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13 minutes ago, atlnews2 said:

What i hate about all the evening newscasts (WNT, NN, EN) is that they all feel so rushed. From the opens, to the stories, the bumpers, everything. It's like watching at 2X speed of normal. I'd wish they'd slow down and let the stories breath instead of cramming as much into 20 min as possible.

 

That's why we have Public Media. We have PBS NewsHour. Yes, it's an hour. But their stories have so much room and relaxes.  Even their weekend edition (30mins) still holds the concept. 

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1 hour ago, NewEgg00 said:

 

That's why we have Public Media. We have PBS NewsHour. Yes, it's an hour. But their stories have so much room and relaxes.  Even their weekend edition (30mins) still holds the concept. 

 

Theoretically, but it's gotten so much into analysis and commentary. It's not news! It's Public Media on Cable in that case.

6 hours ago, alaskanews said:

Looks like CBS just got consultant-bombed. This new opening sequence is an absolute disaster. If this is supposed to hook viewers it did the opposite to me. I wanted to turn away 

 

 

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO PAY ATTENTION TO?! What am I looking at? What am I supposed to hear? The awful vamp? The voice over? Those graphics are too distracting. Is this a newscast or a sizzle real for a ad agency?

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30 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Theoretically, but it's gotten so much into analysis and commentary. It's not news! It's Public Media on Cable in that case.

 

WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO PAY ATTENTION TO?! What am I looking at? What am I supposed to hear? The awful vamp? The voice over? Those graphics are too distracting. Is this a newscast or a sizzle real for a ad agency?

My lord...the CBS Evening News has been a dumpster fire ever since Scott Pelley "stepped down" from the anchor desk....and an underground mine fire burning out of control since Jeff Glor was given the boot.

 

It makes Katie Couric's days look like quality television...and even how Dan Rather tanked the show in the 80s and 90s still look respectable.

 

 

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4 hours ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

This is how you give viewers whiplash, ladies and gentlemen.

It's too much, too chaotic, too loud and cheap looking. At least the long WNT open is just David introducing multiple stories one at a time. The CBS This Morning eye opener was good, they should have played off of that more.

2 hours ago, atlnews2 said:

What i hate about all the evening newscasts (WNT, NN, EN) is that they all feel so rushed. From the opens, to the stories, the bumpers, everything. It's like watching at 2X speed of normal. I'd wish they'd slow down and let the stories breath instead of cramming as much into 20 min as possible.

The Evening News was always faster paced, going back to the Rather days. At least they were well written, didn't overuse present tense, didn't seem like they were shouting, and didn't splash "Breaking News" over everything. 

 

I miss the days of the one story cold open, intro, then cut to anchor. If we have to introduce muliple stories the Bob Schiffer era did it well:

 

Edited by iron_lion
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It feels like watching a TikTok that's so professionally edited it really has no life (yes, I use TikTok). I understand the point of it in keeping you informed, but if you've watched it, you've gotten the entire newscast. You're not sticking around for whatever geriatric health news Norah mentions at the end and the geriatric drug ads in-between.

What this tells me, along with watching NBC and ABC, is that the days of 'the world in 26 minutes' and giving breathing room to stories are long gone. If you want detail beyond a newscast, a subscription to the Washington Post will do much more than a TV newscast. I knew things weren't looking good when the early morning newscasts and First Look abandoned the format, and now even the evening shows are done with tradition.

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2 minutes ago, iron_lion said:

It's too much, too chaotic, and cheap looking. At least the long WNT open is just David introducing multiple stories one at a time. The CBS This Morning eye opener was good, they should have played off of that more.

The Evening News was always faster paced, going back to the Rather days. At least they were well written, didn't overuse present tense, and didn't splash "Breaking News" over everything. 

 

I miss the days of the one story cold open, intro, then cut to anchor. If we have to introduce muliple stories the Bob Schiffer era did it well:

 

Not to mention before Sharyl Attkinson and Lara Logan went off the deep end.....

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18 minutes ago, mrschimpf said:

It feels like watching a TikTok that's so professionally edited it really has no life (yes, I use TikTok). I understand the point of it in keeping you informed, but if you've watched it, you've gotten the entire newscast. You're not sticking around for whatever geriatric health news Norah mentions at the end and the geriatric drug ads in-between.

