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Not Directly a Radio Topic, but...

C

Charles35080

Saturday, October 17 marks the 50th anniversary of the initial sign-on of Channel 42 in Birmingham. What makes it indirectly a radio topic is that since WSGN partially owned what was then WBMG-TV, several of the on-air personalities on Channel 42 were WSGN Good Guys, including Bill Bolen and Neal Miller (Sergeant Jack).

Just my 2 cents: as bad as Channel 42's signal and programming was in its early days, it's a miracle the station survived. The house we lived in when I was growing up was less than four miles as the crow flies from their tower, but the signal at times was unwatchable.
 
Hard to believe they've been around that long. Had the FCC not mandated UHF tuners in TVs they would have been toast, I'm sure. UHF just didn't work well enough back then, unless you had no other choice (hello, Huntsville).

I don't live in the area anymore, but are they still considered the laughingstock of local news? I've watched their live stream a few times and found the new graphics, set and news crew to be really surprisingly good. At first I wasn't even sure it was the right station! It is a far cry from the days of Tommy Charles just not giving a damn on the air. :)
 
They're hardly the laughingstock they once were. If I had to rate the Birmingham market for news product, I would give the edge to WBRC, but it's not as dramatic an edge as what it used to be. My current personal choice is WVTM, whose product is light years ahead of what it was when Media General operated the station. Where WIAT suffers is in their early morning newscast, but at 5, 6 and 10, they're not too far behind 6 or 13. IMHO, ABC 33/40's product has suffered since Sinclair assumed control of the station; in fact, I'm not so sure that they aren't the second worst newscast in the market (sorry, WVUA-23).
 
Charles35080 said:
They're hardly the laughingstock they once were. If I had to rate the Birmingham market for news product, I would give the edge to WBRC, but it's not as dramatic an edge as what it used to be. My current personal choice is WVTM, whose product is light years ahead of what it was when Media General operated the station. Where WIAT suffers is in their early morning newscast, but at 5, 6 and 10, they're not too far behind 6 or 13. IMHO, ABC 33/40's product has suffered since Sinclair assumed control of the station; in fact, I'm not so sure that they aren't the second worst newscast in the market (sorry, WVUA-23).
Click to expand...

My, how times have changed. When I still lived there WBRC and WVTM were the dominant forces with ABC 33/40 doing well, but my family always seemed to prefer 33/40 over the others. Is WVUA trying to be a Birmingham station with news, too? Last time I saw them they were still proudly local to Tuscaloosa despite the big transmitter up on Red Mountain.

I'm not a fan of Sinclair so it doesn't surprise me that they've made changes for the worse at 33/40. I remember watching the live stream and up until they were acquired, they used to put the cameras back on and James Spann would talk about various things during the commercial breaks. It was a brilliant (and often humorous) break from the serious news and the boring static "we'll be right back" that would normally cover commercials. As soon as Sinclair came in, that came to a quick end and I quit watching.

Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't unceremoniously fire Spann for costing too much. Sinclair operates a whopping four stations here in the Mobile-Pensacola market (WEAR and WFGX outright, LMA WJTC and WPMI) and they've had a lot of personnel changes lately on WPMI, not necessarily for the better. They let go the chief meteorologist then hired some guy from Phoenix, who either took a massive pay cut or just wanted out of the desert. He's still finding his feet and trying to be a bit too cutesy when we are in an area where people just want the weather. Unlike Phoenix, weather here is important. :)

Media General owns WKRG and WFNA so that's two more cheapskate-run channels in this market. Yet somehow people here still love WKRG news even though it's not that great.
 
You forgot to mention that WEAR's news is great... as long as you live in one of the 3 Florida counties.
WEAR may have the best newscast in the Mobile DMA.
 
WVUA's newscast is still Tuscaloosa-centric. Truth be told, it's Capstone-centric, for the most part. It still has the feel of a small-market product, but the good thing about it is, at least it provides a good training lab for UA students. I know that there are several UA alumni who cut their chops at WVUA who are now on 6 and 33/40, and maybe 13 and 42 as well. (Disclaimer: my daughter is a freshman journalism major at UA, although she hasn't indicated any interest in broadcast journalism---and I'm an Auburn fan :cool:).
 
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