Conrad
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Posts posted by Conrad
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On 1/7/2020 at 1:07 PM, tyrannical bastard said:
Hearst is either a better negotiator or was more flexible in their talks. Nexstar and the Sinclair shells? Not so much.
One of many things Hearst does right.
Although I do wonder if their standards have been slipping as of late, given KMBC's decline in the past 5 years and the fact that Hearst lately has been forcing its stations to air must-runs.
Hearst will be the best major owner going forward, now that Cox Media Group is 80% owned by a private equity firm, and private equity firms have always been all about money. Lately many prviate companies have been purchased by private equity firms. This is sad.
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21 minutes ago, TheRyan said:
5-10 years ago, if a company sold it stations to Gannett/Tegna, I would've thought they were going to a good owner. Now, I assume that every station being bought by Tegna can be likened to a car going to a junkyard. Back in the day Gannett valued hard journalism. Now, Tegna despises it. There are some bright spots that are semi-immune to Tegnaitis, perhaps the best example: WBIR. And I believe a case could be made that KFSM might be able to weather the storm alright. But time will tell.
Don't even get me started about WATN, however. I wouldn't be surprised if ABC would consider moving its affiliation elsewhere--to be honest, I wouldn't blame them. If anyone thinks WATN was bad before, just wait until they are transformed into the WKYC of Memphis. How does "Local 24 Studios" sound for an on-air identity?
I will say that if the WSVN strategy (hard news) was applied to Tegna by Cheatwood, most if not all stations would be serious threats to their competition. It would seem just the opposite strategy was applied.
C Clarity is and always shall be one of the worst news "music" (noise) pkgs ever made. They need to go back to This is Home as a first step. That would at least remove the inappropriately silly sound to the newscasts. That alone would make some improvement.
I pretty much agree with what you have said.
I also forgot to mention that, as everyone knows, Belo was one of the best station owners out there. They were right up there with Cox and Hearst and better than even Gannett. Unfortunately, Belo is mostly gone except for that little A. H. Belo company that still happens to own two North Texas newspapers, and Cox Media Group is now 80% owned by private equity (and is likely to get worse soon). That leaves us with just Hearst out of the three.
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Gannett/TEGNA's decline started before Cheatwood came in. Trust me here. It started in 2014 when they decided to launch Atlanta Alive on WXIA. By early 2015 KPNX started to become, to quote Samantha, "the place with more fluff". Those two stations fell victim to TEGNA-itis before the split even was completed.
I agree, even without Cheatwood I'm not sure if TEGNA will get better, especially considering that this is a company where you never know what actually is going to happen. There's a chance they'll continue on the current path of underachieving.
As you know, Gannett Broadcasting used to be a good owner of TV stations. Gannett/TEGNA is a shell of its former self these days, and it's rather likely that it won't change.
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Did WLWT use talent opens in the camera era? I have not seen any video evidence. I know they did in the ring era, and when they used the last pre-Hearst graphics from 1997-1998.
Also there's nothing I've seen on YouTube of anything from WXII from the camera era save for a 2000 open. I want to see WXII stuff from 2001, 2002, 2003 or 2004 (pre-ring graphics). YouTube also has virtually nothing I've seen to do with WLWT that is from 2003-2007. I want to see their later camera-era (2003-2004) stuff. YouTube also doesn't have (much of) anything from KCRA in 2005 or 2006 that I know of. They also don't have much content from WDSU from 2003-2008, and no content from KOCO in 2004-2007.
Oh, and I forgot to mention WLKY got the ring graphics in spring 2005.
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I looked at the WayBack Machine, and thanks to it we bring you some dates for when each of these stations introduced the ring graphics:
- WESH: September 2004
- WBAL: between October and December 2004
- WCVB: February 2005
- WTAE, WISN, KOCO: April 2005
- KCRA, KETV: Spring 2005
- WDSU: Mid-2005
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On 11/12/2019 at 5:18 PM, Conrad said:
Does anyone know when in 2001 WCVB got the updated talent opens (I call this camera v2.5), introduced around April 2000 (right?) on KCRA. When WCVB got the talent opens the main opens at the beginning were also slightly modified.
Also, when in 2004 did WCVB get the ring graphics?
Maybe it was around September 1998 that camera v2 was first introduced, on WCVB of course. Right?
Looks like no reply yet, but I would like to add:
WCVB received updated "floating logo" opens in 2009 and 2011. However I would like to know exact dates in those years.
Also, when was the "#" added in front of "WCVB" in their diagrid bug?
And when in 2003 was WCVB's slogan changed from "Coverage You Can Count On" to "Local Live Coverage You Can Count On"?