What this tells me, along with watching NBC and ABC, is that the days of 'the world in 26 minutes' and giving breathing room to stories are long gone. If you want detail beyond a newscast, a subscription to the Washington Post will do much more than a TV newscast. I knew things weren't looking good when the early morning newscasts and First Look abandoned the format, and now even the evening shows are done with tradition.

Network news now is in the business of ADHD pacing and high story count. Cram 'em with as much dumbed down info as possible in the shortest amount of time to sustain their shrinking attention spans.

 

This is a tall order but all media needs to collectively slow things down a bit. How fast can we really go as a society. All of this tik-tok level pacing we consume is giving us collective attention defecit.  It's coming not just at the expense of quality journalism but how we process information. 

Edited by iron_lion
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10 hours ago, NewEgg00 said:

That's why we have Public Media. We have PBS NewsHour. Yes, it's an hour. But their stories have so much room and relaxes.  Even their weekend edition (30mins) still holds the concept. 

@ABC 7 Denverbeat me to it, but half of the PBS NewsHour is made up of talking heads, and, no offense to fans of the show, but most people don’t want to watch that crap. It’s a big reason why PBS never moves

beyond its very niche audience. Not to mention, it has always been a very slow newscast, and was considered as such even when the big networks were doing slower-paced newscasts.
 

Many European networks seem to find a way to do stories with depth and context without boring their viewers to death; I don’t see a reason why we have to pick between a sleep aid and the desperately frenetic product that the big networks are putting out now.

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I’m not trying to downplay any of the points made here but a lot of this is blaming ABC, NBC and CBS who have made adjustments to format based on what viewers respond to. The formats you’re longing for were optimal for a period 20 years in the past. The most egregious of the fast paced newscasts is dominating 6:30pm and has for some years.
 

Technology has changed the world and information processes so much that the 2005 format for these broadcasts would be DOA. Hell, I love broadcast media and even I have to force myself to sit through Lester Holt or David Muir. The news they’re presenting has already been broken, disseminated and analyzed hours in advance by the time they take to the air. Times have changed, I’m not mad at any of these newscasts for evolving.

Edited by MorningNews
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I don't love the quarter eye logo behind text in the bottom left, but otherwise, I think it's a great open. 

 

There is a marked disconnect between what TV news junkies on a message board like and what the general public likes.  Is it how Cronkite presented the news?  No.  But this style is what catches people's attention in 2023 and it has sent ABC WNT to #1.  I actually quite liked the cuts syncing with the music.  I think this version nicely delivers the headlines in an active, attention-holding way without the doomsday drama of WNT("As we come on the air"..."Happening right now"...every verb ending in -ing).  

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2 hours ago, mountainave said:

I don't love the quarter eye logo behind text in the bottom left, but otherwise, I think it's a great open. 

 

There is a marked disconnect between what TV news junkies on a message board like and what the general public likes.  Is it how Cronkite presented the news?  No.  But this style is what catches people's attention in 2023 and it has sent ABC WNT to #1.  I actually quite liked the cuts syncing with the music.  I think this version nicely delivers the headlines in an active, attention-holding way without the doomsday drama of WNT("As we come on the air"..."Happening right now"...every verb ending in -ing).  

Fair points.

 

I wonder, does the public think what we get now is quality journalism or are they just consuming the best of a bad situation (WNT and GMA being #1)?

 

Though standards have dropped, even less media savy people complain about CNN & FNC so there is some understanding of good versus bad--even if they aren't basing their opinions off the Cronkite era like us. 

 

Maybe I'll die alone on this hill alone, but there must to be a way to cultivate a modern day audience around a better quality product while being profitable. 

Edited by iron_lion
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8 hours ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

@ABC 7 Denver

 

...half the PBS NewsHour is made up of talking heads, and, no offense to fans of the show, but most people don’t want to watch that crap. It’s a big reason why PBS never moves

beyond its very niche audience. Not to mention, it has always been a very slow newscast, and was considered as such even when the big networks were doing slower-paced newscasts.

 

 

I don't blame you for that thought. I never watched it in years, to be honest. 

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2 hours ago, iron_lion said:

Fair points.

