Strengths and Weakneses of Station Groups

[MediaZone4K 1511]

Having seen so much criticism across these threads for companies like Sinclair, Tegna and Nexstar, I wanted to pinpoint what you all think are the prime issues with station owners like these. Anything from how they manage their stations and treat their employees, to their news presentation styles. Are there any strengths to their methods? O&O groups included. 

Edited November 30, 2023 by MediaZone4K

[tyrannical bastard 3444]

Especially with Sinclair and Nexstar, the amount of control the top management forces on the lower ranks. While many of the stations they acquired had great ideas from veterans that could have been implemented throughout, instead you have the same management who ended up acquiring these stations, imposing their will, and turning them into mindless drones.  The industry is poorer because of it and the great stations they have collectively run into the ground.

Edited November 30, 2023 by tyrannical bastard

[LTSC1980 96]

15 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

Having seen so much criticism across these threads for companies like Sinclair, Tegna and Nexstar, I wanted to pinpoint what you all think are the prime issues with station owners like these. Anything from how they manage their stations and treat their employees, to their news presentation styles. Are there any strengths to their methods? O&O groups included. 

Don’t forget Scripps, they had also been replacing newscasts with “Scrippscasts”, much like Sinclair does.

[MediaZone4K 1511]

I dont hear must criticism for Hearst and Graham. 

[HSV cheesehead 88]

1 hour ago, MediaZone4K said:

I dont hear must criticism for Hearst and Graham. 

From what I have heard, Hearst and Graham run their stations well. Also they don't own as many stations when compared to Gray, Nexstar, or Sinclair, which allows them to invest in the quality of their stations.

[MediaZone4K 1511]

4 hours ago, ELISYSYN said:

From what I have heard, Hearst and Graham run their stations well. Also they don't own as many stations when compared to Gray, Nexstar, or Sinclair, which allows them to invest in the quality of their stations.

Sinclair and Nexstar especially. Nexstar pays their employees like crap, while Sinclair stations pay a bit better, but look abysmal. Some Sinclair sets look like cheap college/infomercial productions and their graphics are basic and boxy.

Edited November 30, 2023 by MediaZone4K

[GoldenShine9 1509]

6 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

I dont hear must criticism for Hearst and Graham. 

 

I wonder what it would be like if Hearst and/or Graham owned a lot of small market stations as well though. Combined, they have only one station in markets below #100.

[Route66Fan 74]

13 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

I wonder what it would be like if Hearst and/or Graham owned a lot of small market stations as well though. Combined, they have only one station in markets below #100.

I've wondered what would have happened if Hearst acquired the former Fisher TV stations instead of Sinclair in 2013. 

If that would have happened, then KLEW-TV in Lewiston, ID would have become a Hearst station.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Route66Fan

[MediaZone4K 1511]

Thoughts on Tegna? I've seen the station group criticized for how it manages newscasts and news departments.

 

Aesthetically speaking, Tegna stations are way more pleasing on the eye than Sinclair, Scripps, and in a lot of Nexstar. 11 Alive Atlanta looks far better than it did 10+ years ago sets and graphics wise.

Edited December 9, 2023 by MediaZone4K

[noggi 600]

4 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

Thoughts on Tegna? I've seen the station group criticized for how it manages newscasts and news departments.

 

Aesthetically speaking, Tegna stations are way more pleasing on the eye than Sinclair, Scripps, and in a lot of Nexstar. 11 Alive Atlanta looks far better than it did 10+ years ago sets and graphics wise.

 

I'll bite. Just had a nice little glass of bourbon, so let's see what we can come up with:

 

When I first started working for TEGNA, I felt like they didn't get enough credit for what they were trying to do. They were investing a ton of money into the brands of these stations and bringing in some interesting people to shake things up on the marketing side. It sounded really exciting and I got sucked into it, leaving a well established market-leading station to jump into this mess. It's no exaggeration to say when I was sitting in the hotel the night before my first day watching WUSA9, I felt immediate regret in my decision and I started working immediately to leave. (It took nearly three years to get out... woof.)

 

When I look back at it all, I think one of the biggest problems is that the news and production folks at these local stations have absolutely no idea how to make good television. Is that really their fault? I don't know. Local news has looked essentially the same since the 1940s. Desk. Chair. Backdrop. Want to shake things up? Have the anchor stand. That backdrop? It's now a monitor. That's about as groundbreaking as these people know what to do. (And that's not just TEGNA, it's an industry-wide issue.)

