CBS Moving to WUPA in Atlanta

[GoldenShine_10 263]

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 343]

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 267]

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 1158]

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 151]

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 631]

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 888]

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 July 7, 2025 by Breaking News

[Jase 1164]

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 342]

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

[Recovering Producer 410]

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 2660]

 

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 July 7, 2025 by MediaZone4K

[mre29 1967]

4 hours ago, Recovering Producer said:

(Honestly, most newsroom shots are bleak these days because an empty newsroom is basically a well-lit Dunder Mifflin Paper Company) 

 

QOTD.  

 

[GraphicsMan 345]

On 7/7/2025 at 3:15 PM, Recovering Producer said:

 

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. 

It almost like running news departments or at least starting up one is cheaper than it was 30 years ago. Especially with everything cloud-based technology, Live U backpacks, and Virtual Sets its almost like you create a digital friendly tv news operation instead of what it used to be. I remember when I was working for KMSG I pretty much was never in a newsroom I was remote I could even work in another city.

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 1158]

Promos are beginning to roll out for CBS Atlanta...

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

This will be the fourth such time there's a CBS Atlanta brand to the market (obviously WANF had it before, once under WGNX and twice under WGCL).

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 1158]

I was trying to scour on here and online -- Do we know of any "big name" anchors, etc.  that might be headed here?

[TheNewsTV 342]

6 minutes ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

I was trying to scour on here and online -- Do we know of any "big name" anchors, etc.  that might be headed here?

 

Maybe they'll bring Allen Devlin back.

[GraphicsMan 345]

I wonder if they’ll pull any talent from the competiting stations.

[mre29 1967]

Minor question concerning WUPA:  I noticed that it's on RF 36/virtual 69, while WATL, which is virtual 36, is on RF 25. Is there a reason for that arrangement? Or could the stations petition the FCC to allow them to swap RF positions at the time of the affiliation switch? And if so, could WUPA then move to virtual 25?

 

[johnothy 53]

Where do they get money to invest in WANF to be all news? I didn’t think it was highly rated to begin with. Without CBS, I’m sure they’ll be a big drop in viewers. 

[TennTV1983 870]

22 hours ago, johnothy said:

Where do they get money to invest in WANF to be all news? I didn’t think it was highly rated to begin with. Without CBS, I’m sure they’ll be a big drop in viewers. 

 

That didn't stop WJXT or WHDH from trying after losing network affiliations themselves. You can operate a news-heavy operation with the right investments made, along with strong marketing.

Edited July 31, 2025 by TennTV1983
Said WJKT instead of WJXT.

[Joey1986 30]

Should CBS opt to change channel 69’s call letters, WCBA is available (for CBS Atlanta), since UPN, the network that its current calls reference, hasn’t existed in almost 20 years.

Edited July 30, 2025 by Joey1986

[JCB4TV 362]

54 minutes ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

That didn't stop WJKT or WHDH from trying after losing network affiliations themselves. You can operate a news-heavy operation with the right investments made, along with strong marketing.

Don't you mean WJXT in Jacksonville as WJKT is a FOX affaliate in Jackson, TN?