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3 CW Affiliates owned by CBS will start airing local news

So who's going to tune into channel 69 (Atlanta) when WAGA/5 and WATL/36 already have a lock on 10 PM news?
 
So who's going to tune into channel 69 (Atlanta) when WAGA/5 and WATL/36 already have a lock on 10 PM news?

I understand in another section of the article it stated that this move to have CW affiliates air local news was part of the larger ploy of CBS Owned stations to push CBSN Local to all the markets that Viacom owns a CW, Independent and CBS affiliation.

Note the article states that all the CW affiliates airing local news in this article are actually being done by other CBS Owned stations in other cities though. It's kind of similar to how KSTW a CW affiliate owned by Viacom/CBS in Seattle is really being managed from the master control inside the office of KPIX/KBCW San Francisco though.

https://www.broadcastingcable.com/n...stations-san-francisco-area-properties-165983

https://www.seattlepi.com/ae/tv/article/Longtime-Seattle-station-KSTW-s-reorganization-1219418.php

Yes this is what I meant that KSTW Seattle is being managed from a San Francisco office of CBS
 
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The true reason for the newscasts was given in the first Broadcasting & Cable link

“Our stations love news,” said Peter Dunn, CBS Television Stations president. “It does so much for a station’s identity in the community it serves, and it is appealing for advertisers. Given advances in technology and the high demand for political advertising this year, this is a perfect time for us to launch newscasts on our CW stations.”

Bold mine. This is about creating more local ad time on these stations and having a more desirable place to sell political ads.
 
The true reason for the newscasts was given in the first Broadcasting & Cable link



Bold mine. This is about creating more local ad time on these stations and having a more desirable place to sell political ads.

Yes this is true too given that lots of political ads land between local news segments though.
 


>>>WKBD-TV Detroit will have their newscasts produced by KTVT Dallas.
WUPA Atlanta will have their newscasts produced by WCBS-TV New York.
WTOG TV Tampa will have their newscasts produced by WFOR-TV Miami.<<<

I don't understand how TV newscasts for cities hundreds of miles away can be produced in Dallas, New York and Miami. Do street reporters go out, cover stories, then send them to the production city for assembly into a newscast? I guess it can be done. The anchors will be in Dallas, NYC and Miami, pretending they are in Detroit, Atlanta and Tampa. But are the savings so much better than simply building a set and doing the newscast in the home city?

Also, note that WKBD-TV 50 Detroit will have a local 10pm newscast. But the market's CBS O&O, WWJ-TV 62 will still not have news at 6 and 11pm. I think it does 5 minutes of weather at 11 pm, followed by a sitcom. Then back to the network at 11:35 for Late Night with Steven Colbert.








 


>>>WKBD-TV Detroit will have their newscasts produced by KTVT Dallas.
WUPA Atlanta will have their newscasts produced by WCBS-TV New York.
WTOG TV Tampa will have their newscasts produced by WFOR-TV Miami.<<<

I don't understand how TV newscasts for cities hundreds of miles away can be produced in Dallas, New York and Miami. Do street reporters go out, cover stories, then send them to the production city for assembly into a newscast? I guess it can be done. The anchors will be in Dallas, NYC and Miami, pretending they are in Detroit, Atlanta and Tampa. But are the savings so much better than simply building a set and doing the newscast in the home city?

Also, note that WKBD-TV 50 Detroit will have a local 10pm newscast. But the market's CBS O&O, WWJ-TV 62 will still not have news at 6 and 11pm. I think it does 5 minutes of weather at 11 pm, followed by a sitcom. Then back to the network at 11:35 for Late Night with Steven Colbert.




This is not the first time CBS has done this for their station though. KSTW Seattle (CW affiliate) has their operations from San Francisco at the KPIX/KBCW offices. But sometimes the appointed GM for KSTW Seattle might be conducting sales from either the KPIX/KBCW offices or from the KOVR/KMAX offices in Sacramento.
 
This is going to be an epic fail I wouldn't be surprised if this gets canceled after the election is over in Jan 2021 just my opinion.
 
I don't understand how TV newscasts for cities hundreds of miles away can be produced in Dallas, New York and Miami. Do street reporters go out, cover stories, then send them to the production city for assembly into a newscast?

Yes, that's exactly how these things are done. Each station will have two or three locally-based multimedia journalists who will be equipped with a camera, microphone, computer with video editing software, and LiveU backpack for transmission. This will allow them to shoot and edit video and maybe do a "one-man band" live shot once and a while. All other elements of the newscast will be assembled in the distant city.

