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NewsNation Launch Thread


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Thread Notice: On March 1, 2021 WGN America will rebrand as NewsNation. As it will then become a proper cable news network, this thread documenting the start of the show as it existed on WGN America will be closed on that date. Please consider starting new threads to cover other aspects of the new network.

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7 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

I think we're getting more and more proof that as of right now, no matter what happens in the news, this will always be a precisely a 3-hour show that automatically reruns exactly as-is from 11pm-2am ET no matter what.

 

Maybe this changes someday, but this is how it is for now.

I think I remember reading an article before NN launched that said it would have an expanded show on election night beyond the normal 8-11 live time, so maybe NN has the ability to make it longer than three hours if it's planned ahead of time and WGNA can schedule around it, but NN might not have that flexibility in a breaking news situation? Which obviously isn't a great situation for a news show to be in.

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1 hour ago, ScottJ said:

I think I remember reading an article before NN launched that said it would have an expanded show on election night beyond the normal 8-11 live time, so maybe NN has the ability to make it longer than three hours if it's planned ahead of time and WGNA can schedule around it, but NN might not have that flexibility in a breaking news situation? Which obviously isn't a great situation for a news show to be in.


It has been confirmed that they will be live (7P-1A CST) election night. If they can do this, in theory, they should be able to be ‘live’ whenever they want. If not, I’m assuming it’s on the list of issues they’re trying to resolve.

 

I think it would have been better if the rebroadcast aired an hour to 2 later to give them time to correct errors, add stuff in, etc.., but alas, that’s not the case.

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Question: Why do they have three anchors at one time - CNN overnight has only one anchor and does a good job - maybe they could expand their news coverage by using only one and then doubling up on big stories.

 

IMO - weather is a waste unless it is a part of a major news story (hurricane) - regional weather forecast should be left up to the locals.

 

NN should have spent their money producing straight no bs news instead of a 6 panel video screen

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I havent tuned in since premier week. It just wasnt anything that good, to make me tune back in. I dont care to see some reporter from bumbfuck texas tell me about a flood in Brownsville. And the talent isnt good enough to make me return.

And nobody is talking about this newscast. They arent making any waves.
This is DOA. 

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I feel like I’ve caught enough of NewsNation to form an opinion. It’s not that it’s necessarily bad, but it’s just a really puzzling concept and execution. Nexstar could have had a much bigger (but less sexy) impact had they pumped $20 million into their existing stations instead of trying to make something up from scratch.

 

I still think the overall positioning is setup for failure. WGN is a brand that is somewhat known nationally, yet they barely use it anywhere other than in some of the set pieces. NewsNation is otherwise how everything is branded, and it’s such a generic sounding and unknown name. It’s going to be hard to overcome that anonymity.

 

Then there’s the distribution problem. It’s tape-delayed by three hours for the west coast. And what happens if there’s news outside of the three hour broadcast? They can’t promise that they’ll cover it, and they can’t really push viewers for more coverage on their local stations. Viewers can’t be expected to know if they have a Nexstar-owned station in their market, and if so, which station that may be.

 

As far as content, we now know what the local news format looks like when scaled up to a national level. It’s perfectly fine, and I guess I’d rather watch it over any domestic cable news channel. But much of the show is full of what feel like very local stories plucked from the stations without being recontextualized for a national audience. I don’t walk away from it feeling like I’ve gotten a comprehensive national news summary after watching network evening newscasts, which almost never take a story as-is from an affiliate.  It’s less than the sum of its parts. I would rather see more correspondents given more time to do their own stories. I also know that they’re trying to avoid punditry, but bringing on more experts and doing live interviews is definitely worthwhile.

 

I hope it doesn’t fail unlike what some people online wish, but I can’t help but think that it’s repeating a lot of the same mistakes that AJAM made, though on a less grand scale. Both projects produced a fairly bland national newscast wrapped around a brand with poor recognition on a high-numbered cable channel. Both of them also ignored their core product (AJE in Al Jazeera’s case, and the local stations in Nexstar’s situation). I can’t see how it’ll last for very long without some major changes.

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15 hours ago, C Block said:

I feel like I’ve caught enough of NewsNation to form an opinion. It’s not that it’s necessarily bad, but it’s just a really puzzling concept and execution. Nexstar could have had a much bigger (but less sexy) impact had they pumped $20 million into their existing stations instead of trying to make something up from scratch.

 

I still think the overall positioning is setup for failure. WGN is a brand that is somewhat known nationally, yet they barely use it anywhere other than in some of the set pieces. NewsNation is otherwise how everything is branded, and it’s such a generic sounding and unknown name. It’s going to be hard to overcome that anonymity.