Side note: Interesting that KCCI used both Image News and B Package/Revolution at the same time. I wonder if they used one or both for closes. Also, did WDSU use talent opens during the camera/B Package era, and did KOAT use talent opens between 1999 and 2004? I know they did late in the camera era in 2004, when they were using the NMC music package and weird opens for Hearst-Argyle at the time.
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Does anyone know when in 2001 WCVB got the updated talent opens (I call this camera v2.5), introduced around April 2000 (right?) on KCRA. When WCVB got the talent opens the main opens at the beginning were also slightly modified.
Also, when in 2004 did WCVB get the ring graphics?
Maybe it was around September 1998 that camera v2 was first introduced, on WCVB of course. Right?
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I'm glad that it didn't actually become the new Fox logo. Had this actually been the new Fox logo, then the world will implode. Just kidding; if it actually became the new logo, I would faint, because it would be horrible and not everyone can even read what it says!
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On 1/21/2019 at 2:23 PM, HearstArgyleFan90 said:
A few years ago, I remember seeing a video of a WPBF newscast from around 2006, and they were still using the camera graphics. But by that time almost all the other Hearst stations were already using the rings graphics. Perhaps WPBF was one of the last stations to receive the updated graphics at the time (most stations continued using the camera graphics into 2005 but got the rings graphics later that same year).
WPBF also debuted the floating logo graphics rather late; they were introduced in September 2009 on the same day they rolled out a new set.
Sorry to bump, but I thought I read somewhere that WPBF got the ring graphics alongside the Newsmusic Central package in 2004?
Timeline of Hearst graphics:
November 1995: Camera v1 (on WCVB), retired 1998
Late 1997: Camera v2 (on WISN). B Package/Revolution first appeared in fall 1998 on KOCO, and updated opens (including talent opens) were introduced on KCRA around April 2000 alongside B Package Series 3. Image News Series 5 and 6 debuted later that year on KMBC. Retired 2005/2006.
2002: WMUR/KITV Camera, retired on KITV in 2005 and replaced by Ring. On WMUR, it received updates in later years, starting with a major update in 2005 before it was retired in 2011
April 2004: Ring (on WESH and WLWT), although the Newsmusic Central package was intoduced four months before in December 2003. Retired September 2012, on WMTW
February 2007: Floating Logo (on KCRA), retired 2014, on WMUR
July 2012: Diagrid v1, on WESH, with WBAL getting it the following day, still in use on WMUR
January 2018: Diagrid v2
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On 10/11/2019 at 1:59 PM, oknewsguy said:
WHO has never been in a duopoly,
Yes, but WHO produces KDSM's local news.
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On 10/2/2019 at 8:48 AM, tyrannical bastard said:
Gannett/Gatehouse should really make an effort to acquire the Plain Dealer from Advance. Its a pathetic shell of it's former self like the other Advance properties.
They did sell the Times-Picayune to the owners of the Advocate, the paper that spawned as a local edition of the Baton Rouge daily paper when Advance took away daily editions. However, much of the TP's staff was laid off in the merger and the same could be said given Gatehouse's sizeable holdings in Ohio.
When did Advance/Newhouse started to decline?
17 hours ago, NowBergen said:As I said it is a vicious circle they have created. Cut reporters and columnists, many long time favorites, cut content, lose subscribers, then lose advertising. It's not a good model. Once GateHouse takes over, I'll probably drop my subscription too.
With all those newspapers they're buying up, GateHouse (soon to be the new and improved (not) Gannett) seems to be becoming the Sinclair of the newspaper industry.
Well, I guess the Gannett name will become damaged goods because it is going to be associated with some evil driving force buying newspapers large and small and ruining them, not what it was in the past when the company that was called Gannett was a company that owned TV stations (and ran them well) as well as newspapers.
Soon, you will have this horrible, evil Gannett that is the worst of all newspaper owners, and the mediocre-at-best and buying-any-station-they-can-have-their-hands-on TEGNA that we already have now.
Who will want to read USA Today 5 or 10 years from now, between all this and the fact that the newspaper industry is already dying? Will USA Today even exist in 10 years? Looks like GateHouse is a total joke. It will soon be called Gannett but that won't change it. This company is so bad that Advance/Newhouse would look like Belo in comparison.
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I'm not a big fan of the layout of the new graphics when used on an American TV station. I'm okay with it being used in Europe, though. Older viewers might think "are you sure this is still WKYC?" Especially after two modifications to the old logo over the years. The logo was basically used for 26 years.
As with many others here, I'm also not a fan of the new logo. In typical TEGNA fashion these days, it's too bland.
Semi-related, but what are the exact dates for when WKYC got each of their graphics packages? Yes, I already know or previously knew some of them. Also, there's no website that describes the exact date for when every station changed graphics and music packages. I'm really interested in that.
