"Vanilla news"

[bmasters1 377]

I'd like to know something about Chicago: back in the day, every newscast there had a different title. WMAQ was "NewsCenter 5" (later "Channel 5 News"), WBBM was always "Channel 2 News," and WLS was "Eyewitness News" (don't know about WFLD or WGN). Nowadays, every network station of the Big 3 has the same title: "CBS2 News," "NBC5 News," "ABC7 News." Why is this?

[lazynetjunkie 34]

I'd like to know something about Chicago: back in the day, every newscast there had a different title. WMAQ was "NewsCenter 5" (later "Channel 5 News"), WBBM was always "Channel 2 News," and WLS was "Eyewitness News" (don't know about WFLD or WGN). Nowadays, every network station of the Big 3 has the same title: "CBS2 News," "NBC5 News," "ABC7 News." Why is this?

 

 

Corporate branding. Things were different back then. For the past 15 years or so, for most companies (not just TV), it's about getting your brand on everything, especially if you're company owned and operated. I can understand people being upset about it back when it was happening but after working in the corporate world the past decade, I can see the company's side to this. I personally prefer a name such as "ABC 7 News" over "Eyewitness News", "NBC 5 News" over "NewsCenter 5", etc. That's me. The general public, for the most part, really could care less about a newscast title these days. There may be a couple markets that are an exception to that. But really, nowadays, names like "NewsCenter", "Eyewitness", "Action", etc. really do sound cheesy. To TVNT members, it may sound cool but you gotta think in the perspective of an average TV viewer that doesn't know the history, background, behind the scenes things, etc. that we know. You gotta remember, those names were originally gimmicks created in the 1960s/'70s to get people to watch a newscast.

 

Around 1996, WLS was on top and the GM decided it was time to get rid of the "gimmick" title. They did and it had no effect on ratings. They were "Channel 7 News" for a very short time until the corporate branding mandate took effect making the title "ABC 7 News". Once again, no effect on ratings. It's just the company wanting a little reinforcement promoting of what station you're watching.

 

 

By the way, most of the networks have an actual rule stating that there must be a space between the network and the channel number (CBS 2, not CBS2) for the exception of when being used in a website domain (cbs2chicago.com). I've seen alot of stations (along with a couple O&O's) not follow the rule.

 

 

Next time, don't use the term "vanilla news" for a title. I actually thought you were talking about something else that stations in town use to describe something else in newscasts..

[bmasters1 377]

Corporate branding. Things were different back then. For the past 15 years or so, for most companies (not just TV), it's about getting your brand on everything, especially if you're company owned and operated. I can understand people being upset about it back when it was happening but after working in the corporate world the past decade, I can see the company's side to this. I personally prefer a name such as "ABC 7 News" over "Eyewitness News", "NBC 5 News" over "NewsCenter 5", etc. That's me. The general public, for the most part, really could care less about a newscast title these days. There may be a couple markets that are an exception to that. But really, nowadays, names like "NewsCenter", "Eyewitness", "Action", etc. really do sound cheesy. To TVNT members, it may sound cool but you gotta think in the perspective of an average TV viewer that doesn't know the history, background, behind the scenes things, etc. that we know. You gotta remember, those names were originally gimmicks created in the 1960s/'70s to get people to watch a newscast.

 

Around 1996, WLS was on top and the GM decided it was time to get rid of the "gimmick" title. They did and it had no effect on ratings. They were "Channel 7 News" for a very short time until the corporate branding mandate took effect making the title "ABC 7 News". Once again, no effect on ratings. It's just the company wanting a little reinforcement promoting of what station you're watching.

 

 

By the way, most of the networks have an actual rule stating that there must be a space between the network and the channel number (CBS 2, not CBS2) for the exception of when being used in a website domain (cbs2chicago.com). I've seen alot of stations (along with a couple O&O's) not follow the rule.

 

 

Next time, don't use the term "vanilla news" for a title. I actually thought you were talking about something else that stations in town use to describe something else in newscasts..

 

Thank you for the response. The reason why I used "vanilla news" is because it was all the same thing at least as far as titles, and I thought that such a thing would be very boring, as if there was no choice. Other than that, I think you hit the nail right on the head as far as what I wanted to know, as I myself like the bigger titles ("Eyewitness," "Action," that sort of thing), and I wish that my market (which is not Chicago, as I originally talked about) would get one of them in the future. Nonetheless, I will not use that subject line again.