 

Then there’s the distribution problem. It’s tape-delayed by three hours for the west coast. And what happens if there’s news outside of the three hour broadcast? They can’t promise that they’ll cover it, and they can’t really push viewers for more coverage on their local stations. Viewers can’t be expected to know if they have a Nexstar-owned station in their market, and if so, which station that may be.

 

As far as content, we now know what the local news format looks like when scaled up to a national level. It’s perfectly fine, and I guess I’d rather watch it over any domestic cable news channel. But much of the show is full of what feel like very local stories plucked from the stations without being recontextualized for a national audience. I don’t walk away from it feeling like I’ve gotten a comprehensive national news summary after watching network evening newscasts, which almost never take a story as-is from an affiliate.  It’s less than the sum of its parts. I would rather see more correspondents given more time to do their own stories. I also know that they’re trying to avoid punditry, but bringing on more experts and doing live interviews is definitely worthwhile.

 

I hope it doesn’t fail unlike what some people online wish, but I can’t help but think that it’s repeating a lot of the same mistakes that AJAM made, though on a less grand scale. Both projects produced a fairly bland national newscast wrapped around a brand with poor recognition on a high-numbered cable channel. Both of them also ignored their core product (AJE in Al Jazeera’s case, and the local stations in Nexstar’s situation). I can’t see how it’ll last for very long without some major changes.

 

 

I still hope it will work out well. It's a pretty decent product, but there's obviously some room for improvement.

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Right now as I post this, their interview with President Trump has just 97 views in the 4 hours since it was posted to their Youtube page. My local stations (particularly Joe Donlon's former station KGW) can get thousands of views in the same amount of time on their Youtube videos of just standard stories. They regularly even get hundreds of thousands of views on some videos.

 

 

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4 hours ago, PTVNews said:

Right now as I post this, their interview with President Trump has just 97 views in the 4 hours since it was posted to their Youtube page. My local stations (particularly Joe Donlon's former station KGW) can get thousands of views in the same amount of time on their Youtube videos of just standard stories. They regularly even get hundreds of thousands of views on some videos.

 

 

 

'Balanced, Not Biased', eh? More like Bland, not Biased. Such softballs. Honestly, this isn't exactly hard hitting stuff.

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The interview sucked. It was like an interview for a high school newspaper. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It made no news. And I think thats the issue here. The newscast is boring and makes no waves and isnt part of the conversation. I think thats intentional, cause to be a part of the conversation, you need to be edgy and make some waves. When you do, you are accused of bias. But the alternative is this.. which is no reason to tune in or take them seriously. 

And no disrespect to Joe Donlon. Im sure his Softball questions were vetted up and down by his bosses. 

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Politically unbiased shouldn't equal softball questions or not searching for truth, holding people accountable etc... As much as I like the attempt by WGN, national news coverage is so saturated, so how will they stand out.

 

Outside of WGN, I hope some international news devoted outlet gains traction in the US.

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I think they were in a bit of a no-win situation w/ the interview. If Joe went in guns a blazing; they risk the chance of Trump never appearing on NN again. If they played it safe; people will knock them for not being tough enough. Joe unsuccessfully tried to play it down middle and they end up with nothing substantial (i.e... a good soundbite or two). Nevertheless, they walked away with the chance of Trump making another appearance (or two) in the future. 

 

We have to remind ourselves that it's going to take some time for NN to find its way. There are going to be things they get both right and wrong. That's just part of the process.

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On 9/4/2020 at 5:10 PM, J1975am said:

Give it time. It may not approach the viewer levels of CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC, to be honest, but I think the people behind News Nation know what they are doing. I don’t think Nexstar would be behind it if this wasn’t a serious effort....

 

On 9/5/2020 at 10:46 AM, YardLionREW said:

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I get it, NewsNation isn't your cup of tea, but I don't think reruns of Blue Bloods is coming back anytime soon. So, yeah. Sorry dude. And also selling the network to a WarnerMedia or some other company isn't going to make things better either.

 

 

On 9/9/2020 at 6:12 PM, froyo49 said:

Fox Business had around 6,000 viewers in 2007 when they debuted. No calls from TVNT to immediately shut it down.

 

Newsy's cable channel currently gets about 6,000 viewers and they've been on cable for years. No calls to shut that down either.

 

NewsNation gets over 10 times those numbers and it must shut down immediately.

 

Interesting...

 

On 9/9/2020 at 9:21 AM, YardLionREW said:

WGNa wasn't salvageable to begin with. Did you miss reruns of Blue Bloods, In the Heat of the Night or movies? If so, just say it. But you don't have to be pissed off too much. @CalItalian2, who hurt you?

