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The Donlon Report on NewsNation


DENDude

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Wow, I'm not impressed--if this is supposed to be a hard hitting news & interview program I think they are in trouble. It's a newscast but not something I would specifically tune in for none of the reporting or commentary stood out to me.      I'm really curious to see what the ratings will look like tomorrow.

I feel like I get better reporting & more content from ABC NEWS World News Tonight  or CNBC's The News with Shepard Smith.    

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The end of the show was really awkward. They were doing that thing where they're showing viewers' (positive of course) thoughts on social media about the show, and suddenly Joe got rushed off the air so that they could start NewsNation Prime at :58 past the hour. The handoff was extremely awkward to where Joe finished his toss while viewer comments were still on the screen, but instead of the program switching to Prime, Joe's single cam got put on the air unexpectedly. Joe was seen looking off to the side of the studio with a frustrated "WTF" type of look on his face. Joe suddenly realized he was on cam and just looked at the camera and smiled awkwardly while the control room tried to get the switch figured out.

 

I think that kind of sums up night one of the new setup.

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Yeah, this Banfield show was supposed to be the "anti-echo chamber", but so far we have Sorkin calling Trump names, saying that we shouldn't have to hear both sides to every story, and Banfield talking about her time at CNN talking to Zucker. Safe to say this network isn't going to last. They should have just stuck to the news, 24/7 with no opinion shows.

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5 hours ago, newsman123 said:

Again... why on earth he left a main anchor job on one of the great local stations in America, to watch his career end in this dumpster fire is beyond me. 

 

Money I'm sure.

 

Bet you he ends up back in Portland on KOIN when this is all said and done. It'll be spun as wanting to "go back 'home'" or something.

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13 hours ago, DENDude said:

Wow, I'm not impressed--if this is supposed to be a hard hitting news & interview program I think they are in trouble.

 

12 hours ago, RCA TK47 said:

The name should just be changed to ‘The Done & Gone Report.’  There’s no way this will survive.

 

12 hours ago, newsman123 said:

Again... why on earth he left a main anchor job on one of the great local stations in America, to watch his career end in this dumpster fire is beyond me. 

 

7 hours ago, AJClementeFan69 said:

 

Money I'm sure.

 

Bet you he ends up back in Portland on KOIN when this is all said and done. It'll be spun as wanting to "go back 'home'" or something.

You guys are gonna put down "The Donlon Report" after seeing just ONE broadcast?????? I hate to say this to you all collectively, but in the words of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, RELAX!! It's just one broadcast!!

 

As I've said a few times: Give NewsNation time to find its footing. No channel is ever perfect, you know.......

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4 hours ago, J1975am said:

 

 

 

You guys are gonna put down "The Donlon Report" after seeing just ONE broadcast?????? I hate to say this to you all collectively, but in the words of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, RELAX!! It's just one broadcast!!

 

As I've said a few times: Give NewsNation time to find its footing. No channel is ever perfect, you know.......

It goes back to that earlier comment I made, about this board sometimes feeling like a stock trading website with a bunch of people shorting stock. It sometimes feels like a small number of people have less than rational (or less than rationally expressed) dislike for NewsNation, as if there were some ulterior reason they dislike it other than the actual product they put on the air.

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On 3/1/2021 at 8:41 PM, Spring Rubber said:

The end of the show was really awkward. They were doing that thing where they're showing viewers' (positive of course) thoughts on social media about the show, and suddenly Joe got rushed off the air so that they could start NewsNation Prime at :58 past the hour. The handoff was extremely awkward to where Joe finished his toss while viewer comments were still on the screen, but instead of the program switching to Prime, Joe's single cam got put on the air unexpectedly. Joe was seen looking off to the side of the studio with a frustrated "WTF" type of look on his face. Joe suddenly realized he was on cam and just looked at the camera and smiled awkwardly while the control room tried to get the switch figured out.

 

I think that kind of sums up night one of the new setup.


That's a foundation for a cancelled show!!!

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So you two think NewsNation is a good product? Seriously?

 

https://www.thewrap.com/newsnation-ashleigh-banfield-ratings-relaunch-wgn-america/

 

Despite the amount of promotion they've done on their local stations and elsewhere, despite the fact that WGN America has been available on literally the most basic of basic cable packages for a long time, they are managing to rack up about as many viewers as their mid-market stations probably get at 10/11. I would venture to guess more people watch WTEN, WHO, or WHTM's late news on any given night than watch NewsNation right now. That's hardly a recipe for success.

