CBS Moving to WUPA in Atlanta

[Georgie56 3661]

The website has hard-launched.

[l_miro 245]

6 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

Beat ya.

 

 

 

my crush on Brian Unger notwithstanding, this was a big bullshit reel. "Family" ... blech, they're making glue for the ads 

[ATLNewsExpert 508]

Watched the first newscast of CBS News Atlanta, not much to say, a newscast is a newscast is a newscast!

 

For launch, they only had one reporter, Brian Unger, out in the field, at the CDC headquarters, though the shot was a bit fuzzy/blurry behind the reporter, is that a normal CBS thing?

 

They also had a local feel-good story about skating, re-aired the CBS Mornings segment, sports, and a segment with anchor Jobina Fortson-Evans out in the city asking folks to fill in the blank "Atlanta is _______." Every other story and headline were read by Jobina, using the floor as a map of the Metro Atlanta area. 

 

On a personal note, when doing my High School newscast, filming time would only allow for one reporter, two if we were lucky, and every other story was read by our anchors. This newscast is what that felt like, on a larger scale.

 

Interestingly, they are using a QR code for people to suggest story's and leave feedback, but only displayed it twice, super fast. Personally, I would've left it up the entire time in the L3, especially for these first few weeks, and causally mention it every once in a while, so there would be more time for people to scan it.

 

On a staff note, they also have snatched Alexa Liacko from WAGA, and Madeline Montgomery from WANF, and WXIA veteran Sam Crenshaw remains for Sports, which he did for the station during it's CW69 News at 10/Atlanta NOW days, for some reason using his WXIA headshot, lol.

Edited September 15, 2025 by ATLNewsExpert

[Georgie56 3661]

The first full edition of CBS News Atlanta:

 

 

[SFTV 567]

On their IG stories, looks like they reached out in the group to help out this week for its launch 

 

Olivia Young from Denver

Charanda Gray from Chicago

Hannah Kliger from NYC

 

Weather from Zoe Mintz from SF 

[Samantha 2923]

Weather specifically is coming from San Francisco until meteorologists are hired and trained on the new system.

[CircleWXYZ 187]

The CBS News app doesn’t even have CBS News Atlanta yet.

[MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 1158]

They hired Troy Bridges.. why aren't they using him?

[24994J 5888]

44 minutes ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

They hired Troy Bridges.. why aren't they using him?

 

He officially left WJW last week. He's probably off the air to move, unless I missed something.

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

Probably is off the air to facilitate the move from Detroit to Atlanta, which of course, takes time especially when you need to drive your whole life from one location to another.

[ATLNewsExpert 508]

Small world! Madeline Montgomery, who they snatched from WANF, interviewed her former co-worker from WANF, Samantha Louie, who is a contestant on Survivor this season.

[Georgie56 3661]

The morning show launches February 2nd.

[TheNewsTV 342]

2 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

The morning show launches February 2nd.

Will Jobina Fortson-Evans be the morning show host? And who will do the evening news?

[GraphicsMan 345]

And they are actually doing well in

the ratings, I guess a new local news operation is still possible to launch off the ground in this day in age.

[NowBergen 924]

12 minutes ago, GraphicsMan said:

And they are actually doing well in

the ratings, I guess a new local news operation is still possible to launch off the ground in this day in age.

Unfortunately when in ATL a few weeks ago, the hotel tv system had CBS still set to WANF.  NonCBS shows. No sampling of their news broadcasts.  

[GraphicsMan 345]

3 minutes ago, NowBergen said:

Unfortunately when in ATL a few weeks ago, the hotel tv system had CBS still set to WANF.  NonCBS shows. No sampling of their news broadcasts.  

That happened to me at a hotel in NY with CBS there. But say what you wanna say about CBS News they polish there local stations and the fact that WUPA could beat WANF ratings-wise says a lot about the latter than it does WUPA, CBS knows how to run its local stations. Even WWJ in Detroit is even doing good in the ratings so CBS is good I'm some of its market at least the new ones. 

