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More about the worst local newscasts

B

bpatrick

The posting about WYMT was in 2009. The station's newscasts have improved tremendously since then; the graphics look better and I think they're getting young reporters looking for experience. True, it will never reach the standards of a New York or LA, or even a Louisville, but given where it is and with its reception improved by moving to digital channel 12, it's no wonder some people call it "the little station that could."

WIAT Birmingham is also a far cry from the '70s; you won't see sportscasters throwing copy over their shoulders nowadays.

I don't know whether to credit the news or improved reception, but both stations do quite well for CBS.

Although I used to watch "11 Alive Newsroom" when WXIA was ABC, I think in retrospect that "Pro News" was the best newscast the station ever had. But as I think I pointed out, there was nothing so radically different from WSB or WAGA that people would switch in large numbers, even though it did about twice as well as its early-70s "Eyewitness News" predecessor.
 
bpatrick said:
The posting about WYMT was in 2009. The station's newscasts have improved tremendously since then; the graphics look better and I think they're getting young reporters looking for experience. True, it will never reach the standards of a New York or LA, or even a Louisville, but given where it is and with its reception improved by moving to digital channel 12, it's no wonder some people call it "the little station that could."
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WYMT does an excellent job, for a small station in an economically challenged area with difficult terrain and infrastructure. They also have the resources of WKYT, and to a lesser extent WSAZ and WVLT, upon which to draw. They are the "local" news station for a large part of eastern Kentucky, as well as mountain counties in Virginia that border Kentucky. One of the biggest problems they face, is that they are on the far fringe of the Lexington market, and so far have not been able to convince the FCC that they should get satellite carriage in "orphan county" portions of neighboring markets (Charleston-Huntington, Knoxville, and Tri-Cities) that rely upon them for local news. Leslie County is right next door, yet due to a quirk of local geography and terrain, it ends up in the Tri-Cities market, where coverage of Eastern Kentucky news and events is next to nil. Letcher County is in a similar situation.
 
All true, but I invite you to watch a recent newscast and one that's on YouTube from the 1980s. You wouldn't know it was the same station,
 
bpatrick said:
All true, but I invite you to watch a recent newscast and one that's on YouTube from the 1980s. You wouldn't know it was the same station,
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Because it really isn't.

Kentucky Central basically acquired WKYH and gave it the mother of all makeovers, changing the call letters, flipping its affiliation to CBS, and creating a quality news operation pretty much from scratch.
 
KHIZ Barstow, California they had to contend with having the worst newscasts given that Barstow is within the Los Angeles TV Market. This is KHIZ-TV newscast in 1993. Then again its a case of having a low budget and having access to the major LA TV stations that caused its demise of their local newscast.



 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
KHIZ Barstow, California they had to contend with having the worst newscasts given that Barstow is within the Los Angeles TV Market. This is KHIZ-TV newscast in 1993. Then again its a case of having a low budget and having access to the major LA TV stations that caused its demise of their local newscast.



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That doesn't look like a bad newscast for a small-market station, which as a practical matter, a station such as KHIZ/KVVT (second affiliate in a remote part of a major market, see below) would be. Doesn't look any worse than WHAG Hagerstown MD or WMGM Wildwood NJ, which, like KVVT, were network affiliates (again, see below) that competed with O&Os of the same network in major markets.

I said "network affiliates". Wikipedia says that KVVT was ABC from 1998 to 1992, but I am not finding that borne out in Television Factbook or Broadcasting Yearbook. TV Guide channel lineups don't show the station at all. I would be interested to know how the writer of that section sourced that information. Due to the distance and terrain, they would certainly be able to justify having a local ABC affiliate in that area. I am finding the same information on other broadcasting-oriented websites, but they seem simply to be echoing the Wikipedia article.

This old RD thread discusses KVVT:

https://radiodiscussions.com/threads/victorville-ca-february-26-1989.746455/
 
Channel 5 KXGN Glendive, MT when it was locally owned... the g uy would film stuff on a consumer grade vhs camcorder himself, record the new at like 330 for 6pm airtime.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
Channel 5 KXGN Glendive, MT when it was locally owned... the g uy would film stuff on a consumer grade vhs camcorder himself, record the new at like 330 for 6pm airtime.
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Their news was about as basic as basic gets. Still, though, Mr Agre was a competent reporter.

KXGN didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was. I hate to see them gone.
 
IM42A said:
Their news was about as basic as basic gets. Still, though, Mr Agre was a competent reporter.

KXGN didn't pretend to be anything other than what it was. I hate to see them gone.
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Ive seen a few clips over the years and known people who worked there and etc. Unique for sure
 
No, a newscast today would not look the same as it did in the 1980s. But in my mind the contrast between then and now at WYMT is too hard not to ignore.











No, no newscast is going to look the same as it did in the 1980s. But the contrast at WYMT between then and now is impossible to ignore, for me, anyway.
 
bpatrick said:
No, no newscast is going to look the same as it did in the 1980s. But the contrast at WYMT between then and now is impossible to ignore, for me, anyway.
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Indeed. As WKYH, they were indeed abysmal, but add to that, they were doing the best they could, with what they had to work with. They had transmitter issues, as well as a dodgy way of getting NBC programming, relying upon WLEX and WCYB over challenging terrain. For all practical purposes, they had to tear down the station and build it back again as WYMT.
 


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