At least I'm glad KPNX here did not change its logo lately.
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WKYC would be better off using the logo used in the Troika demo video from 2018 that is similar to the current (soon-to-be-former) logo, except that the 3 is unitalicized and there is no line.
But the new WKYC logo that's coming out later this month, right when the 2019-2020 television season starts, is/will be by far the worst logo I have ever seen.
It just keeps getting worse and worse with every new logo coming from TEGNA.
What's next, KPNX changing from 12 News to just 12 (i.e. 12 at 6)? Oh wait, they already did that with 12 Today. And WTLV had "12 at Noon" and "12 at 11:00" pre-First Coast News. Back during better times for Gannett, of course.
You never know what TEGNA will do these days.
I've seen bad. The new Circle K logo. The new WEWS logo. The new WXIA logo. The new Save Mart (supermarket chain in CA and NV) logo (at least the green and orange colors help an otherwise bad logo). Save Mart's sister chains Lucky and FoodMaxx also have new (bad) logos. And I saw the new Pizza Patrón logo. It was horrible and I miss the old one. But the new WKYC logo makes all those look okay to great in comparison. Have you seen the new Save Mart, Lucky, FoodMaxx, and Pizza Patrón logos or even heard of those chains? What are otherwise bad logos seem more tolerable than this crap that is coming out of TEGNA.
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On 6/28/2019 at 4:43 AM, CLETVFan said:
WKYC has added Mike Polk, Jr. to its team. He's a popular Cleveland stand-up comedian who's created popular viral videos, and has appeared on WJW and WUAB in almost two decades. Channel 3 has really beefed up its hiring this year.
(I also posted this in "Out and About," but thought this would go on here as well)
Geez, TEGNA hiring another comedian.
The condition of TEGNA and Scripps continues to get worse and worse. Also they both continue to get bigger and bigger. I won't be surprised if either of those companies buys the Meredith stations.
(On a side note, I haven't seen any billboards for KPNX since 2015 (post-split). I did see a billboard for Red Nose Day on KPNX in 2016 but NBC payed for the billboard, not TEGNA. Maybe it has to do with their weak news ratings these days? I have seen billboards for KNXV, KPHO, and KSAZ last year. I have also never heard any radio ads for KPNX (but I did hear one for the then co-owned newspaper The Arizona Republic in 2014, pre-split of course).)
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On 7/1/2019 at 10:52 AM, Weeters said:
I wouldn't be surprised if this acquisition pushes the debut of any new graphics back. Now they have MORE stations to upgrade to Viz, when it looks like they still haven't finished their legacy stations (at least KGTV is still on Chyron)
Graphics should be the least of Scripps worries right now.
Scripps already has plans to launch a new graphics package later this year.
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5 hours ago, Breaking News said:
Hardly WEWS #2 @5PM..As for WOIO of course.., but WEWS needs to step their game up..Sad that Scripps & TEGNA both look like each other.. WJW does well, but let see how long that last with Nexstar...
It won't be long before Cleveland becomes a market that has stations that I'm not sure I'd even watch since basically all the stations in the market are Nexstar, Gray, TEGNA, and Scripps stations.
I agree about how similar Scripps and TEGNA are. Scripps and TEGNA (as Gannett) used to be high-quality broadcasters. Now, they are not only shadows of what they once were, but also ruthless driving forces buying anything they can get their hands on. And Belo is rolling in its grave right now.
At this rate, the time might come where other than the networks, we would just have Sinclair, Nexstar, Gray, TEGNA, and Scripps for station groups. It is sad just thinking about it, although this is an industry that seems to be dying at this point.
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3 minutes ago, NowBergen said:
The operation of Fox O&O's are not impacted by the Disney sale. They will continue to be controlled by "New Fox" and the Murdoch family. I'm sure it was a legacy Fox decision on when to change the websites, along with a long overdue Fox5 NY studio. All Fox decisions which Disney has no role in.
I know.
21st Century Fox started the rollout. Fox Corporation will finish it.
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On 3/15/2019 at 8:30 PM, TexasTVNews said:
The FOX O&O Texas stations; KDFW, KTBC and KRIV have already updated their site.
Only days before the Disney/Fox merger will have been completed.
I'm not a big fan of the font (Lato). What other station groups use that font?
Could Fox launch new graphics based on this website design?
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Semi-related, but don't you agree that Gannett/TEGNA has gone downhill lately? How are they right now in comparison to Sinclair, Nexstar, and Gray? Could TEGNA go away like RKO General did?