 

On 9/9/2020 at 10:05 AM, Newsjunkie24 said:

 

Plus, Blue Bloods, In the Heat of the Night, Last Man Standing and various movies could all find new homes if WGN were to make the channel 24-hour news. 

 

 

 

 

On 9/8/2020 at 11:07 PM, TheRyan said:

I've said it before, but why are people not willing to give NewsNation a chance to prove itself?   The level of disdain people have for this fledgling operation, specifically, is stunning. 

 

I'm extremely picky over any subtle bias that's masked as objective.    So far in my estimation, NewsNation is doing an outstanding job in being objective.  There is always room for improvement, but NewsNation is exceeding every expectation I had for them.

 

As for the CNN controversy, would it be that disastrous to do without CNN for news content?   When was the last time anyone regarded CNN as an objective news organization?   This is merely my opinion, but I view any shared content from CNN (whether it be on a station website or newscast) as a negative--given how much bias and spin occurs on CNN.   There needs to be a better choice for local newsrooms.   Maybe with time, as NewsNation develops into its own identity, NewsNation can fill that gap of offering that service.

 

On 9/11/2020 at 2:00 PM, DENDude said:

 

The ratings are doing okay, they are certainly not failing as you suggest.  I think NewsNation will be around for years to come--it's better than the ratings that WGN America had before with comedy reruns. 

The ratings are NOT okay, they continue to languish, fall. I am not suggesting, the actual ratings show this. PROVE otherwise. The third hour is a complete disaster. They might as well run a test pattern with how few viewers they have. Considering how well ION is doing, and now being sold for a record price, reruns work pretty well. I expect ION will add news, too, under Scripps undermining this falied NewsNation venture even more. 

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1 hour ago, CalItalian2 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ratings are NOT okay, they continue to languish, fall. I am not suggesting, the actual ratings show this. PROVE otherwise. The third hour is a complete disaster. They might as well run a test pattern with how few viewers they have. Considering how well ION is doing, and now being sold for a record price, reruns work pretty well. I expect ION will add news, too, under Scripps undermining this falied NewsNation venture even more. 

517360.jpg?b64lines=IEFOWUJPRFkgQ0FSRSBXSEFUIFRISVMKIEdVWSBUSElOS1M_IEFsbDogTk8h520160.jpg

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On 9/23/2020 at 6:33 AM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

 

'Balanced, Not Biased', eh? More like Bland, not Biased. Such softballs. Honestly, this isn't exactly hard hitting stuff.

 

It's really sad how much of a joke this has turned out to be. They are tripping all over themselves to not appear "biased" that it hinders their ability to deliver facts--if that's what this was ever about in the first place. Instead of catering to the people who think FNC/CNN/MSNBC is overloaded with partisan crap, it seems they're catering to the people who think the network newscasts are equivalent. I overlooked the Compton-Trump connections at first, but in hindsight, I think those have should have been a bright red flashing warning sign.

 

Even discounting the tepid coverage, the whole program is utterly uninspired. You can tell it's been put together by someone who knows nothing outside of local news. A WX segment? Really? I can only imagine it's predicated on the idea that "Well...[local news] viewers love weather, so we need to have it" and it's clear that a lot of the talent are still of "local" quality. Especially the weekend team.

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8 hours ago, AJClementeFan69 said:

 

It's really sad how much of a joke this has turned out to be. They are tripping all over themselves to not appear "biased" that it hinders their ability to deliver facts--if that's what this was ever about in the first place. Instead of catering to the people who think FNC/CNN/MSNBC is overloaded with partisan crap, it seems they're catering to the people who think the network newscasts are equivalent. I overlooked the Compton-Trump connections at first, but in hindsight, I think those have should have been a bright red flashing warning sign.

 

Even discounting the tepid coverage, the whole program is utterly uninspired. You can tell it's been put together by someone who knows nothing outside of local news. A WX segment? Really? I can only imagine it's predicated on the idea that "Well...[local news] viewers love weather, so we need to have it" and it's clear that a lot of the talent are still of "local" quality. Especially the weekend team.


I have to strongly disagree. But that’s what social media is for these days. 

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Not sure if this has been brought up yet- but NN Now streams on Nexstar Affiliate's fb pages added a WGNA logo adjacent to the NN logo... This was from WFRV's Facebook.

 

Might have been done on previous streams, but I just noticed it on this one.

 

 

IMG_8048.PNG

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52 minutes ago, Georgie56 said:

NN broke in to regular programming on WGNA for the first time this afternoon to break the news about Trump being flown to Walter Reed.

Thanks!  They're still live now. I wonder if they'll stay live until NN? Or will they go to Last Man Standing after the Pres, flies off until NN?

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