The concept behind this isn't all that new. There's a company once known as Independent News Network that has been remotely producing local newscasts for 20 years. Here's their Wikipedia page. Another example is Sinclair's WSBT-TV (CBS) in South Bend, Indiana, which, aside from producing its own newscasts, also produces the local newscasts seen on WNWO-TV (NBC) in Toledo, Ohio and WOLF-TV (Fox) in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area of Pennsylvania.
 
The CW affiliate in Charlotte has had news for many years, but it was Fox most of those years.

I think Greensboro/Winston-Salem has a CW affiliate airing the NBC affiliate's newscast at 10 because they are co-owned.
 
The CW affiliate in Charlotte has had news for many years, but it was Fox most of those years.

I think Greensboro/Winston-Salem has a CW affiliate airing the NBC affiliate's newscast at 10 because they are co-owned.

Originally WCCB’s 10pm newscast was produced by WSOC. It was produced by WCNC when WSOC’s 10:00 news moved to sister station WAXN, but only for about 6 months. WCCB’s own 10pm news launched January 1, 2000. It has survived the forced change to CW in 2013.

Hearst bought WCWG a few years ago and moved WXII’s 10:00 news from its .2 channel to WCWG.
 
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>>>WKBD-TV Detroit will have their newscasts produced by KTVT Dallas.
WUPA Atlanta will have their newscasts produced by WCBS-TV New York.
WTOG TV Tampa will have their newscasts produced by WFOR-TV Miami.<<<

I don't understand how TV newscasts for cities hundreds of miles away can be produced in Dallas, New York and Miami. Do street reporters go out, cover stories, then send them to the production city for assembly into a newscast? I guess it can be done. The anchors will be in Dallas, NYC and Miami, pretending they are in Detroit, Atlanta and Tampa. But are the savings so much better than simply building a set and doing the newscast in the home city?

Also, note that WKBD-TV 50 Detroit will have a local 10pm newscast. But the market's CBS O&O, WWJ-TV 62 will still not have news at 6 and 11pm. I think it does 5 minutes of weather at 11 pm, followed by a sitcom. Then back to the network at 11:35 for Late Night with Steven Colbert.







https://atlanta.cbslocal.com/video/4488706-coping-with-coronavirus-stress-mental-health-apps/

Update WUPA-TV's newscasts has been taken over by WBZ-TV given that the NYC offices of CBS News and WCBS-TV has been closed due to COVID-19 scares.
 
Yes, that's exactly how these things are done. Each station will have two or three locally-based multimedia journalists who will be equipped with a camera, microphone, computer with video editing software, and LiveU backpack for transmission. This will allow them to shoot and edit video and maybe do a "one-man band" live shot once and a while. All other elements of the newscast will be assembled in the distant city.
Given the current situation, this sounds like a good idea. I haven't been watching the news, but are stations doing fewer "live" shots? Most of the time those don't serve any purpose, and at this time, it could actually be a problem.
 
Looks like CBS needs to sell/trade stations in markets with only CW or independent stations. ABC operates a comparatively paired down number of O&Os.

Might need to swap affiliations in the Detroit twin stick. Disbanding WKBD's news department was a mistake. It's like the situation with the purple line on Chicago's L causing backups on the first few stations until somebody had the brilliant idea of going the opposite direction, which evenly distributed the exiting passengers in The Loop.

I'm sure that there are Big 4 station owners that could use a twin stick in Atlanta, Seattle, and Tampa and trade for a twin stick in CBS-only markets/acquire CBS affiliates.
 
Looks like CBS needs to sell/trade stations in markets with only CW or independent stations. ABC operates a comparatively paired down number of O&Os.

Might need to swap affiliations in the Detroit twin stick. Disbanding WKBD's news department was a mistake. It's like the situation with the purple line on Chicago's L causing backups on the first few stations until somebody had the brilliant idea of going the opposite direction, which evenly distributed the exiting passengers in The Loop.

I'm sure that there are Big 4 station owners that could use a twin stick in Atlanta, Seattle, and Tampa and trade for a twin stick in CBS-only markets/acquire CBS affiliates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBXI-CD

Not sure who would want WBXI-CD though it's a station that Viacom owns that's not an affiliate of CBS, CW or Independent
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBXI-CD

Not sure who would want WBXI-CD though it's a station that Viacom owns that's not an affiliate of CBS, CW or Independent

I was primarily concerned about full-power stations, but this lower-powered station was inherited by a predecessor company. If it doesn't become part of somebody's Indianapolis duopoly, the license could be turned back in to the FCC/go silent and let it automatically expire without much controversy. It could also be packaged in a trade and become somebody else's problem.
 
The product being produced for WKBD is not bad. Detroit is a competitive market for 10PM news as two other stations were already airing broadcasts. I like the fact that it's 30 minutes. The no sports coverage is not a liability for now for obvious reasons.
 
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