Someone on another thread said that Gannett wasn't better at one point than TEGNA is now and that TEGNA is now trying to continue to be profitable and stay afloat. Really? TEGNA may be trying, but they (at least to me) seem to be trying too hard to cater to a new audience. They are a company that seems to be trying to cater to Wall Street, which usually isn't a good thing. Usually, publicly traded companies that don't try to cater to Wall Street are better at delivering products and services than those that do cater to Wall Street. Some TEGNA employees don't even like the company's current business practices. And you should look at all the well-known talent that has left their stations, replaced by younger, cheaper people. It is clear to me that TEGNA certainly isn't as great as Gannett once was. It is sad when you go from being one of the better station groups, to a company that thinking too hard about catering to millennials. And certain TEGNA stations, of course, have more "trending" stories, that really are not news, than competitors. Considering Scripps has gone downhill over the last several years, even Scripps stations have less "trending" stories.
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Semi-related, but how is Nexstar right now? On another thread, someone said Nexstar has gotten way, way better lately and is now better than even TEGNA and Scripps. Really? They are a huge mega group that had lots of layoffs and took away cell phones and credit cards from employees. Not to mention not-so-great looking logos that in certain cases replace superior-looking logos. They cut so costs so much that to me, at least, TEGNA and Scripps in their current forms are better. Let's not even get started on what happened at WHTM lately that made an already bad station even worse.
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12 hours ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:
I'm still baffled as to why the weather graphics changed to Scripps but the Journal package stayed... So tacky....
Seems like Scripps is treating KGUN like a bastard stepchild even though they are next to KNXV. I'm always waiting for KGUN to completely get the Scripps graphics and Inergy. I've been waiting since before KIVI got them.
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5 hours ago, ColtFromGulfcoast said:
A lot of people give Nexstar way too little credit lately. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The Media General merger is the best thing that ever happened to them and the Tribune merger will probably enhance them even further. Nexstar has improved the way they operate their stations tremendously since they merged into Media General, adding newscasts on stations, and trying to serve underserved audiences, to name a few. We're being way too hard on them. In my opinion, the way Nexstar operates could perhaps be viewed as better than Tegna or Scripps, depending on the perspective. Nexstar is working hard to shed their negative reputation.
Really?
If so, it would be funny that Nexstar is way, way better now than they used to be despite their massive size which continues to grow. Nexstar probably has a lot of money due to its size, and they could be taking advantage of it.
Was Gray ever well run? So many of their stations are #1 or #2.
How are the radio mega groups (iHeart, Cumulus, and Entercom) right now? My biggest complaint about those 3 companies is size. iHeart is so concentrated, they are even more concentrated than Sinclair, Nexstar (even after buying Tribune), and orange juice.
But no matter how you look at it, Sinclair is really, really bad. I prefer Nexstar and Gray no matter how much regard I hold for those companies.
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33 minutes ago, oknewsguy said:
Outside of maybe Sports but I don't think any professional sports team outside of maybe the bigger markets (i.e Chicago, NYC, LA, Boston, Miami) will be willing to deal with Sinclair's antics. On the sports-related question, do you think Disney is willing to deal with Sinclair with regards to the 21 former Fox RSNs? And how would the DOJ feel about Sinclair (potentially) purchasing those 21 FSNs?
As for the broadcast side of things, it's safe to say that Sinclair clearly wants to go down the RKO General path, and they've done a good job at it but, ultimately, that's what will lead to an eventual breakup (and knowing Sinclair's stance on the abandoned Tribune acquisition and the claims that they "did not" misled the FCC) it's not going to be a pretty one.
I hope Nexstar and Gray go away like RKO General did, as well.
We have 3 mega groups. We have Sinclair and Nexstar, of course, but we also now have Gray as a mega group. We know how bad Sinclair and Nexstar are, and Gray is also about as bad as Nexstar.
And at this point (and this may be even more sad than it already is), Gannettegna and Scripps may also end up going the RKO General route. Both once-great companies that went downhill and are now "ripe" for sale.
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On 2/8/2019 at 9:32 PM, Weeters said:
United is actually getting out of everything. It sold its last newspaper (The Kenosha News) a few weeks ago. They've slowly been selling off their other newspaper properties over the past few years.
What a terrible position they were in. Small town newspapers and TV stations with pretty much no digital properties and lackluster digital for the stuff they did own.
Are Sinclair and Nexstar better than United? Would the purchase by Gray be an improvement? Are Scripps and TEGNA in their current forms also better than United?
United's stations are probably no better than average for small-market stations. And average for small-market stations is poor in general.
Another group I want to see go away that only has stations in smaller markets is Morris. They're pretty bad. Would the Morris stations get better if Sinclair, Nexstar, or Gray took them over?
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News Helicopters List and Discussion
in General TV
Posted
i've read that KCNC's old helicopeter was shared with KKTV.