 

So now you want to revamp your morning show and you bring in a comedian... again, not exactly revolutionary. It's been done. But news leadership is really afraid to lean into this concept, so it's just another straightforward mediocre newscast with a comedian randomly dropped in. The comedian has no one to play off of. Your news anchors and reporters aren't funny, they don't know humor. So you have awkward interactions throughout the show. You blow millions on marketing this 3rd or 4th place show to get folks to "sample" it. Sure, there is a slight spike in ratings - people drop in, have a look, say "what the hell is this?", tune out and never come back. 

 

TEGNA would fly in folks from various departments from their stations all around the country every few months for "innovation summits" at their HQ. I got invited to one. A lot of interesting ideas. Absolutely no way to execute it. An idea I had got piloted in Cleveland (of course, I never saw a bonus, not that I expected one ). They flew out the comedian from DC to host it. It was awful. You know why? Your producer who graduated from Elon's school of journalism has absolutely no clue how to make good television. They know how to copy and paste from the wires and re-write stories from the 11p to drop into their AM shows. (Just kidding, that gets copy and pasted as well.) 

 

I could go on and on. I haven't even started in on the mediocre general managers with sales backgrounds - that might be an even bigger issue. You think the guy from sales who got the corner office knows how to make good television?? They have an eye for talent? Absolutely not. 

 

Local television news isn't dying, it's dead. You're just watching zombies now. Waiting until the next hedge fund comes in to turn the lights off.

[MediaZone4K 1511]

1 hour ago, noggi said:

 

I'll bite. Just had a nice little glass of bourbon, so let's see what we can come up with:

 

When I first started working for TEGNA, I felt like they didn't get enough credit for what they were trying to do. They were investing a ton of money into the brands of these stations and bringing in some interesting people to shake things up on the marketing side. It sounded really exciting and I got sucked into it, leaving a well established market-leading station to jump into this mess. It's no exaggeration to say when I was sitting in the hotel the night before my first day watching WUSA9, I felt immediate regret in my decision and I started working immediately to leave. (It took nearly three years to get out... woof.)

 

When I look back at it all, I think one of the biggest problems is that the news and production folks at these local stations have absolutely no idea how to make good television. Is that really their fault? I don't know. Local news has looked essentially the same since the 1940s. Desk. Chair. Backdrop. Want to shake things up? Have the anchor stand. That backdrop? It's now a monitor. That's about as groundbreaking as these people know what to do. (And that's not just TEGNA, it's an industry-wide issue.)

 

So now you want to revamp your morning show and you bring in a comedian... again, not exactly revolutionary. It's been done. But news leadership is really afraid to lean into this concept, so it's just another straightforward mediocre newscast with a comedian randomly dropped in. The comedian has no one to play off of. Your news anchors and reporters aren't funny, they don't know humor. So you have awkward interactions throughout the show. You blow millions on marketing this 3rd or 4th place show to get folks to "sample" it. Sure, there is a slight spike in ratings - people drop in, have a look, say "what the hell is this?", tune out and never come back. 

 

TEGNA would fly in folks from various departments from their stations all around the country every few months for "innovation summits" at their HQ. I got invited to one. A lot of interesting ideas. Absolutely no way to execute it. An idea I had got piloted in Cleveland (of course, I never saw a bonus, not that I expected one ). They flew out the comedian from DC to host it. It was awful. You know why? Your producer who graduated from Elon's school of journalism has absolutely no clue how to make good television. They know how to copy and paste from the wires and re-write stories from the 11p to drop into their AM shows. (Just kidding, that gets copy and pasted as well.) 

 

I could go on and on. I haven't even started in on the mediocre general managers with sales backgrounds - that might be an even bigger issue. You think the guy from sales who got the corner office knows how to make good television?? They have an eye for talent? Absolutely not. 

 

Local television news isn't dying, it's dead. You're just watching zombies now. Waiting until the next hedge fund comes in to turn the lights off.

Obviously experiences differ by station...but good lord, are any of these news corporations good? Do I dare ask about Gray television

[HSV cheesehead 88]

On 12/9/2023 at 8:29 PM, MediaZone4K said:

Obviously experiences differ by station...but good lord, are any of these news corporations good? Do I dare ask about Gray television

Has their been criticism of Gray, I have only heard things about Nexstar, Sinclair, and Scripps (just off the top of my head)?

[CoopInTheHouse 63]

On 12/9/2023 at 6:01 PM, noggi said:

 

I'll bite. Just had a nice little glass of bourbon, so let's see what we can come up with:

 

When I first started working for TEGNA, I felt like they didn't get enough credit for what they were trying to do. They were investing a ton of money into the brands of these stations and bringing in some interesting people to shake things up on the marketing side. It sounded really exciting and I got sucked into it, leaving a well established market-leading station to jump into this mess. It's no exaggeration to say when I was sitting in the hotel the night before my first day watching WUSA9, I felt immediate regret in my decision and I started working immediately to leave. (It took nearly three years to get out... woof.)

