carolinanews4

This is part of why I believe CBS News lags behind its competitors. First, it is yet another rebrand in a seemingly endless string of rebrandings. Just this property alone has had three names in its short life. It launched in Nov. 2014 as "CBSN" before announcing in Sept. 2021 that the streamer would become simply "CBS News". Then in 2022, the Hollywood Reporter reported that "CBS News is rebooting its streaming service, overhauling its entire programming slate." Now, in 2024, comes another new name. CBS News, sans 60 Minutes and Sunday Morning which are frozen in time, appears to take a flavor-of-the-month approach to everything else. It lacks consistency and a true ethos of what its products are supposed to be. Even the programming on "CBS News 24/7" seems to lack full commitment. The channel's newscast of record, "The Daily Report with John Dickerson" may be expanding to 90 minutes but is still only airing Monday through Thursday. I recognize Fridays are slow news days and viewership is light, but I believe you demonstrate commitment to the product by showing up five days a week. CBS launched nearly five years before NBC's streaming product. Today, NBC News Now streams original day-and-date programming M-F from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Its signature newscast, Top Story with Tom Llamas, airs M-F. ABC's ABC News Live also streams its signature program, ABCNL Prime with Linsey Davis, five nights a week. This past September, ABC announced an expansion of live programming on the channel that also launched in 2018. Live programming only gets added so long as there is revenue to support the expansion. You'd think with such a huge headstart that CBS would be the leader in live programming. But it is not. I believe it is because CBS is constantly toiling with reboots and rebranding.

I truly appreciate that you care about visual presentation standards. But I don't see the lack of a high camera or the shift to chromakey as the lowering of the bar for local news. Endless "local" newscasts filled with national stories from network news services, repurposed packages from ownership sister stations, and copious time spent on television talking about "what people are talking about online". Local newscasts with a shrinking amount of actual community news. That's lowering the bar for news. Not a few tweaks to how a newscast is shot.

For the CBS owned stations, I think comes down to a lack of budget and the resulting lack of identity. CBS O&Os historically have spent less than their ABC and NBC counterparts leaving them with fewer resources. To play catchup stations like WCBS and WBBM have gone through numerous rebrandings. From a corporate standpoint, CBS has undervalued the "presentation" portion of TV news which has been reflected in the way they fund their local stations. They live in the Walter Cronkite era of storytelling. Admirable? Sure. But television is a visual medium and newscasts are built on a relationship with the viewer. I don't feel like CBS has ever truly embraced either of those things. The lack of investment was easier to hide in the 70s and 80s because everyone's presentation was crude. But as technology has evolved, CBS always seems to be playing catch-up. When Jeff Zucker cut NBC budgets in the early 2000s, WNBC went into their "WCBS era" where they lacked identity and money. The NBC O&O group launched Daily Connection which was a "newscast" that featured repurposed content from across NBCU properties. The pieces of the show were assembled in NYC and then fed to stations to be produced with local talent. (Sound similar to the equally generic CBS News Now broadcast from Texas?) Cost efficient? You bet. Compelling tv? Not at all. WNBC eliminated Live at Five in favor of News4You and Extra. When that didn't work, WNBC played musical chairs with timeslots, anchors, and formats for years. WNBC their newsroom into a "Content Center" which was nothing more than a gimmick, like the gimmick WCBS tried in launching the short-lived CBS 2 Information Network. It was during this time when WCBS was able to move up to #2, not because Channel 2 was doing anything particularly compelling but because they offered stability where WNBC didn't. Valari Staab, formerly with the ABC O&O group, has spent over a decade rebuilding the newsgathering resources of the NBC group. New radar technology, studios, increased digital resources, heck even new buildings have been added. CBS meanwhile appears to continue the "more with less" mantra that has been in place for over 40 years. While NBC was rebuilding, the ABC stations, with their well-defined local identities, have steamrolled everyone with a consistent and well-funded product. Meanwhile the FOX O&O group, with seemingly endless hours of local news, generates strong local revenue. What has CBS done? Slapped the last-place 'CBS News' brand onto their local stations. Most of the CBS stations lack the type of true community investment it takes to be a strong player. With audiences for linear TV newscasts continuing to shrink, one could argue it Is way too late for them to catch up.

If this is a benefit of a group product, and that is a big IF, then it is an inadvertent benefit. To say a New Yorker who goes to LA will be drawn to KABC because they share a lower third with WABC is probably overstating the impact of graphics. The real driver for a group package is cost savings. Plain and simple. In ABC's case, it is one package for eight stations. Fox and NBC have been doing it for years. Not only do you save on development but there are downstream savings because topical graphics can be shared. KABC, KGO, and KFSN are probably all sharing flooding graphics for intros, display monitors, etc. Exactly! The network news division (save Sunday Morning and 60 Minutes) is in last place. Many of their local stations (save KDKA and WCCO) were laggards in their markets. So why not reimagine the branding to try to help both? But again, this is an excellent cost savings for the CBS group. And as NYCNewsJunkie rightfully points out, it gave them a comprehensive streaming approach for the first time.

