Not sure about the overall shake-up. I do think there are lots of things they can do better. Some of my thoughts, just off the top of my head:
When they air the CBS evening news at 6:30 pm (I haven't listened yet), are they pre-empting any "traffic on the 2s" reports? Boy, if 6:30 pm were my commute time and this was happening, I would not be pleased at all. Can't help but think this is nothing but a corporate directive. Besides the KYW jingle, "all news all the time," and "listen two, three, four times a day," traffic on the 2s is one of the top things they're known for.
There is another thread on this board about a particular KYW anchor. Enough has been said about her on-air style. What pisses me off when she's on: she regularly doesn't give the current temperature after a recorded meteorologist report. Weather includes current temperature if an anchor/host is live. Isn't this radio 101?
Their board work is sloppy. You could drive tandem tractor trailer through the audio gaps, including by some of their weekday morning and afternoon anchors. Sloppy.
And the traffic reports themselves. Two observations: 1) Google traffic is already more accurate. How can this be? 2) Please curtail some of the traffic reporters who feel the need to pad these reports, which already occur six times an hour, with idle chit chat. The gold standard is John Brown. The rest need to sound more like him. "just the facts m'am, thank you." Sometimes, you can hear the anchor turn on their mic which cues the background teletype as a signal to the traffic report to "cut it short, NOW!" One traffic reporter this happens to a lot: Eric Herr (?sp). Ugh. Not my favorite traffic reporter on KYW. I wonder if this is an in-house battle. Consultants tell the traffic reporters, "be more folksy/friendly." News anchors resent losing valuable news time to longer traffic reports.
Despite these criticisms, I guess my overall assessment might be a variation on fat, dumb and lazy. How about: slightly overweight, not the brightest crayon in the box, and somewhat lethargic? I can't condemn the whole station. But I do think they've seen better days. They have no real competition. That's part of the problem. And, we can't expect any radio news competition anytime soon.
