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The Tribune Saga, Part 3: New Sale Talks


mre29

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So what... KOKH does 90 minutes from 9:00-10:35pm. KOTV does an hour at 9:00pm on KQCW followed by 10:00pm on KOTV.

 

And your saying its only 30 minutes because you need 30 minutes to prepare for the 10:00pm? Some stations don't even have that option because they're already doing 90 straight minutes of news, even if its not on the same station.

 

You all missed the point here. It's easy to transition between shows that are on the same channel, but when you try to do a live show on channel b with a live cut-in scheduled on channel a which varies every night (back to the whole pre-news thing), it doesn't work. The fix there is to preempt the pre-news, but I don't see that happening since the 10pm shows are the money makers in this market.

 

I do agree that having a dedicated anchor for the 9pm will help the 10pm anchors out. The talent usually try to read through their scripts before the show, and from a production standpoint, it usually takes 15-30 minutes to code a heavily stacked show -- and if you've ever watched KFOR's 10pm during the week, it's jammed packed with a ton of content for 20 minutes non-stop.

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Their management is clueless and over their heads. I know this via first-hand experience. The do not know what they are doing.

I would think that FOX Television Stations is just itching to get KDVR/KFCT. Who do you think would go for KWGN? Would it be a smaller media company like Hearst, Meredith, or News Press & Gazette ? Or would it be Private Equity ?

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I would think that FOX Television Stations is just itching to get KDVR/KFCT. Who do you think would go for KWGN? Would it be a smaller media company like Hearst, Meredith, or News Press & Gazette ? Or would it be Private Equity ?

Is KWGN among the top four ranked stations in Denver? If they aren't in the top four then Fox can acquire KWGN and KDVR/KFCT legally

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Is KWGN among the top four ranked stations in Denver? If they aren't in the top four then Fox can acquire KWGN and KDVR/KFCT legally

At 6am, 9News sits at 2.19 — more than twice as much as Fox31, which registers a rating of 0.90 — and the shares notched by CBS4, Denver7 and KWGN/CW2 hover in the 6 range.

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You all missed the point here. It's easy to transition between shows that are on the same channel, but when you try to do a live show on channel b with a live cut-in scheduled on channel a which varies every night (back to the whole pre-news thing), it doesn't work. The fix there is to preempt the pre-news, but I don't see that happening since the 10pm shows are the money makers in this market.

 

I do agree that having a dedicated anchor for the 9pm will help the 10pm anchors out. The talent usually try to read through their scripts before the show, and from a production standpoint, it usually takes 15-30 minutes to code a heavily stacked show -- and if you've ever watched KFOR's 10pm during the week, it's jammed packed with a ton of content for 20 minutes non-stop.

WPHL and WPVI seem to do it with no problems.

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It might not be a problem - if you have enough staff or really good automation (see, most rolling news channels).

 

The junior station may have a strong lineup at 9:30 with the news lead-in.

 

There may be elements on the 10pm show for the have been pre-taped and, if it's worked that way for x amount of years, why break it now?

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It might not be a problem - if you have enough staff or really good automation (see, most rolling news channels).

 

The junior station may have a strong lineup at 9:30 with the news lead-in.

 

There may be elements on the 10pm show for the have been pre-taped and, if it's worked that way for x amount of years, why break it now?

The problem with the way KFOR does their 9pm newscast on KAUT is they show stories that have already been seen on the previous newscast rather than using the 9pm newscast as a preview for the 10pm newscast. Also they show reruns from a Jeopardy! episode that was shown a year ago and as much as I like Jeopardy! That's not going to get viewers to tune in on your junior partners.

 

At least KFOR is hiring someone who will do the 9pm newscast and report for the 10pm newscast so at least they're doing about half of the things on this post I've suggested they do. Now, they either need to find better-syndicated programming than the reruns or add 15 extra minutes to the newscast and do a 15-minute sports segment

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I would think that FOX Television Stations is just itching to get KDVR/KFCT. Who do you think would go for KWGN? Would it be a smaller media company like Hearst, Meredith, or News Press & Gazette ? Or would it be Private Equity ?

 

Isn't KFCT just a translator for KDVR, though?

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You all missed the point here. It's easy to transition between shows that are on the same channel, but when you try to do a live show on channel b with a live cut-in scheduled on channel a which varies every night (back to the whole pre-news thing), it doesn't work. The fix there is to preempt the pre-news, but I don't see that happening since the 10pm shows are the money makers in this market.

 

Does the pre-news cut-in have to be live? I mean, why not just record it during a break?