[Encore 323 79]

Hopefully CBS News Atlanta Mornings will expand into a full 4:30-7am morning news show as time goes on, more resources come in, and more hires are made. Oh, and there are the other dayparts to do in between 7am and 6pm as well as weekends but that is to come in near future and is a discussion for another day. Viewers are now seeing that WUPA is a station that knows what they are doing and the ratings are paying off as a result.

[TheRolyPoly 3510]

3 hours ago, TheNewsTV said:

Will Jobina Fortson-Evans be the morning show host? And who will do the evening news?

 

I believe Jobina will do mornings and Sharon Lawson (who already does the 11pm) will expand her duties to do 6pm too.

[MediaZone4K 2661]

Good to hear Sharon is working in the market again.

 

 

Edited January 30 by MediaZone4K

[Reweivvt88 173]

On 1/29/2026 at 8:29 PM, GraphicsMan said:

And they are actually doing well in

the ratings, I guess a new local news operation is still possible to launch off the ground in this day in age.

Where did you see that they are doing well in the ratings? The CBS press release only says the station is up 150%, well yeah, of course ratings are up switching from an independent station to a CBS station. That doesn't mean ratings are good. they are probably still dead last in the Atlanta market for local news ratings and CBS News programming probably has terrible ratings like it does in most of the country. I don't think any of the Atlanta stations have anything to worry about, the CBS News brand has become toxic. If CBS Atlanta was actually doing good in ratings, they would be saying so in the press release, if they were beating another station in a time slot it would be in the press release. There is zero mention of any local news ratings in the release, just that CBS programming rates 150% higher than extremely low rated programming the former UPN turned independent station used to air. 

Edited February 2 by Reweivvt88

[Dave Lampstein 287]

You’ll know they’re in trouble when they launch the “fastest growing station!!” promos. No station that’s ever done that was ever in good place. 

[NEOMatrix 1319]

14 hours ago, Reweivvt88 said:

Where did you see that they are doing well in the ratings? The CBS press release only says the station is up 150%, well yeah, of course ratings are up switching from an independent station to a CBS station. That doesn't mean ratings are good. they are probably still dead last in the Atlanta market for local news ratings and CBS News programming probably has terrible ratings like it does in most of the country. I don't think any of the Atlanta stations have anything to worry about, the CBS News brand has become toxic. If CBS Atlanta was actually doing good in ratings, they would be saying so in the press release, if they were beating another station in a time slot it would be in the press release. There is zero mention of any local news ratings in the release, just that CBS programming rates 150% higher than extremely low rated programming the former UPN turned independent station used to air. 

Honestly, I didn’t expect them to beat 2, 5, or 11. However, not beating WANF/WPCH despite WANF being indie has got to sting.

On 1/29/2026 at 8:49 PM, Encore 323 said:

Hopefully CBS News Atlanta Mornings will expand into a full 4:30-7am morning news show as time goes on, more resources come in, and more hires are made. Oh, and there are the other dayparts to do in between 7am and 6pm as well as weekends but that is to come in near future and is a discussion for another day. Viewers are now seeing that WUPA is a station that knows what they are doing and the ratings are paying off as a result.

WUPA has to ride out their syndication contracts before expanding, just like what WWJ/WKBD did.

[MediaZone4K 2661]

3 hours ago, NEOMatrix said:

Honestly, I didn’t expect them to beat 2, 5, or 11. However, not beating WANF/WPCH despite WANF being indie has got to sting.

WUPA has to ride out their syndication contracts before expanding, just like what WWJ/WKBD did.

They're a new news department and I wonder how many Atlanta viewers actually know of the new news station in town. I almost expect them to be dead last.

Edited February 2 by MediaZone4K

[NEOMatrix 1319]

3 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

They're a new news departmentand I wonder how many Atlanta viewers actually know of the new news station in town. I almost expect them to be dead last.

Depends. WANF likely got taken off YTTV and WUPA was put on there in its place. However, WANF probably got viewers to install the apps and YTTV is still carrying WPCH.

[Georgie56 3661]

WUPA debuts a 5pm newscast on Monday.