WBZ-TV now known as CBS News Boston and WBZ News.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
CBS O&O new ident/logo
- Thread starter e-dawg
- Start date
WBZ-TV now known as CBS News Boston and WBZ News.
WBZ 4 is now known as WBZ on CBS News Boston.
The last little blunder with the image under the graphic in the streaming newscast open is....comical
Turns out the stuff the main CBS O&O's are using today have some of their origins for Paramount Owned CW affiliates not connected to the main CBS affiliate Seattle, Atlanta and Tampa.
The elimination of channel numbers from TV station branding is long overdue. Contrary to some scalding hot takes floating out in the interwebs, they no longer matter in a digital environment. Heck, they barely mattered after the DTV switch.
While WCBS kept the “CBS 2 News” name, they renamed themselves “CBS New York” outside of news. Look at that branding disparity and tell me with a straight face that it is anything close to permanent and they won’t morph into “CBS News New York”.
We aren’t in 1995 anymore.
While WCBS kept the “CBS 2 News” name, they renamed themselves “CBS New York” outside of news. Look at that branding disparity and tell me with a straight face that it is anything close to permanent and they won’t morph into “CBS News New York”.
We aren’t in 1995 anymore.
CBS doing it to their stations is hardly an indication it’s going to be across the board any time soon, and with perfectly good reason. It isn’t about not being 1995. Not all situations are the same; when a brand is strongly identified and still working, you don’t just toss it aside because some hot take guy on the interwebs with a particular bugaboo thinks the number needs to go.
Great, they don’t “matter” due to technology. That’s irrelevant. They matter because if the brand was and is successful and well managed for a long time, there is no viewer who’s going to be confused or irked that the number remains with the brand. If and when the pros outweigh the cons in a particular circumstance, it’s time to look at what to do with the branding.
No one cares that the second T in AT&T stood for telegraph. The name’s origins have zero bearing on what the brand is now. If they deliver a good product and market it well, it’s not overdue that they change it. It works for them.
Similarly, despite the obsessiveness of a few denizens of this board, the origins of network names don’t matter (cough…MTV…cough) when it comes to whether the actual audience perception. It never ceases to amuse me that a bunch of people who might well have watched MTV when Duran Duran was playing hourly harp on the name’s origins. If it works for the audience that matters, that’s what counts.
Great, they don’t “matter” due to technology. That’s irrelevant. They matter because if the brand was and is successful and well managed for a long time, there is no viewer who’s going to be confused or irked that the number remains with the brand. If and when the pros outweigh the cons in a particular circumstance, it’s time to look at what to do with the branding.
No one cares that the second T in AT&T stood for telegraph. The name’s origins have zero bearing on what the brand is now. If they deliver a good product and market it well, it’s not overdue that they change it. It works for them.
Similarly, despite the obsessiveness of a few denizens of this board, the origins of network names don’t matter (cough…MTV…cough) when it comes to whether the actual audience perception. It never ceases to amuse me that a bunch of people who might well have watched MTV when Duran Duran was playing hourly harp on the name’s origins. If it works for the audience that matters, that’s what counts.
This level of outdated thinking is why the conventional television industry is in dire straits and likely to collapse in 2030.
The current AT&T (the former Southwestern Bell) wasted billions of dollars on DirecTV and TimeWarner. Not the best example to make.
Wait, so if everyone just drops channel numbers from brands that are working just fine for their market, “conventional TV,” as defined by one person, would miraculously not be in “dire straits.” That’s all it takes? Amazing. Eureka. It’s the channel numbers holding them back. CBS Podunk is the branding for everyone.
Brands that have value don’t need to be jettisoned to appease someone with a hangup about their origins.
The primary brand is the subject, and you know that. Investments in other businesses went bad, no one said otherwise. But you know full well no consumer is ditching them as a mobile carrier because of those business issues. Cost, reliability and the like drive those decisions. The average person out on the street isn’t going to care one iota about whether they bought or sold content assets.
They have continued to use a brand that has value and works for them in that core business, regardless of the origins of the brand name. That’s the entire point.
No one flips some magic switch that renders valuable brands no longer valuable across the board.