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The problem with the way KFOR does their 9pm newscast on KAUT is they show stories that have already been seen on the previous newscast rather than using the 9pm newscast as a preview for the 10pm newscast. Also they show reruns from a Jeopardy! episode that was shown a year ago and as much as I like Jeopardy! That's not going to get viewers to tune in on your junior partners.

 

At least KFOR is hiring someone who will do the 9pm newscast and report for the 10pm newscast so at least they're doing about half of the things on this post I've suggested they do. Now, they either need to find better-syndicated programming than the reruns or add 15 extra minutes to the newscast and do a 15-minute sports segment

 

You may recall when KAUT launched 9pm years ago, it had 2 anchors, a live reporter, WX & sports. KOCO recently launched 9pm w/ resources on it's secondary MeTV, I'm sure you know the numbers. Bottomline with established news operations struggling to hold viewers, now is not the time to drain more from main newscasts. The 9pm concept has never attracted & held viewers. If you had to run local programming, re-running the 6pm would probably draw better. KWTV utilizes 52 (KSBI) this way. Plus it covers it's cost with sidebar ads. A lot of businesses just leave the channel on throughout the day and programming can be shifted during extended breaking coverage so it likely catches more eyeballs than ever reported.

 

KDAF/KIAH etc have never drawn for newscasts. Previous owners blew it when they had the chance to make 39 a real "SuperStation" in the 80s. Too many "legit" operations to choose from in D/FW & Houston.

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So what... KOKH does 90 minutes from 9:00-10:35pm. KOTV does an hour at 9:00pm on KQCW followed by 10:00pm on KOTV.

 

And your saying its only 30 minutes because you need 30 minutes to prepare for the 10:00pm? Some stations don't even have that option because they're already doing 90 straight minutes of news, even if its not on the same station.

Correction, KOKH's late news block runs from 9:00 to 10:30 p.m. (DailyMailTV currently starts at 10:30, and the 10:00 newscast usually ends at 10:28).

 

Secondly, about the news cancellations at KDAF, KIAH and WDCW, it would have made sense for Tribune to strike news share agreements with Tegna-owned stations in each of the three markets to assume production responsibilities for those three stations' evening newscasts (Tribune already has an NSA with Tegna in Portland, where KGW produces KRCW's 10:00 p.m. newscast). WFAA, KHOU and WUSA could produce prime time newscasts for each of the three CW affiliates as well as reduced early evening newscasts (shortened to a half-hour at 5:30) on KDAF and KIAH. Also, didn't KDAF have staff in Dallas to provide news and weather updates during Morning Dose; if so, they could have also replaced that show with an in-house morning newscast similar to what KIAH and WPHL are offering now.

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Correction, KOKH's late news block runs from 9:00 to 10:30 p.m. (DailyMailTV currently starts at 10:30, and the 10:00 newscast usually ends at 10:28).

 

Secondly, about the news cancellations at KDAF, KIAH and WDCW, it would have made sense for Tribune to strike news share agreements with Tegna-owned stations in each of the three markets to assume production responsibilities for those three stations' evening newscasts (Tribune already has an NSA with Tegna in Portland, where KGW produces KRCW's 10:00 p.m. newscast). WFAA, KHOU and WUSA could produce prime time newscasts for each of the three CW affiliates as well as reduced early evening newscasts (shortened to a half-hour at 5:30) on KDAF and KIAH. Also, didn't KDAF have staff in Dallas to provide news and weather updates during Morning Dose; if so, they could have also replaced that show with an in-house morning newscast similar to what KIAH and WPHL are offering now.

 

Morning Dose's main talent produces the news and weather updates for Dallas. Every other affiliate of the show does their own.

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Just outsource News production to OKC and call it good... for now.

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I don't understand why Tribune hasn't bailed on Dallas and Houston by now, if they had to get out of Boston and Atlanta. The weaker WB/CW lead-in was always going to be a problem but they never seemed to, I don't know, maybe try to match the news to the network like Fox did (for better or for worse)?

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I don't know who will ultimately end up with the Tribune Broadcasting stations, but who ever does needs to heavily re-invest in WPIX (in my opinion). Not a fan of the graphics or the new music from OSI, and they need to add morning news on the weekends. Also, get rid of news director Amy Waldman--she has contributed nothing to the station's news department. When Chris Wayland took over as general manager, I thought he would bring in his own person to oversee news. WPIX has made some strides, don't get me wrong. They have the potential to be even better. I'm just not seeing that right now.

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