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6 hours ago, AJClementeFan69 said:

So you two think NewsNation is a good product? Seriously?

I think it's a very young product. Like many things, it's not only going to need quite a bit of time to develop, but also to develop an audience.


Regarding the ratings:

  1. As I've said before, I'm pretty sure that WGN-A before NewsNation wasn't exactly lighting things up when it came to ratings. It was an identity-less, rudder-less mediocre cable channel playing mundane reruns. I'd argue most people you talk to probably didn't even know the channel existed - it was one of those random cable channels that you kind of skim over in your channel guide. NewsNation wasn't going to turn that around by any means.
  2. News - straight news, not opinion-based talk - is *not* going to be a big ratings seller. News is boring, and people generally want to turn on TV to be entertained. Additionally, if people just want the news, they could pull out their smartphone or turn on their computer and get straight news from an infinite number of webpages so much quicker than watching TV news. As unfortunate as it is, there's a reason that the "news" channels that we have these days look the way they do... the news product doesn't sell. The guy wearing a bowtie telling lies that the audience wants to hear and believe sells. The panel of people talking over each other sells. And so on.
  3. The one time that straight news does sell is when there is a major breaking news event, and right now, WGN-A / NewsNation has absolutely no name recognition when it comes that, at least not yet. People are naturally going to go to CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC. It's going to take a LONG time to get that name recognition for NewsNation, and they will almost certainly always be that distant fourth behind the other three.

All that said, I don't think NewsNation is going anywhere anytime soon. I've always heard that one reason local stations do so many hours of news is because it's a fairly cheap product to fill up airtime. Not only is this designed like a local news product, but it's just making the most of the local reporter resources they'd already be paying for.

 

Besides, as I've said before, you look at things like "NewsNet" or some of the Spectrum News stations (e.g. Wisconsin) that have even *less* reason for being. and likely far less viewers than even WGN-A / NewsNation... and they're still going. I don't see NewsNation going anywhere anytime soon.

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1 hour ago, LoadStar said:

I think it's a very young product. Like many things, it's not only going to need quite a bit of time to develop, but also to develop an audience.


Regarding the ratings:

  1. As I've said before, I'm pretty sure that WGN-A before NewsNation wasn't exactly lighting things up when it came to ratings. It was an identity-less, rudder-less mediocre cable channel playing mundane reruns. I'd argue most people you talk to probably didn't even know the channel existed - it was one of those random cable channels that you kind of skim over in your channel guide. NewsNation wasn't going to turn that around by any means.
  2. News - straight news, not opinion-based talk - is *not* going to be a big ratings seller. News is boring, and people generally want to turn on TV to be entertained. Additionally, if people just want the news, they could pull out their smartphone or turn on their computer and get straight news from an infinite number of webpages so much quicker than watching TV news. As unfortunate as it is, there's a reason that the "news" channels that we have these days look the way they do... the news product doesn't sell. The guy wearing a bowtie telling lies that the audience wants to hear and believe sells. The panel of people talking over each other sells. And so on.
  3. The one time that straight news does sell is when there is a major breaking news event, and right now, WGN-A / NewsNation has absolutely no name recognition when it comes that, at least not yet. People are naturally going to go to CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC. It's going to take a LONG time to get that name recognition for NewsNation, and they will almost certainly always be that distant fourth behind the other three.

All that said, I don't think NewsNation is going anywhere anytime soon. I've always heard that one reason local stations do so many hours of news is because it's a fairly cheap product to fill up airtime. Not only is this designed like a local news product, but it's just making the most of the local reporter resources they'd already be paying for.

 

Besides, as I've said before, you look at things like "NewsNet" or some of the Spectrum News stations (e.g. Wisconsin) that have even *less* reason for being. and likely far less viewers than even WGN-A / NewsNation... and they're still going. I don't see NewsNation going anywhere anytime soon.

 

Excellent points you made, LoadStar.

 

To add to your last point, another example is Newsy, which has an average of over 8,000 viewers as of last year (in fact, it went up from an average of 3,000 in 2019), and it's still going. But, in Newsy's case, it uses the former channel/transponder space of a now-defunct channel called Retirement Living TV, which obviously was aimed at a much older demographic.......

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