J
Joe_NE
Guest
WFXT Boston Fox 25 will start their morning news at 4 AM beginning mid July making their morning news show a SIX hour program. More of the same news. Over the last few years FOX 25 has cut staffing both in front of and behind the camera and then piled more work on those who are left. What once was a great (and somewhat unique) morning news show has, in my opinion, become more of filler between commercials. It started a few years ago when they let Doug Mehan go. Doug was the traffic reporter and often entertainment reporter. He did some reports live from the Fox helicopter and did excellent camera work from the air. Great traffic reports, pictures and personality. They took the copter away and had him work in studio then they let him go and had the weather person report the traffic. Now it is the news anchors who read traffic reports with a map and show an occasional copter shot. Saving money and providing less accuracy and entertainment. Oh but now they read the traffic over distracting music.
A few more examples of the money saving moves that detract from the morning news.
They lost more good people like Jim Armstrong and Anquinette Jamison just to name a few and have gone through a number of reporters who don't have quite the quality of the former people. Fewer anchors to fill more hours of news (great idea, right?). VB has been toned down. The news stories are repeated over and over often THREE times per hour in addition to the teases for those stories and the video clips stay the same with each repeat and tease of the story. Many more times when the video doesn't match the story too. Annoying banners and crawls often COVERING the info and items they are talking about or are important to the story.
I know that viewing a morning news show is often limited to 20 minutes per viewer but I used to really enjoy FOX in the morning and could watch it more often than I can now. If I want MORE local stories I have to watch the other Boston stations who carry stuff I never see on FOX. I also understand that over the last few years FOX has made many of their people take pay cuts or they don't renew their contracts. Other positions are paid considerably less than their counterparts at the other stations like WBZ, WCVB and WHDH. If they are going to send a camera crew to the scene they should shoot more video and vary the shots they use. Sometimes they loop the same 10 seconds over and over rather than using additional footage from the same story.
Sorry to rant but I miss the way it was and extending it another 1/2 hour to start at 4 AM makes me feel sorry for all the staff and the viewers. Some of the people are going to burn out they have so much multi-tasking going on. Maybe they will add more staff but that is contrary to the way they have been going. I wonder how long it will last.
A few more examples of the money saving moves that detract from the morning news.
They lost more good people like Jim Armstrong and Anquinette Jamison just to name a few and have gone through a number of reporters who don't have quite the quality of the former people. Fewer anchors to fill more hours of news (great idea, right?). VB has been toned down. The news stories are repeated over and over often THREE times per hour in addition to the teases for those stories and the video clips stay the same with each repeat and tease of the story. Many more times when the video doesn't match the story too. Annoying banners and crawls often COVERING the info and items they are talking about or are important to the story.
I know that viewing a morning news show is often limited to 20 minutes per viewer but I used to really enjoy FOX in the morning and could watch it more often than I can now. If I want MORE local stories I have to watch the other Boston stations who carry stuff I never see on FOX. I also understand that over the last few years FOX has made many of their people take pay cuts or they don't renew their contracts. Other positions are paid considerably less than their counterparts at the other stations like WBZ, WCVB and WHDH. If they are going to send a camera crew to the scene they should shoot more video and vary the shots they use. Sometimes they loop the same 10 seconds over and over rather than using additional footage from the same story.
Sorry to rant but I miss the way it was and extending it another 1/2 hour to start at 4 AM makes me feel sorry for all the staff and the viewers. Some of the people are going to burn out they have so much multi-tasking going on. Maybe they will add more staff but that is contrary to the way they have been going. I wonder how long it will last.