 

When I look back at it all, I think one of the biggest problems is that the news and production folks at these local stations have absolutely no idea how to make good television. Is that really their fault? I don't know. Local news has looked essentially the same since the 1940s. Desk. Chair. Backdrop. Want to shake things up? Have the anchor stand. That backdrop? It's now a monitor. That's about as groundbreaking as these people know what to do. (And that's not just TEGNA, it's an industry-wide issue.)

 

So now you want to revamp your morning show and you bring in a comedian... again, not exactly revolutionary. It's been done. But news leadership is really afraid to lean into this concept, so it's just another straightforward mediocre newscast with a comedian randomly dropped in. The comedian has no one to play off of. Your news anchors and reporters aren't funny, they don't know humor. So you have awkward interactions throughout the show. You blow millions on marketing this 3rd or 4th place show to get folks to "sample" it. Sure, there is a slight spike in ratings - people drop in, have a look, say "what the hell is this?", tune out and never come back. 

 

TEGNA would fly in folks from various departments from their stations all around the country every few months for "innovation summits" at their HQ. I got invited to one. A lot of interesting ideas. Absolutely no way to execute it. An idea I had got piloted in Cleveland (of course, I never saw a bonus, not that I expected one ). They flew out the comedian from DC to host it. It was awful. You know why? Your producer who graduated from Elon's school of journalism has absolutely no clue how to make good television. They know how to copy and paste from the wires and re-write stories from the 11p to drop into their AM shows. (Just kidding, that gets copy and pasted as well.) 

 

I could go on and on. I haven't even started in on the mediocre general managers with sales backgrounds - that might be an even bigger issue. You think the guy from sales who got the corner office knows how to make good television?? They have an eye for talent? Absolutely not. 

 

Local television news isn't dying, it's dead. You're just watching zombies now. Waiting until the next hedge fund comes in to turn the lights off.

If you put it one way or another, you could see on one end that Tegna has good production values, but on another, you get an annoying news theme (C Clarity) that “all stations HAVE to use”. I’ve seen stations like KYTX (on their morning show called “Morning Y’all”) use other themes for stuff. Totally weird.

[HSV cheesehead 88]

49 minutes ago, CoopInTheHouse said:

If you put it one way or another, you could see on one end that Tegna has good production values, but on another, you get an annoying news theme (C Clarity) that “all stations HAVE to use”. I’ve seen stations like KYTX (on their morning show called “Morning Y’all”) use other themes for stuff. Totally weird.

I agree with this in its entirety. For example, a little over a year ago, WXIA began using a different variety of C Clarity, for open, closes and everything in between. However they only use a specific 30 second cut (open #7 on NMSA), but it quickly got stale in the ears.

[east-tx-tv 105]

On 12/11/2023 at 3:21 PM, CoopInTheHouse said:

If you put it one way or another, you could see on one end that Tegna has good production values, but on another, you get an annoying news theme (C Clarity) that “all stations HAVE to use”. I’ve seen stations like KYTX (on their morning show called “Morning Y’all”) use other themes for stuff. Totally weird.

After the Tegna deal, KYTX's morning show became The Morning Loop.  If you ask them, the reason for the name change would likely result in a corporate/canned response.  It could be that you're in the loop once you've gotten caught up on their news/weather/stuff, it could be because their morning show has a looping set up (like CNN's original Headline News format), or a really out-of-the-box reason: KYTX is located on a looping highway that goes around Tyler (the home of the station, not its COL, which is still Nacogdoches).  I'm not sure when/why Morning Y'all became the title.

[jjj 2]

On 12/9/2023 at 5:01 PM, noggi said:

 

Local television news isn't dying, it's dead. You're just watching zombies now. Waiting until the next hedge fund comes in to turn the lights off.

 

I wonder how long until the local tv stations end up like the newspapers did with those vulture companies that came in and buy the papers, sell off the real estate, sell off anything else of value, cut the staff to the bone, replace most of the articles with copy and paste AP stories, don't make any effort to improve the product and simply ride out subscriptions until there are none.

 

Costal Television sounds pretty close to this but it can and will get a lot worse.

 

 

[Pelicanman 8]

On 12/9/2023 at 6:01 PM, noggi said:

 

I'll bite. Just had a nice little glass of bourbon, so let's see what we can come up with:

 

When I first started working for TEGNA, I felt like they didn't get enough credit for what they were trying to do. They were investing a ton of money into the brands of these stations and bringing in some interesting people to shake things up on the marketing side. It sounded really exciting and I got sucked into it, leaving a well established market-leading station to jump into this mess. It's no exaggeration to say when I was sitting in the hotel the night before my first day watching WUSA9, I felt immediate regret in my decision and I started working immediately to leave. (It took nearly three years to get out... woof.)

