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On 1/13/2020 at 11:42 AM, Greggo said:

Longtime WSB chopper pilot Jason Durden posted on Twitter that he’s no longer with the station. Pretty abrupt. Last time in the air was apparently last week. Sister stations WJAX and WFOX grounded their chopper. Surely the mighty WSB wouldn’t have gone that route, too. Or would they? 
 

 

 

15 hours ago, ScottJ said:

That's probably what happened now that WSB is owned by a hedge fund, which are always looking to cut costs whenever possible.

They are keeping their helicopter, Jason just retired.

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11 minutes ago, rkolsen said:

 

They are keeping their helicopter, Jason just retired.

I think you mean “retired.” That post makes it pretty clear it wasn’t his choice. The whole “changes ... can happen at any time” part is pretty telling. FTV has a vague(ish) quote from the news director claiming they’ll still have a chopper. Perhaps they went from 2 to 1. Or they found someone who works for less $$$. Something’s definitely up. 

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https://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2020/01/chauncy-glover-6.30pm-newscast.html?m=1
 

KTRK 3 PM anchor Chauncy Glover adds 6:30 PM duties to his plate replacing/displacing Eric Barajas. Eric could shift to the 6 PM newscast bringing his total to 4, 6 and 10. Which would move Art Rascon off of 6 and leave him with 11 AM and Live at Five. 

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On 1/13/2020 at 11:42 AM, Greggo said:

Longtime WSB chopper pilot Jason Durden posted on Twitter that he’s no longer with the station. Pretty abrupt. Last time in the air was apparently last week. Sister stations WJAX and WFOX grounded their chopper. Surely the mighty WSB wouldn’t have gone that route, too. Or would they? 
 

 

 

On 1/14/2020 at 8:39 AM, ScottJ said:

That's probably what happened now that WSB is owned by a hedge fund, which are always looking to cut costs whenever possible.

 

15 hours ago, rkolsen said:

 

They are keeping their helicopter, Jason just retired.

 

15 hours ago, Greggo said:

I think you mean “retired.” That post makes it pretty clear it wasn’t his choice. The whole “changes ... can happen at any time” part is pretty telling. FTV has a vague(ish) quote from the news director claiming they’ll still have a chopper. Perhaps they went from 2 to 1. Or they found someone who works for less $$$. Something’s definitely up. 

Besides Cox grounding WFOX-WJAX chopper, Scripps is also moving in the direction of grounding WCPO chopper.  It's possible that miz-sized to smaller markets may not be able to fly news choppers long-term, and that trend could eventually find its way to larger markets.  Plus flying drones looks to be more economically viable.  Or stations doing like a decade ago of sharing news chopper to focus other resources on other things, if they wish to fly news choppers a little while longer.

I'm also thinking along the lines that Durden's departure wasn't voluntary.  I liked hearing his traffic reports on WSB radio (AM-750/95.5-FM and B-98.5) during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and his time on WSB 2.  Hopefully Durden may find work elsewhere... Perhaps another Atlanta TV station would be smart to hire him.

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On 1/14/2020 at 1:26 PM, qunewsguy said:

That's going to be interesting to see what they do considering WHCT doesn't even have must-carry status anymore.

Hartford and Springfield are two of the few markets which have never had a MeTV station in any way (WZME's tailspin into ShopLC/Sonlife irrelevance over the years can't be counted as serious, especially as they wanted to be NYC-exclusive). Weigel will pay for carriage for sure; it's undeniably worth it in a market with so few signals to begin with.

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10 hours ago, atlnewsfan03 said:

 

 

 

Besides Cox grounding WFOX-WJAX chopper, Scripps is also moving in the direction of grounding WCPO chopper.  It's possible that miz-sized to smaller markets may not be able to fly news choppers long-term, and that trend could eventually find its way to larger markets.  Plus flying drones looks to be more economically viable.  Or stations doing like a decade ago of sharing news chopper to focus other resources on other things, if they wish to fly news choppers a little while longer.

 

Re: mid-sized to smaller markets: The time has already come on that. Pre-recession there were a number of stations in the 50-100 market range flying choppers (just look at late 90s/early 2000s news opens -- a LOT of stations had them). Now, to my knowledge, there's only KOTV in Tulsa, and the ultimate outlier, market 140-something WBOC. You can rest assured that their choppers would be grounded if either got sold.

 

As for drones, they are absolutely not a replacement for choppers, regardless of how companies will try to spin it. Try getting a drone to an industrial fire clear across town in 5 minutes. Not gonna happen. At the same time, stations probably aren't sending their choppers up much to get aerials for a non-breaking-story. The two pieces of technology largely don't overlap IMO. Drones can be used for breaking news, but they can only get to scenes as fast as everyone else can driving, they take a while to set up once at the scene, and the operator has to hope that it's in a zone they're able to fly in and officials haven't put up any drone flight restrictions. Also, unless it happens to be near your station, you're probably getting more of the aftermath than the event itself. Choppers don't have the same restrictions over where they can fly, when, and how. You can fly a chopper over a crowd of people all day. Forget about a drone doing that.

