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The Definitive ABC 7 Thread


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SMMFH!!! :angry: :mad: :bang:

 

I mean are they're trying to mimmick WDJT?!!! No wait, where did I hear the "FIRST ALERT" part from? Not CBS 58. Oh yeah. "FIRST ALERT Doppler XP" from whereelse, WTVD, where dumbass and his sidekick came from.

 

Is this really necessary?!! Why they just didn't call it your "AccuWeather" forecast, since they are using their tools, instead of this generic ass "First Alert Weather" bullshit. Just constantly bringing elements from their old station to place it one of the largest market stations will not go well in the long run. Let them continue to travel this avenue, and they will regret all of this.

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It does seem like an odd choice, not because of the name, but the fact that the AccuWeather branding holds some weight as it is. It is gimmicky, for sure, but I like this 7-day graphic better than the old...as frivolous as that might be. The fact that it exists in other markets doesn't bother me, either. I will say, it does unify the brand better than 'ABC 7 Weather', which I felt was always a little generic. Personally, I would've liked it if they went with 'Eyewitness Weather' or whatever, but I guess this will have to do. I wonder if they made this move as a way to prevent NBC5 from picking up the branding, ala WNBC and WCAU.

 

It's still better than 'MetroVision7'.

 

Barely.

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It does seem like an odd choice, not because of the name, but the fact that the AccuWeather branding holds some weight as it is. It is gimmicky, for sure, but I like this 7-day graphic better than the old...as frivolous as that might be.

 

It's still better than 'MetroVision7'.

 

Barely.

 

I never thought 'MetroVision7' was better name either. But they didn't constantly jam that down our throats.

 

.

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So far, they've made only one reference (verbal with non-offensive segment graphic) during the newscast plus the updated tab on the Upper 3rd on the maps...but the main segment hasn't aired yet. Nothing mentioned in the opens, either, and the meteorologists' titles are no different.

 

This COULD work, but we'll just have to see, and whatever promotion they do will never be as prominent as it is right now.

 

EDIT: The only verbal reference made during the main segment was of the "First Alert 7-Day Forecast".

 

I'm not losing any sleep over this one.

 

...And sports is still just "Sports".

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...And the new 7-day graphic is meh. It looks naked with extra background space. Why do it need to look slanted, instead of looking straight? Talk about tackiness.

 

The fact that it exists in other markets doesn't bother me, either. I will say, it does unify the brand better than 'ABC 7 Weather', which I felt was always a little generic. Personally, I would've liked it if they went with 'Eyewitness Weather' or whatever, but I guess this will have to do. I wonder if they made this move as a way to prevent NBC5 from picking up the branding, ala WNBC and WCAU.

I remember when Channel 7 used the "Eyewitness Weather" line back in the early 90s. I strongly disagree that this new weather line "unify the brand better", as it sounds more way generic as it seems, since like you stated other stations including WCAU used it and WNBC formerly use it as well. And if the dumbos' plans to use it in a way to block WMAQ from using it, I would be thinking why would you want to use it in the first place?

 

I wouldn't have mind WMAQ used the branding. It probably would've made more sense, than having WLS using it, because it screams overtones of WTVD, where those fools came from....... I'm sorry, but that weather line sounds too mid-to-small market for my taste.

 

Hoping that this "gimmick" would just come and go, something tells me that this will be here for the long haul, whether if it works or not. Other than "AccuWeather", I think it would've been best to save these naming gimmicks and just do what's best. Report the weather and that's it.

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'First Alert' isn't the type of term that should be use daily so I don't get the idea behind using this to brand their weather segments. Seems like another step in the wrong direction.

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I don't like it either. Chicago used to be a place where we didn't have stupid gimmicky names for the weather segment. The weather segment is just that...the weather.

 

First Alert, especially with that red color, makes it look like there's some severe, extreme weather going on. It reminds me of 2012 at The Weather Channel when they permanently turned their main on-air graphics red because of the good ratings they got when they used red for their Superstorm Sandy coverage. They figure they can use red all of the time to get attention. (TWC got rid of the full-time red a year later and went back to only using red for severe weather/major snowstorms/hurricanes.)

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They should work around it the way WXYZ does and just call it the "7-Day Forecast" or even sometimes just "7-Day". "First Alert 7-day Forecast Powered By Accuweather" is too much of a mouthful.