I’ve been through the “to rebrand or not to rebrand” exercise multiple times. Once with the same brand years apart. Each time, the objective data was clear: the first round, the brand had strong resonance with the target audience and scored well across the board on various attributes. Much later—the same didn’t hold true. Every metric was trending down. Some worse than others, but the lines pointed the same way. So the rebrand got underway. Our peers in the same space? Didn’t change. Still haven’t. Obviously not privy to their data, but it seems reasonable to speculate that they’re brand, despite being on the exact same category, didn’t and doesn’t (yet? ever?) show the same trends. One size does not fit all.
There’s dozens of CBS 2s out there that are wholly indistinguishable, but only one “CBS New York”, “CBS Chicago”, “CBS Los Angeles”, “CBS Detroit” and “CBS Podunk”.
Brands are jettisoned if they no longer serve a use for the company or property, regardless if they have value or not. KCNC went by “News 4 Colorado” for decades under GE, NBC and CBS ownership; despite this, they were renamed “CBS 4” in what became erroneously known as the “CBS Mandate” which neither forced CBS branding on all stations (KDKA, WJZ) nor was a mandate (as WJZ’s increasingly garish look from 2004–17 proved).
The Westinghouse font dates back to 1963 and is itself a legacy brand but fell out of favor despite this among both the legacy Group W radio and TV stations; once the CBS rebrandings are complete, only WOWO in Fort Wayne—which never gave up usage of the typeface despite being sold to Price in 1982—will be the only station left to actively use it.
WJZ-TV, KDKA-TV, KPIX, WBZ-TV and KYW-TV all used the Eyewitness News branding back in the 60s, 70s and 80s—KYW even originated it in 1959 and held a service mark which is still in CBS’s possession. So why did they drop it, one by one, starting in the early 1990s? Why did WJZ and KPIX quietly drop it with no fanfare in the 2010s? Why did KYW drop it in 1991, bring it back in 1998, and drop it again this February?
Last edited:
Before I knew about virtual channels, I thought they were going to have to do this when stations went digital. My CBS affiliate, last time I checked, was on 23, even though the 3 is still in the logo. Though with the antenna I have, that's pointless.
I also receive a CBS affiliate which still calls itself News 2, with an antenna. I'm not technically in its market.
One Fox affiliate is Fox 8. I get a slightly less than dependable signal with an antenna. But the Fox affiliate in my market is Queen City News. I'm not sure they still use the 46.
So if the spending for that were pointless it would be money for nothing.
WJZY now uses the dual branding of “Fox Charlotte” and “Queen City News”; the old “Fox 46” branding was phased out over several months.
Fox Charlotte. That's right. And the other station in the area, if you're to the west, is Fox Carolinas.
No one cares that they are “indistinguishable” because they don’t live there. CBS 4 or whatever in city A being like CBS 4, in your estimation, anyway, means nothing. People aren’t distinguishing stations where they don’t flipping reside.
So the argument is let’s throw out a brand with name recognition where it matters because it irks Nathan? Tossing aside a brand with strong positives is idiotic, but idiotic things happen.
But if we’re worrying about origins not being relevant, why in the heck do we still have Coke to drink? I’m pretty sure coke isn’t in there any longer.
It’s almost as if someone else was in charge of KYW in 1991. Their effort back then was a flop, but hey, they did the right thing because they threw it out, right? And this time out it is clearly a CBS mandate. And a dumb—-s one at that. But if that’s what the CBS station group somehow thinks is going to be the salvation they seek, more power to ‘em. Let’s see how that goes for them.
KYW is now CBS News Philadelphia. For now CBS keeps the 3 logo for KYW-TV.
Dull, but so be it.
The 3 looks similar to the car number of late NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, should've kept the current CBS3 or bring back the Group W 3. Meanwhile, WCCO (Minneapolis/St. Paul) has CBS News Minnesota refresh, could do with either editing the v/o in the intro down removing the streaming mention (too wordy) or push that audio back a couple of seconds hearing it still going for a second after cutting to the anchors.
Last edited:
Removed
Saw the WCCO one its like KCAL, WBZ, KDKA and KPIX
Dale's hometown of Kannapolis NC named a major road Highway 3.
- Status