Even if NBCU has such shows in its back catalog (which is highly doubtful), why would the network and its affiliates want to air years, or perhaps decades, old lifestyles, home, or travel shows? Those types of shows can become dated quickly as trends change. But the real issue is that day and date shows are seen as better performers for broadcast. That's why you see news and sports popping up so much. Scripted shows are moving to streaming because they can get real viewership data and people can watch them whenever they want. There's a reason why stations like KTLA and WBTV stay as local as possible. Viewership...and thus ad dollars...are better. Which reminds me of something. Does anyone remember when the late Jim Rogers wanted to take his Intermountain West station KSNV all local outside of NBC network hours? It was 2013 and Rodgers started dumping his syndicated product (Jeopard, Wheel, Judge Judy, Inside Edition, Dr. Phil, and Rachel Ray) in favor of local news. Here is an interesting article from January 2013. It has some very intriguing insights. Jim was about a decade ahead of his time. In regards to adding so many hours of local programming, Jim said, "I want something I can be proud of and, if it’s got to cost me some money,” that’s OK." Unfortunately, he died about 18 months later. The station would ultimately be sold to Sinclair and they immediately started undoing Jim's plan because, as we all know, they are not OK if it's got to come some money.

The debut of CNN's once-a-week show, King Charles, garnered slightly over half a million viewers: 501,000 total viewers. Not exactly seller numbers out of the gate but it is a tiny improvement over CNN NewsNight's November average of 474,000 viewers. The Daily Beast, citing Nielsen data, said it was, "the lowest-rated primetime weeknight series debut for the network in at least a decade." https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cnn-gayle-king-charles-barkley-premiere-ratings-1235702714/ If you are wondering about the timeslot competition: MSNBC had 1.621 total viewers and FNC had 1.973 total viewers. In my opinion, the strategy of making it a "limited series" could mean 501,000 is their high watermark in terms of ratings. There is no vested interest for viewers to get to know the show because it is going away and producers don't have a lot of time to find the show's rhythm. The whole thing seems unfortunate for everyone involved because there was a lot of effort put into launching and promoting this show when the network already has multiple new shows they need to nurture. I never understood how this show fit into Chris Licht's ultimate vision for CNN...the problem was it didn't seem like Chris knew either. Hopefully, it becomes a hit quickly or reaches the limit part of its limited run quickly.

It appears as though they went dark: https://deadline.com/2023/11/directv-tegna-stations-dispute-cbs-nbc-nfl-college-football-1235646338/ The deadline was 5 p.m. PST and no deal was reached.

Actually, in this case, it isn't. KNBC did not pick up Dateline. The station is clearing the live East Coast feed of NBC Nightly News at 3:30. They added a 3 p.m. newscast leading into Lester. Thus, no room to clear Dateline. KTTV is airing it at 11:30 p.m. This is unrelated to the MyNet feed.

They showed a bit more of the studio during NY Live. Everything you see that is a gray/white peacock appears to be LED. I say that because during the 11A news, they were filled with a blueish peacock motif. The floor has thin gold bars around the parameter which is reminiscent of the floors on the main level of 30 Rock. That is a nice touch but it is a bit too subtle for most viewers. Unless you worked in the building, you probably wouldn't even notice it. The main news desk (which you can see part of in the lower right of the bump shot) is more substantial than the previous desk. The lighting appears to be much improved in 3B. For me, it is a clean but uninspired design. I was hoping for something with a bit more of a local feel. Something akin to WRC's studio. That space, while also modest in size, incorporated some local touches like the stone and the map. WNBC's studio feels like the WBTS studio which is ascetically clean but lacking in local personality. Having said all of that, the space seems nicer than 3K. I always felt like that space was underutilized.

6A actually launched earlier than Monday. Yes, it hit the air Monday but it was a live studio prior to that as Kelly tapes about a week in advance. The season premiere that aired on Monday was taped on October 10. But the launch of 6A has very little connection to 3B. If you were looking for a studio launch that could impact WNBC, look to the other half of the studio. With WNBC and WNJU sharing 3B, you are bringing two spaces online at the same time. Not to mention the logistical hurdles associated with moving WNJU into 30 Rock.

Thanks @IceManNYR, I'm aware of the plan to split Studio 3B. I was inquiring about the set, not the studio. Nynewsguy made it sound like the new set is a rehash of the current set. So I was trying to figure out if I read his post correctly.

Hey @nynewsguy, are you saying they are replicating their current set in the new studio? If so, that is a huge disappointment. Not to mention it is extremely odd to recreate a look that is 7 years old. I would have guessed a version of WRC's set given WNBC's half of 3A is similar in size and shape to WRC's portion of Nebraska Avenue's Studio A.

If they could simulcast the domestic CNN, I'm sure they would. It would be the easiest and most cost-effective route. But putting the entire U.S. feed on Max would undoubtedly run afoul of their cable contracts. There's probably a percentage of their schedule they can simulcast that keeps them within the bounds of their contracts. Similar to how MSNBC's "Morning Joe" is available live on Peacock, but the rest of the MSNBC schedule isn't live DTC. As to why they don't simply simulcast the International feed, my guess is because of a concern that a full day of international news wouldn't attract a large number of American viewers. I'm not saying there isn't an audience for international news, so don't come at me thinking I hate international headlines. I'm just saying that a domestic audience is more likely to want more American headlines than international ones. CNN Max is going to have a huge uphill battle. Fox Nation has figured out its streaming business model. NBC has NBC News Now and an MSNBC hub on Peacock. So CNN's main cable rivals have already figured out the economics of this and are positioned to scale up DTC as the cable bundle continues to implode. Now CNN has to play catchup, which seems like a theme for them as of late.

@T.L. Hughes @Nelson R. Thank you both. I find that history interesting.

Am I missing something? This isn't a long-term problem. CBS has a plan for the 12:30A slot, but those plans are temporarily on hold due to strikes. So I do not understand why returning time to the affiliates is even being mentioned. As for a comparison to 1984, that isn't exactly comparing apples to apples. There were three commercial networks and PBS. So to compare almost 40-year-old programming choices doesn't seem relevant. But that's just my thinking. Technically, CBS still does. Let's Make a Deal runs at 10A Eastern. However, some affiliates have chosen to air it later in the day