 

How well would "7 First Alert Weather" by itself work there? Or does it have to have ABC attached to it? Everything here in Detroit is branded as plain 7 despite the fact that there is an ABC logo on the circle 7. They supposedly did some research and found using ABC 7 would have confused the heck out of the viewers, who identified it as 7 first and ABC 2nd. I don't know how WLS's viewership sees the relationship between the network and WLS.

 

And before someone says I know WXYZ is not an O&O any longer but it is run as one because there are still some managers from the ABC days hanging on there and their new ND is from Bill Carey's O&O revival era from the early 2000's.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tracy was filling-in for Jerry on the 10pm show tonight. I don't think I'd ever remembering seeing her filling-in on the evening shows during the week. Although she'd done so on the weekend evenings when Phil was off.

 

Last week, Phil filled in for Jerry on the latter part of the week.

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She did the WHOLE DAY. As for why, it wasn't addressed. It is odd, though, seeing as both Jerry and Mike were on yesterday and today is her birthday. I would guess that what led to this was last-minute. I do know that Mike's dad passed away last week, leading to Phil filling in, while Jerry was planned to be off. I appreciate that they didn't make a big deal about Tracy being on, and I kinda hope they go to her once in awhile on a weeknight. What's interesting is the fantastic chemistry between Kathy and Tracy. We never really get to see any interaction between Kathy and another female outside of Cheryl (we know how that comes across sometimes), and it was refreshing to have less testosterone at the desk. I'm curious as to how the dynamic would be with a more regular line-up, as Alan, Cheryl and Mark were also off.

 

Oh, and now that I think about it. She did tag-team with Mike earlier in the year on the 4 and 5 shows after doing the morning, but this is unprecedented. I would guess the last time she did a full weeknight was back in 1994 when she did weekends and Mike was in the morning.

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She did the WHOLE DAY. As for why, it wasn't addressed. It is odd, though, seeing as both Jerry and Mike were on yesterday and today is her birthday. I would guess that what led to this was last-minute. I do know that Mike's dad passed away last week, leading to Phil filling in, while Jerry was planned to be off. I appreciate that they didn't make a big deal about Tracy being on, and I kinda hope they go to her once in awhile on a weeknight. What's interesting is the fantastic chemistry between Kathy and Tracy. We never really get to see any interaction between Kathy and another female outside of Cheryl (we know how that comes across sometimes), and it was refreshing to have less testosterone at the desk. I'm curious as to how the dynamic would be with a more regular line-up, as Alan, Cheryl and Mark were also off.

 

Oh, and now that I think about it. She did tag-team with Mike earlier in the year on the 4 and 5 shows after doing the morning, but this is unprecedented. I would guess the last time she did a full weeknight was back in 1994 when she did weekends and Mike was in the morning.

Yeah, that was January 6, that extremely cold day. Yeah, to me this was very shocking, to do all those newscasts that day morning and evening, on her birthday. Good that she wasn't on the "four-shot" at end of the 10pm show. But last night, when Jerry was on, he wasn't sitting with the anchors (Karen filled in for Kathy last night) at the end of the 10pm show. I dunno why, but when I saw him doing the weather last night, it looked like he had a cold.
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I'm not the only one who notices the awkwardness between Kathy and Cheryl at times? I'm sure that they get along just fine but sometimes on air their interactions with each other come off as cold.

 

Lest we forget this gem...

 

[yt]tNpOm02ot_I[/yt]

 

To be frank, any awkwardness is probably on Cheryl. I do like her, but she cannot banter to save her life. As for Kathy, she has somehow (I don't really see it) developed this reputation over the years of coming across as a little...what's the word I'm looking for...bitchy? I dunno...

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They say that mostly because she is cold and the banter on abc7 is so light and formal that it never really gets loose. You do get loose with Ron Magers, he can banter and joke and he and Cheryl work relatively well together. That 6pm show with Alan and Kathy is good, but both of them are very stiff and dry so it's awkward in itself.

 

I always cringe when Chuck Goudie says something that merits a transitional discussion and one of them says "ok chuck thanks!" And then off they go to the next thing. I remember when Detroit went bankrupt and I was watching Chucks report on it and the financial troubles in Illinois and he said "as a native Detroiter it pains me to see Detroit like this". Surely that merits some kind of response? Nah just "ok chuck thanks." That's missing an opening for more insight right there.

