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Scripps - General Discussion


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Thread Note: Since Scripps has indicated they intend to run ION Media as a separate entity from their existing (mostly) news-producing stations, ION discussion has been relocated to a new thread.

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they're spending plenty of money... you just don't see it... go to any of the former journal communications stations and ask how much scripps has invested in them... many are adding staff like crazy & upgrading equipment left and right... WTMJ is running out of space in their newsroom to put new staff...

 

it's no coincidence they turned a profit this time last year and not this year... since then they bought a bunch of poorly run stations that need a ton of money sunk into them... JBG was cheap... cheap in the way they would rather keep paying union engineers to sit around for hours a day doing nothing between shows instead of spending big bucks automating the control room... now it's up to scripps to make those investments and they ain't cheap...

Of course they could do more faster if they hadn't blown their own stations up first and maybe turn a profit all at the same time.......

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they're spending plenty of money... you just don't see it... go to any of the former journal communications stations and ask how much scripps has invested in them... many are adding staff like crazy & upgrading equipment left and right... WTMJ is running out of space in their newsroom to put new staff...

 

it's no coincidence they turned a profit this time last year and not this year... since then they bought a bunch of poorly run stations that need a ton of money sunk into them... JBG was cheap... cheap in the way they would rather keep paying union engineers to sit around for hours a day doing nothing between shows instead of spending big bucks automating the control room... now it's up to scripps to make those investments and they ain't cheap...

 

Scripps is installing Ignite and hubbing master control to cut cost in the long term, employing people cost alot of money. It really isn't alot of money to spend investing in automation but it can cause alot of problems. Scripps isn't adding news staff, they're returning to staffing levels from the Journal days, but they're replacing veteran reporters and photojournalist with mmj's with very little experience.

 

Scripps had alot of poorly run station before Journal. WTVF is top 2 in revenue for the whole group and Nashville is the 10th largest market for them. WTMJ and KTNV also produce more revenue than other Scripps stations in larger markets than them.

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Scripps is installing Ignite and hubbing master control to cut cost in the long term, employing people cost alot of money. It really isn't alot of money to spend investing in automation but it can cause alot of problems.

 

As criticisms go, that's some weak tea. It makes Scripps pretty much like everybody else. Who doesn't hub anymore? Sinclair, Gray, Tegna, Tribune, Meredith, and Raycom all hub. I've heard Hearst does, but I don't know anybody there. I don't know about Hubbard, Calkins, Graham, or Quincy either. Lin had MC hubs. Media General has them. Nexstar has them. ABC and NBC O&O's don't even do their own hubbing. They farm it out. Fox and CBS hub.

 

That being said, I know for a fact Scripps hasn't hubbed the Journal stations. That might still be in the future, but I've heard no chatter yet.

 

In terms of Ignite-type systems, I've heard even Dispatch has brought that in recently. It's the way broadcasting is done in 2016. I went to lunch with somebody from an old McGraw Hill station recently, they had automation production control 10 years before joining Scripps. Scripps hired enough people that they're having trouble finding parking spots. McGraw Hill was cheap. I know with Buffalo, Granite was crazy cheap and there was open celebration that they'd been purchased. Now they're expanding the number of hours of news they're running or at least they will once they actually start running their weekend morning news.

 

And the systems aren't cheap. Corporate-wide rollout costs millions and have a 3+ year return on investment depending on what equipment you buy and how you structure your setup.

 

There are plenty of valid criticisms available concerning content. Hitting them for doing the same thing everybody does seems nitpicky.

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To raise them up. The risk factor being the reason why I think they should only invest up to 20% to minimize risk in case the venture fails.

 

Raise up what? Just because Scripps does poorly overall doesn't mean it can't have ABC stations that do well... I'm sure not every one of Hearst's ABC stations is a market leader either, and Scripps and Hearst own nearly the same amount of ABC stations...

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As criticisms go, that's some weak tea. It makes Scripps pretty much like everybody else. Who doesn't hub anymore? Sinclair, Gray, Tegna, Tribune, Meredith, and Raycom all hub. I've heard Hearst does, but I don't know anybody there. I don't know about Hubbard, Calkins, Graham, or Quincy either. Lin had MC hubs. Media General has them. Nexstar has them. ABC and NBC O&O's don't even do their own hubbing. They farm it out. Fox and CBS hub.

 

That being said, I know for a fact Scripps hasn't hubbed the Journal stations. That might still be in the future, but I've heard no chatter yet.

 

In terms of Ignite-type systems, I've heard even Dispatch has brought that in recently. It's the way broadcasting is done in 2016. I went to lunch with somebody from an old McGraw Hill station recently, they had automation production control 10 years before joining Scripps. Scripps hired enough people that they're having trouble finding parking spots. McGraw Hill was cheap. I know with Buffalo, Granite was crazy cheap and there was open celebration that they'd been purchased. Now they're expanding the number of hours of news they're running or at least they will once they actually start running their weekend morning news.

 

And the systems aren't cheap. Corporate-wide rollout costs millions and have a 3+ year return on investment depending on what equipment you buy and how you structure your setup.

 

There are plenty of valid criticisms available concerning content. Hitting them for doing the same thing everybody does seems nitpicky.

Ignite isn't a very good system... Errors are way up and they are usually bizarre "how is that possible?!?!" Errors.

