WUPA ended up with the domain CBSAtlanta.net, which still redirects to their current website 

[Breaking News 858]

On 6/9/2025 at 3:06 PM, Megatron81 said:

Why didn't CBS buy WGNX when Tribune put the for sale sign up in 1999 or 2000 where it could be an CBS O&O sooner than now in my opinion. CBS ATL will be the dog station when it comes to news which is good news for WANF not being the dog station anymore. I don't think CBS has done well in Detroit, but I haven't seen the ratings for them when it comes to news for WWJ.

Very good point you made, but even though it took CBS almost 25 years to get a news operation at WWJ. In 1999, CBS O&O were in the crapper except certain stations i.e.(Minneapolis, Denver, Baltimore) CBS' news infrastructure has been tied to William Paley, Edward R. Murrow & Walter Cronkite, and it has always been slow to change. With the pending sale that CBS is going through you do wonder how much will change.  I actually thought CBS would have bought Channel 46 during their WGCL days and combine 46/69 together. I wonder how much of an investment is being made, because they will need a new building for starters. 

Edited 12 hours ago by Breaking News

[Jase 1101]

On 6/26/2025 at 9:38 PM, TresGriffin said:

I wonder if they'll relocate to some of the space that CNN just vacated downtown...

I can’t see CBS spending a ton of $$$ on a new facility when they ‘could’ make the existing one work. A lot of people could be hybrid and/or WFH and not require a work space.

 

That said, I believe there is an empty building (a clean slate) next to WUPA’s current building that they could take over and build to their own specifications. That would likely be much easier/cheaper than moving elsewhere.

[TheNewsTV 278]

And with this new wave of VR studios at CBS, they just need to pull a green cloth lol

[Recovering Producer 235]

2 hours ago, Jase said:

I can’t see CBS spending a ton of $$$ on a new facility when they ‘could’ make the existing one work. A lot of people could be hybrid and/or WFH and not require a work space.

 

That said, I believe there is an empty building (a clean slate) next to WUPA’s current building that they could take over and build to their own specifications. That would likely be much easier/cheaper than moving elsewhere.

 

Exactly this. The days of needing a 50k sqft purpose-built television facility are over. Do you have a space with high enough ceilings? You have a studio space. 

A massive high-ceiling, TV friendly newsroom where everyone has a cubicle and a row of edit bays for photogs are leftovers from tape to tape editing and limited live trucks. Should there be workspaces for field crews? Sure. But if your model is community reporters, the last place you want reporters is lingering in the newsroom. (Honestly, most newsroom shots are bleak these days because an empty newsroom is basically a well-lit Dunder Mifflin Paper Company) 

Do you need all the space for racks of servers that were necessary 15-20 years ago? Nope. The cloud and hubs shrink the technical operation space substantially. 

[MediaZone4K 2332]

 

On 6/26/2025 at 6:35 PM, DefinitelyIan said:

Looks like they’re building a full-fledged news operation in Atlanta. I wonder where they’re going to house all those people in WUPA’s current facility. 

Sure enough this new market 7 newsroom is hiring MSK's (MMJ's)! I was surprised to see a multimedia journalist posting for WAGA Fox 5 as-well. The days of top 10 markets being a relief from one man banding are slowing fading away. 

Edited 50 minutes ago by MediaZone4K