 

I'm not suggesting things get to the overly silly stuff that goes on at wxyz in Detroit (they were throwing wads of paper at each other after sports yesterday when the sports guy didn't pick MI or MSU for the final four, the female anchor is a MSU alum and jokingly didn't like it I guess. The lead anchor looked like he was under attack and was leaning way back with his arms up saying "We'll be right back" as he was ducking under the desk as they went to commercial). It was funny and at the same time really odd. Loose is a relative term I guess.

 

That would never fly at WLS but it could be a bit less stiff with more concept that these people like each other and aren't just forced to sit together, the eyewitness news format was nicknamed happy talk after all.

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Couldn't edit my above so as to that video that finally worked for me, that was all on Kathy, Cheryl put the info out there and she didn't pick it up or do anything with it. She dismissed it "whatever it means we like it" and kinda gave a snotty sign off. So it was going ok till Kathy took it, the banter before that was fine. It's awkward because nothing was done by Kathy to tie it up nicely before they signed off.

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First off, Tracy was on this morning, but it sounds like Troy was on, as well. I wasn't up early enough to see, but she makes reference to him on the forecast video online, and he was active on Facebook this morning.

 

As for chemistry...this is going to be kind of hard to describe. I've never really seen a bad anchor team on ABC7. Never. Some are weaker than others, and those are mostly due to lack of any regularity, but then you see an odd pairing that works. I have an example of each of these. Last fall, all the evening women were off, and Stacey Baca filled in. She and Ron together were a revelation. She also melded really well with Mark and Jerry, though she had sat with them before. A few weeks ago, the morning crew went to NY to film something with the GMA team, and we got our first chance to see Tanja Babich anchor, alongside fellow Canadian Ravi. They were very good together, and it's clear, on and off the air (social media, etc.) that they've bonded over their similarities (she is in his old office). She's only been at the station for two months, but you couldn't tell. On the flip side, Stacey and Cheryl did the 5 together once, and it was awkward. I can't put my finger on it, but it just didn't quite work well. Now, it was mentioned that Alan and Kathy can be awkward. To be polite, I could not disagree more. I think that sometimes when two people have worked together for so long, a lot of the visible chemistry is lost, but it's there. You have to keep in mind that they've sat beside each other on a broadcast for around 20 of the last 24 years. Not to "go there", but most marriages don't last that long. You also have to consider that fact that Jerry has been on their team the whole time, and JR has done sports for the 6pm show for umpteen years. The foursome have done the same broadcast with each other every weeknight for SIXTEEN YEARS. That's unheard of nowadays, and needs to be taken into account.

 

:rant:

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Not saying that at all about Alan and Kathy, I'm just saying they are both relatively stiff anchors. They both do a great job but they aren't exactly chatty or super lively and bouncy. That's the thing about abc7, it can be ridiculously good and it can be rediculously stunted, stilted and stiff, kinda get one or the other. I would never say Alan or Kathy throwing it to Chuck doesn't look a little silly when they say it. Some of the scripts are a little bit overly formal and repetitive too, same lines every day like clockwork for throw overs, I wasn't so much saying it's awkward. You have to go to that New Years special for that (it's still hillarious anyways).

 

That may be why WGN is starting to win mornings, they are looser and more fun as a group. Remember the 7 in the morning ad? Trying to make them more relatable. It's also that abc7 had become a little stale, things have to evolve and change over time but I think they leave things go too long there, like the last graphics package, 8 years is a long time for a graphics package to live.

 

Don't expect Hosea, Judy, Roz and Tracy as a team to last the rest of the year. I keep hearing that Tanja Babich is in line to kick Judy out. That would be a dumb move but ratings are down and idler seems like a guy who doesn't always get it right. Tanja is ok but her "Tanja Babich ABC7 Eyewitness News" is hard to decipher because it's said way too fast.

 

This is an outsiders perspective from somebody who watches a hybrid that's closer to WPVI in style but like abc7 In format so it was never as formal at all. But I have watched years of abc7 as well and done my homework before reaching this conclusion.

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Well, Tracy's back for a second night, as teased ahead of the 4 o'clock show. Phil tweeted earlier that he was on a beach all week, and just got back this afternoon. This all still seems to be kinda odd to me.

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Well, Tracy's back for a second night, as teased ahead of the 4 o'clock show. Phil tweeted earlier that he was on a beach all week, and just got back this afternoon. This all still seems to be kinda odd to me.

 

At this rate she's been sleeping at the station.
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