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Raise up what? Just because Scripps does poorly overall doesn't mean it can't have ABC stations that do well... I'm sure not every one of Hearst's ABC stations is a market leader either, and Scripps and Hearst own nearly the same amount of ABC stations...
But here's the thing, Scripps owns ABC stations in larger markets (WFTS, and KNXV for example) than Hearst's ABC stations (except WCVB/WMUR).
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As criticisms go, that's some weak tea. It makes Scripps pretty much like everybody else. Who doesn't hub anymore? Sinclair, Gray, Tegna, Tribune, Meredith, and Raycom all hub. I've heard Hearst does, but I don't know anybody there. I don't know about Hubbard, Calkins, Graham, or Quincy either. Lin had MC hubs. Media General has them. Nexstar has them. ABC and NBC O&O's don't even do their own hubbing. They farm it out. Fox and CBS hub.

 

I don't think CBS hubs anymore - I've seen employment advertisements for local master control operators. Hearst doesn't hub - they had to build out and hire operators when they bought WVTM and WJCL. I think national ad sales/ processing are hubbed in Orlando and distributed to stations but everything else is local.

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Ignite isn't a very good system... Errors are way up and they are usually bizarre "how is that possible?!?!" Errors.

 

I can't speak to the nature or severity of errors, but stating that Ignite is bad still does nothing to distinguish them from every other group out there. It might be the market leader in that particular technology, a technology that as stated earlier, almost every group has purchased.

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I can't speak to the nature or severity of errors, but stating that Ignite is bad still does nothing to distinguish them from every other group out there. It might be the market leader in that particular technology, a technology that as stated earlier, almost every group has purchased.

I wasn't trying to distinguish them.. Except maybe that they do less to address the errors than some...

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As criticisms go, that's some weak tea. It makes Scripps pretty much like everybody else. Who doesn't hub anymore? Sinclair, Gray, Tegna, Tribune, Meredith, and Raycom all hub. I've heard Hearst does, but I don't know anybody there. I don't know about Hubbard, Calkins, Graham, or Quincy either. Lin had MC hubs. Media General has them. Nexstar has them. ABC and NBC O&O's don't even do their own hubbing. They farm it out. Fox and CBS hub.

 

That being said, I know for a fact Scripps hasn't hubbed the Journal stations. That might still be in the future, but I've heard no chatter yet.

 

In terms of Ignite-type systems, I've heard even Dispatch has brought that in recently. It's the way broadcasting is done in 2016. I went to lunch with somebody from an old McGraw Hill station recently, they had automation production control 10 years before joining Scripps. Scripps hired enough people that they're having trouble finding parking spots. McGraw Hill was cheap. I know with Buffalo, Granite was crazy cheap and there was open celebration that they'd been purchased. Now they're expanding the number of hours of news they're running or at least they will once they actually start running their weekend morning news.

 

And the systems aren't cheap. Corporate-wide rollout costs millions and have a 3+ year return on investment depending on what equipment you buy and how you structure your setup.

 

There are plenty of valid criticisms available concerning content. Hitting them for doing the same thing everybody does seems nitpicky.

 

I wasn't really criticizing them, station groups have different opinions for hubbing and automation and they have positives and negatives. but to say a station group isn't automating because they're "cheap" is laughable and 100 percent false.

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I wasn't really criticizing them, station groups have different opinions for hubbing and automation and they have positives and negatives. but to say a station group isn't automating because they're "cheap" is laughable and 100 percent false.

 

Exactly. They make a major CAPEX to safe OPEX for multiple years.

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  • 1 month later...
how long does scripps take to intergrate the station into it's on air style wftx closed the sale last april.

Since they are rebuilding all the existing graphics first and they only started that in the fall I would say be patient grasshopper...

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how long does scripps take to intergrate the station into it's on air style wftx closed the sale last april.

do you see any of the journal stations using the scripps pkg yet??? i don't... yet... ;)

 

there is a lot of stuff that goes into launching packages. all the stations can't get the new graphics at once. wftx was one of the last to get the journal pkg if my memory serves me correctly. they are working on a few stations at a time, and the "bigger" stations will be first to get it, but not necessarily in the order you may think.

 

Since they are rebuilding all the existing graphics first and they only started that in the fall I would say be patient grasshopper...

 

that is done and already on a few stations... WCPO just switched to viz in the last few weeks.

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do you see any of the journal stations using the scripps pkg yet??? i don't... yet... ;)

 

there is a lot of stuff that goes into launching packages. all the stations can't get the new graphics at once. wftx was one of the last to get the journal pkg if my memory serves me correctly. they are working on a few stations at a time, and the "bigger" stations will be first to get it, but not necessarily in the order you may think.

 

 

 

that is done and already on a few stations... WCPO just switched to viz in the last few weeks.

I know it's already on a few... But they are obviously still doing something with it (like installing new equipment) that means some of them don't have it yet...

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It's worth noting that when WGBA went HD, they just continued with the Journal package [replacing their bastardized version with the "real" version]. That may throw the "new equipment" theory out the window; I'm sure they're not using the same system they used a few months ago....

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It's worth noting that when WGBA went HD, they just continued with the Journal package [replacing their bastardized version with the "real" version]. That may throw the "new equipment" theory out the window; I'm sure they're not using the same system they used a few months ago....

 

I was told WGBA's conversion was ongoing since before the merger, and their graphics were finished months before the Scripps Viz graphics were ready, which is why they didn't get them. It just took a while after the graphics were setup for WGBA to actually debut in HD.

 

Like TMJ4! How close are they?

 

Hard to tell, but you never know what might happen over the course of a few weeks......

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I was told WGBA's conversion was ongoing since before the merger, and their graphics were finished months before the Scripps Viz graphics were ready, which is why they didn't get them. It just took a while after the graphics were setup for WGBA to actually debut in HD.

 

 

 

Hard to tell, but you never know what might happen over the course of a few weeks......

Unless I'm reading it wrong, that says soon to me. If you get a heads up, pleas share!

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