 

I wonder, does the public think what we get now is quality journalism or are they just consuming the best of a bad situation (WNT and GMA being #1)?

It’s a legitimate question for sure. I have to imagine that people who still watch linear broadcast news are choosing to consider there are millions of ways to get your news these days. As you alluded to, with so many options available someone who is tuning into the network news has to be doing so by choice.

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On 2/15/2023 at 1:38 PM, mountainave said:

I don't love the quarter eye logo behind text in the bottom left, but otherwise, I think it's a great open. 

 

There is a marked disconnect between what TV news junkies on a message board like and what the general public likes.  Is it how Cronkite presented the news?  No.  But this style is what catches people's attention in 2023 and it has sent ABC WNT to #1.  I actually quite liked the cuts syncing with the music.  I think this version nicely delivers the headlines in an active, attention-holding way without the doomsday drama of WNT("As we come on the air"..."Happening right now"...every verb ending in -ing).  

Honestly I like everything here except the actual intro part, cutting to the beat of the music? Cool. Doing it with a song that fast where every scene only gets like 1 second? Not so cool. It would work better if they just slowed down the music just slightly, like an in-between of how long the intro took before the Headlines was added and now's way too fast version.

The graphics look great and I've always loved the whole idea of the EyeOpener and always thought it made sense on Evening, especially considering Evening is 30 minutes while Mornings is 2 hours, you need as much extra time as possible so it makes loads of sense to try and cram as much headlines in as you can in as short of a time instead of being like ABC taking a whole 2 minutes on teases 🤣That's a whole 1-2 more stories you could've fit in the main show and the montage format allows stories to be shown that don't need a full segment, just a few seconds.

Same reason why I also don't get the complaints about "it's too rushed", of course it is, how else can they properly inform people of everything they need to know when they only got like ~22 minutes of total time after removing ads to cover the news. If it was longform reports, you might only hear 4 stories a night and be missing a lot of what actually happened. We have plenty of outlets today for longer stories that people can check out 24/7, the evening newscast should be a quick summary of everything for people that don't have time and then refer people to watch them on streaming if they need a more full story.

 

I said this before in the Discord a long while back but tbh, I think one of the Evening News programs really needs to completely blow up their format and CBS would be in the best position to do that since they are always last. As someone on the younger side (25), basically none of the news shows on TV currently really are something my demographic would watch. Even a lot of the streaming ones are basically "just take the existing format and shove it on online". 

The ideal format imho would be essentially:

  • Younger host that would be a bit more relatable (ABC and CBS both have anchors that are almost 50, Lester is 60, PBS's co-anchors are early 40s) For CBS specifically, this would also help shed the common conception that CBS is the network for the elderly, not something young people want to watch.
  • Less teases, we don't need 2 minutes straight of just saying what's going to be in the show a minute later.
  • Stop calling everything Breaking News, stuff you talked about 6 hours ago on your streaming network isn't breaking. If it didn't happen during the show or like at most an hour before, it's not breaking.
  • Fit in more stories that might not need more than just a passing mention, not everything needs a 1-3 minute package with reporters on the ground. Maybe have a 2-4 minute segment during the show that's basically just Newspaper headlines, each topic limited to just 20-30 seconds, just enough to get the point across, or spread it throughout the whole show.
  • A better balance of positive to negative news stories. Currently outside of the final story usually, there's almost no positive news nowadays (obviously if something major like a mass shooting happens, it's understandable if they pare it down but there's many times nowadays where you have slow news days that could easily fit in some more uplifting news stories and they still only talk about the nonstop doom and gloom)
  • Incorporate more stuff to help the viewer feel connected to the newscast. Something as simple as asking people to think about a story and share thoughts online with a Hashtag to maybe like voting for a big feature story to air at the end of a week or maybe even pulling a note from TODAY's MyPlazaCam and featuring photography at the end of the show to show off all of America (since all the current shows are too New York/Washington centric)

Legit at times I feel the reason this country is so polarized and all the constant hatred and shootings and stuff is cause that's all people see in the news, maybe if they saw that the world wasn't always that bad more often, maybe people would hate less than they do seeing everything fall apart 24/7.