 

Basically, companies getting rid of choppers have decided the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and that whatever they're gaining in terms of spot news coverage doesn't outweigh the enormous amount they pay to fly the thing. A drone may soften the blow slightly, but I think it's a move these companies would be making whether drones existed for news or not. Having a drone just softens the blow a bit.

 

I don't think you'll see Top 10-15 stations dump choppers anytime soon. They're still getting their money's worth. I'd consider them endangered in lower markets, especially the 30-50 range.

Edited by AJClementeFan69
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8 hours ago, TexasTVNews said:

KXAS still uses their own chopper, Texas Sky Ranger. While KDFW, WFAA and KTVT have a shared news chopper.

Meanwhile, 200 miles to the north, KFOR (Nexstar), KOCO (Hearst), and KWTV (Griffin) have birds.

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44 minutes ago, CircleSeven said:

The B&C article states that KTVT will only produce the Detroit show (WKBD). 

 

The other two, WCBS will produce the Atlanta show (WUPA); and WFOR is going to produce the Tampa show (WTOG).

 

In regard to Tampa, what was so hard about getting WTSP to handle the news production? And then in Detroit, why not just rebuild everything again? I already know what people are going to say about that, and imo, it's no excuse.  They should have just stuck with it.

 

I sort of understand Atlanta given that WGCL already has WPCH to do news for but then again, WWBT has news on both WRLH and WUPV and even here in my market, KTAL does KMSS AND KSHV. 

 

I like the initiative but at the very least, have the respective CBS affiliates in that market (aside from Detroit) be involved in some way, even if you're just relying on them for certain things. I guess this is just how the cookie crumbled though. 

Edited by ColtFromGulfcoast
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1 hour ago, CircleSeven said:

The B&C article states that KTVT will only produce the Detroit show (WKBD). 

 

The other two, WCBS will produce the Atlanta show (WUPA); and WFOR is going to produce the Tampa show (WTOG).

 

I guess the CW O&O in Seattle (KSTW) is not mentioned on those plans, but then again, neither is WFOR's sister station, MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFS or KTVT's independent sister station KTXA.

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16 minutes ago, detroiter313 said:

I guess the CW O&O in Seattle (KSTW) is not mentioned on those plans, but then again, neither is WFOR's sister station, MyNetworkTV affiliate WBFS or KTVT's independent sister station KTXA.

KPIX only produces minute weather forecasts on KSTW

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Any idea if they plan to at least have the anchors in the cities?

 

I mean, it wouldn't be difficult to put a Televator and a PTZ in front of a monitor and fibre it back to the stations.  That's what CBC and Citytv do up here (and one CTV2 station).

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DC News: News 4- WRC Sports Anchor: Sherree Burruss has left the station and now working with CBSHQ in CT & NYC.

She joins the reins of Dianna Rossini another DC sports anchor favorite to leave WRC and head for the national spotlight.

Article Source: Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/01/10/sports-anchor-sherree-burruss-goes-national-after-wonderful-three-years-nbc-washington/

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1 hour ago, Northerner said:

Any idea if they plan to at least have the anchors in the cities?

 

I mean, it wouldn't be difficult to put a Televator and a PTZ in front of a monitor and fibre it back to the stations.  That's what CBC and Citytv do up here (and one CTV2 station).

The whole point is to do this as cheaply as possible. Why have locally based anchors when you can use folks from KTVT, WCBS and WFOR? Mix reports from a couple local MMJs on the ground in Detroit/Atlanta/Tampa with stuff pulled from the feeds and -- voila! -- you've filled an hour for next to nothing largely using existing staff.

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5 minutes ago, MadMan400096 said:

Just watch as these newscasts bomb against the established news shows in their respective markets. I don't think audiences will take to this, especially if they're not even making the newscasts within the market.

Even with a .5 or a 1 rating, which is probably about all they could realistically expect, if even, they can still rake in plenty of political ad dollars in 2020. After that, maybe they cancel. Maybe not. Candidates like to buy into news, primarily. Someone above asked why they aren't doing news on KTXA and WBFS? In both those markets, CBS already has newscasts it can sell into: KTVT and WFOR.

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23 minutes ago, MadMan400096 said:

Just watch as these newscasts bomb against the established news shows in their respective markets. I don't think audiences will take to this, especially if they're not even making the newscasts within the market.

Totally agree. Who thought "let's produce a newscast for cities hundreds of miles away that are already competitive enough"?? Whoever did needs their head checked out 😂

Edited by jbnews
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