 

When I look back at it all, I think one of the biggest problems is that the news and production folks at these local stations have absolutely no idea how to make good television. Is that really their fault? I don't know. Local news has looked essentially the same since the 1940s. Desk. Chair. Backdrop. Want to shake things up? Have the anchor stand. That backdrop? It's now a monitor. That's about as groundbreaking as these people know what to do. (And that's not just TEGNA, it's an industry-wide issue.)

 

So now you want to revamp your morning show and you bring in a comedian... again, not exactly revolutionary. It's been done. But news leadership is really afraid to lean into this concept, so it's just another straightforward mediocre newscast with a comedian randomly dropped in. The comedian has no one to play off of. Your news anchors and reporters aren't funny, they don't know humor. So you have awkward interactions throughout the show. You blow millions on marketing this 3rd or 4th place show to get folks to "sample" it. Sure, there is a slight spike in ratings - people drop in, have a look, say "what the hell is this?", tune out and never come back. 

 

TEGNA would fly in folks from various departments from their stations all around the country every few months for "innovation summits" at their HQ. I got invited to one. A lot of interesting ideas. Absolutely no way to execute it. An idea I had got piloted in Cleveland (of course, I never saw a bonus, not that I expected one ). They flew out the comedian from DC to host it. It was awful. You know why? Your producer who graduated from Elon's school of journalism has absolutely no clue how to make good television. They know how to copy and paste from the wires and re-write stories from the 11p to drop into their AM shows. (Just kidding, that gets copy and pasted as well.) 

 

I could go on and on. I haven't even started in on the mediocre general managers with sales backgrounds - that might be an even bigger issue. You think the guy from sales who got the corner office knows how to make good television?? They have an eye for talent? Absolutely not. 

 

Local television news isn't dying, it's dead. You're just watching zombies now. Waiting until the next hedge fund comes in to turn the lights off.

Tegna must have forgotten they have acquired some long-standing juggernauts, for some of those crown jewels were lost in the shuffle are now a shell of themselves (see WFAA, WWL) thanks to the tomfoolery over the years. I understand company mandates, but everything isn't meant for everyone.

[Howard Beale 13]

On 12/9/2023 at 8:29 PM, MediaZone4K said:

Obviously experiences differ by station...but good lord, are any of these news corporations good? Do I dare ask about Gray television

The only local TV news broadcaster that might be “good” is the Disney O&O group.  Those stations are typically number one in the ratings and have a Disney-backed budget to make things happen.  But, as we learned this year from CEO Bob Iger, Disney may eventually get out of linear television.  And I’m sure the likes of Perry Sook and Byron Allen will be ready to make an offer.

 

TV news has always been about the money, especially local TV news, regardless of the owners.  It’s just that some companies are more open about it, like Nexstar and Sinclair.  The other companies — like Gray, Scripps, Tegna, Cox, Graham, Allen, etc. — are all watching the bottom line just as much.

[C Block 1487]

I feel fortunate that I've only ever worked for bygone-era small station groups that no longer exist and O&Os. I think the likes of Scripps, Tegna, Nexstar, Gray et al are in for a perilous financial future as they have far fewer alternate revenue streams. The O&Os at least will be able to rely on live sports in major markets and the backing of the network to stay relevant to some degree.

 

For a rural market ~120 station with no major national or college sports team, what is the roadmap? Advertising is way down everywhere. Retrans fees will likely go away. The networks don't really need partnerships with affiliates much longer now that they have their own streaming platforms (not that those are making any money either.) Syndicated programming is going away, and these kinds of stations can't really replace it with more news as it's near-impossible to find more 22-year-olds willing to endure the grueling quality of life of working in small market TV.

 

I think what's happening at Scripps, particularly in the small markets, is a telltale sign of just how rocky the industry will become in the next 5-10 years at the lower end. I'm not sure if the other station groups will go to the same extreme lengths that Scripps is currently taking, but I think we will see more small market stations shut down news departments and farm out their news to regional and national divisions within their station groups.

 

I don't think these problems are confined to OTA television either. I think the economics of the entire entertainment industry are fundamentally broken. The only thing that still makes money is advertising on conventional distribution platforms, but that audience has been shrinking for decades. Nobody other than Netflix has been able to figure out how to monetize online media in a meaningful way. Streaming has become so saturated that I'm not fully convinced it'll work out for any of the media conglomerates.