Edited by bgiesing
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On 2/17/2023 at 11:45 PM, bgiesing said:

Honestly I like everything here except the actual intro part, cutting to the beat of the music? Cool. Doing it with a song that fast where every scene only gets like 1 second? Not so cool. It would work better if they just slowed down the music just slightly, like an in-between of how long the intro took before the Headlines was added and now's way too fast version.

The graphics look great and I've always loved the whole idea of the EyeOpener and always thought it made sense on Evening, especially considering Evening is 30 minutes while Mornings is 2 hours, you need as much extra time as possible so it makes loads of sense to try and cram as much headlines in as you can in as short of a time instead of being like ABC taking a whole 2 minutes on teases 🤣That's a whole 1-2 more stories you could've fit in the main show and the montage format allows stories to be shown that don't need a full segment, just a few seconds.

Same reason why I also don't get the complaints about "it's too rushed", of course it is, how else can they properly inform people of everything they need to know when they only got like ~22 minutes of total time after removing ads to cover the news. If it was longform reports, you might only hear 4 stories a night and be missing a lot of what actually happened. We have plenty of outlets today for longer stories that people can check out 24/7, the evening newscast should be a quick summary of everything for people that don't have time and then refer people to watch them on streaming if they need a more full story.

 

I said this before in the Discord a long while back but tbh, I think one of the Evening News programs really needs to completely blow up their format and CBS would be in the best position to do that since they are always last. As someone on the younger side (25), basically none of the news shows on TV currently really are something my demographic would watch. Even a lot of the streaming ones are basically "just take the existing format and shove it on online". 

The ideal format imho would be essentially:

  • Younger host that would be a bit more relatable (ABC and CBS both have anchors that are almost 50, Lester is 60, PBS's co-anchors are early 40s) For CBS specifically, this would also help shed the common conception that CBS is the network for the elderly, not something young people want to watch.
  • Less teases, we don't need 2 minutes straight of just saying what's going to be in the show a minute later.
  • Stop calling everything Breaking News, stuff you talked about 6 hours ago on your streaming network isn't breaking. If it didn't happen during the show or like at most an hour before, it's not breaking.
  • Fit in more stories that might not need more than just a passing mention, not everything needs a 1-3 minute package with reporters on the ground. Maybe have a 2-4 minute segment during the show that's basically just Newspaper headlines, each topic limited to just 20-30 seconds, just enough to get the point across, or spread it throughout the whole show.
  • A better balance of positive to negative news stories. Currently outside of the final story usually, there's almost no positive news nowadays (obviously if something major like a mass shooting happens, it's understandable if they pare it down but there's many times nowadays where you have slow news days that could easily fit in some more uplifting news stories and they still only talk about the nonstop doom and gloom)
  • Incorporate more stuff to help the viewer feel connected to the newscast. Something as simple as asking people to think about a story and share thoughts online with a Hashtag to maybe like voting for a big feature story to air at the end of a week or maybe even pulling a note from TODAY's MyPlazaCam and featuring photography at the end of the show to show off all of America (since all the current shows are too New York/Washington centric)

Legit at times I feel the reason this country is so polarized and all the constant hatred and shootings and stuff is cause that's all people see in the news, maybe if they saw that the world wasn't always that bad more often, maybe people would hate less than they do seeing everything fall apart 24/7.

The majority of these are valid points. I get the idea behind a younger host but as we see with figures like Alex Trebek or Lee Lin Chin on SBS Australia, if the host is "hip enough" or carries that nostalgia factor, they'll also resonate with younger viewers. Plus marketing the experience of veteran anchors like Jim Gardner did might help.

 

I also think presenting the news from an educational standpoint (a condensed version of explanatory journalism like various youtube channels and VOX, on top some positive --but not fluff --story choices might attract viewers.

 

EDIT: I'm game, so longs as CBS doesn't dumb down the product to appeal to a younger audience (Today & GMA)

Edited by MediaZone4K
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  • 1 year later...

One thing I'm wondering (and don't know if I asked)-- is CBS' current Evening News setup of having the normal evening broadcasts in Washington, the Saturday editions in Chicago, and the Sunday editions in New York sort of a reversal of how it used to be with ABC, where the normal World News Tonight broadcasts with Jennings were in New York (and occasionally in Washington), and the weekend ones (World News Saturday and World News Sunday) were in Washington?

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