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Cleveland TV Revolving Door

MediaLover said:
Fox 8 and CBS 19/CW 43 have too many newscasts on in the market. A lot of the content is repeats, and for Fox 8, extra material that is "fun." A lot of times it's too much.
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Hours of weekday newscasts in Cleveland (not counting newscast repeats or sponsored talk shows like New Day Cleveland, Good Company, or Cribbs in the CLE)

WKYC NBC 3 - 6 hours (4:30-7a, 4-6:30p, 7p, 11p)
WEWS ABC 5 - 6 hours (4:30-7a, noon, 4-6:30p, 11p)
WJW Fox 8 - 11 1/2 hours (4-10a, noon-1p, 4-7:30p, 10-11p)
WOIO CBS 19/WUAB CW 43 - 12 combined hours (WOIO: 4:30-7a, 9a, noon, 3-6:30p,11p...WUAB: 7-9a, 11a-noon, 7:30p, 10-11p)

That's 35 1/2 hours per weekday the 4 local newsrooms in town have to try to fill
 
skiwest said:
That is the problem with Fox 8. They have way too much time to fill. Weather segments every 5 minutes that tell us nothing drives me crazy. That is why I opt for a half hour newscast, usually WKYC.
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At 10PM, I've been watching 19 News as Fox 8 is getting stale and too repetitive. But unfortunately, with an hour for both there is going to be some repeated stories as well as fluff.
 
News programs offer stations almost unlimited commercial avails, unlike network and packaged programs. And news is still an easy sale to sponsors and they get results.
Just because we're a quiet town with not much hard news doesn't matter. Bring on the animal stories!
 
skiwest said:
There is no need for a one hour newscast at 10:00 pm.
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When Channel 43 debuted it in 1988...It was a novelty.

An hour earlier than traditional network newscasts, more "Stories" -- I mean, actual NEWS stories, and enough feel good and filler information to make it worthwhile. However, times change, cable news inflated by 1,000% and the internet also fills us in. Dwelling on a short story with "In the next segment", and "Later on we'll tell you the rest" just doesn't fit into peoples timeframe. Not to mention 15 minutes worth of teaser weather segment's within an hour.

Channel 8 also was trailblazing in the hour long newscast at 6 P.M. in the mid-1980's. Just not worth wasting an hour (Or more with 5, 4, 3, 7, 7:30 local newscasts) and the other endless variety of television out there. (I'd rather watch a 40 year old "Let's Make A Deal" rerun. )
 
MediaLover said:
There's also no need for an hour long newscast on 43 at 11am. Not to mention an hour long newscast at 3pm, 4pm, and 5pm.

I miss the days of 19, 43 and 55 offering decent comedy blocks.
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I guess those went to the diginets exclusively.......Sadly.

In cable T.V.'s earlier offing's I actually found WTBS and WOR to be more enjoyable than some of the "formed for cable/satellite only" original networks.

I'd settle for an early afternoon "Prize" type "Movie" or Two hour block of cartoons from 3 to 5 p.m. The earlier would be a lost cause to google searches and wikipedia. Also enjoyed the lighter sitcoms from 6 p.m. to 8 on WUAB, back in the day.
 
Over the years the Northeast Ohio area population density has changed. Cleveland lost a lot of people and it seems the news is struggling to keep up. Less people means less crime, stories of interest, etc. People have moved out of Cuyahoga county to the surrounding counties. The stations used to have bureaus in Summit county but that no longer seems to be the case. [Except for WEWS which has a "partnership" with the Akron Beacon Journal....which I think just involves them calling them and asking "Anything juicy happening down there?" Then there's the fact that there is so many more channels to watch. The days of the "Big 3" [then 4 when Fox started] are long gone. The advertising dollars only stretch so far. If it wasn't for all the lawyer/pawn shop/boner & other pill pushers/car delears and the "As Seen On TV"-but wait, not for much longer due to "supply chain issues" [meaning," we haven't paid our manufacturers so they're cutting as off" and we gotta come up with new names for our junk]--I thimk the would have turned off the transmitters long ago.
 
Santa fe said:
News programs offer stations almost unlimited commercial avails, unlike network and packaged programs. And news is still an easy sale to sponsors and they get results.
Just because we're a quiet town with not much hard news doesn't matter. Bring on the animal stories!
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Some residents of Cleveland and the county might disagree that we're a "quiet" town as there are many crimes not covered but of course, the Deshaun Watson saga needed daily coverage for some time thanks to the I (Idiots)-Team as it's currently constructed.

The county issues with the jail and building a new one are two stories that need more coverage but you don't see much if anything on that.
 
MediaLover said:
There's also no need for an hour long newscast on 43 at 11am. Not to mention an hour long newscast at 3pm, 4pm, and 5pm.

I miss the days of 19, 43 and 55 offering decent comedy blocks.
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The funny thing was, when 19 first switched to CBS, they didn't want to do news, and were gonna have sitcoms leading up to the CBS Evening News at 6:30p. It was CBS who nudged (elbowed) them into having newscasts.
 
vjm said:
The funny thing was, when 19 first switched to CBS, they didn't want to do news, and were gonna have sitcoms leading up to the CBS Evening News at 6:30p. It was CBS who nudged (elbowed) them into having newscasts.
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WOIO originally intended to air CBS Evening News at 7pm after an hour of Roseanne reruns, but committed to running it live at 6:30 p.m. It was a stopgap; they intended from the get-go to set up a local news service, hiring WJW news director Phyllis Quail to assist in assembling an operation. CBS even publicly expressed support for WOIO after the switch.

In fact, WOIO had been interested in a news department as early as 1992 (pt 2), with their interest intensifying in March 1994 after WXIX’s newscasts in Cincinnati debuted to strong ratings for Malrite. Fox, especially then-President (and WKBF alum) Lucie Salahany, pledged to support WOIO’s efforts. But then New World happened.
 
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VintageMac said:
Some residents of Cleveland and the county might disagree that we're a "quiet" town as there are many crimes not covered but of course, the Deshaun Watson saga needed daily coverage for some time thanks to the I (Idiots)-Team as it's currently constructed.

The county issues with the jail and building a new one are two stories that need more coverage but you don't see much if anything on that.
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Deshaun was more of a "sports" thing and since it involved The Clowns.......errr, Browns, the had to pull out a 16-alarm coverage of it. Baseball or basketball, it would have been reduced to 4 alarm coverage. If it had been some regular Joe Blow, you wouldn't have heard a peep. And the jail thing isn't "sexy" enough for the news people.
 
vjm said:
Investigative reporter Hannah Catlett is out at WOIO CBS 19/WUAB CW 43 to take a job as a spokeswoman for First Energy.

While we're on the subject, here is a list of the designated investigative reporters at the 4 Cleveland TV newsrooms:

WKYC NBC 3:
Marisa Saenz

WEWS ABC 5:
Jonathan Walsh
Tara Morgan
Scott Noll
Sarah Buduson
Joe Pagonakis

WJW Fox 8:
Ed Gallek
Peggy Gallek
Carl Monday (contributor)
Tom Meyer (contributor)

WOIO CBS 19/WUAB CW 43:
Sara Goldenberg
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WOIO/WUAB has been losing a lot of staff members in recent months, especially on-air.
 
skiwest said:
There is no need for a one hour newscast at 10:00 pm.
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I would like to take a stab in the dark here and say that with cord cutters leaving cable and satellite services in droves -- which also means they are forgoing the cable news outlets -- local TV stations are benefiting from the cord cutters who want live local, regional and national news outside of the Noon, 6, and 11PM hours, and that's another reason why there is so many time slots devoted to news.

Even with the national network and cable news and weather outlets available as side channels on your Roku/Amazon Fire/Apple TV devices 24/7, many of those channels rerun the same broadcasts across multiple hours unless there is some major event happening. So to the local channel's defense, they probably inherit viewership from the growing number of cord-cutters and are capitalizing on it.
 
Jeff Tanchak is now celebrating 20 years at WOIO and WUAB. He is currently one of the few staffers to remain at the stations from the "Action News" hey day.
 
MediaLover said:
Jeff Tanchak is now celebrating 20 years at WOIO and WUAB. He is currently one of the few staffers to remain at the stations from the "Action News" hey day.
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Wasn't management going to dismiss him shortly after the rebranding to Cleveland 19 News in 2015, but then changed their minds after viewers found out and complained?

Harry Boomer is also still at WOIO/WUAB, and is probably the only on-air reporter left who's been with the stations prior to the Action News branding in 2002.
 
snowdog88 said:
Harry Boomer is also still at WOIO/WUAB, and is probably the only on-air reporter left who's been with the stations prior to the Action News branding in 2002.
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Harry joined WUAB in 1989 and WCPN 90.3 in 1991. He's been at 19/43 continuously since late 1995 and exclusively since 1997.
 


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