• 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

FOX 44 BTV That's gonna leave a mark!

J

JonOlsen

Guest
Sunday night the 13th, News @ Ten show on Fox 44 Burlington. Ouch! Several Special Reports just before to tease a 3-5 inch snowfall, late fade-ups on sound, tentative story reads with an incorrect detail regarding a crash when setting-up a package, an AP typo read straight-faced, referring to Lake Champlain's "Inland Sear" {uhm that's Sea} and the top lead story was, well I can't even remember it was that weak and I'm writing this 15 minutes later.

To the News producers and Director, hold on to that tape and watch it once a month to remind yourselves how it shouldn't be done and hopefully how far you've come.

The set lighting is better.
 
I do not want to be too harsh because I'm happy for another choice for news in the market and hope that this newscast will improve quickly but Sunday night's broadcast was really difficult to watch. I felt nervous for the news reader. She looked down most of the time like the teleprompter was not working. From a production standpoint, it was awful. I'm surprised that things haven't gotten better. Audio issues have been a problem since the premiere, but honestly I expect much better by this point. I have noticed that the weekdays seem to run somewhat smoother than the weekends. Also, the station did not even run a newscast this past Saturday night. There was no explanation or crawl running as to why. Instead the were running an animated program. I am sure that everyone is trying their best in a challenging situation, but these things need to be addressed or people will not take this newscast seriously or tune in. I have to say that WVNY did a great job when it debuted its new newscast in 1999. It did not have any of these issues. Perhaps this newscast is running with considerably less human resources. Certain people on the air on the Fox 44 newscast are obviously much less experienced than we are used to, even for this market.
 
"Sokath, his eyes uncovered/opened" - understanding/realization
Please pardon the Star Trek/Next Generation reference.

A few minutes after posting my thread the signs were more obvious about a 'prompter meltdown.

Doesn't explain the sound challenges or the AP typo read as-is.

Part of my motivation about these observations is the string of: "now Ch 3 and 5 will have some competition".

Weekend news offerings are tougher, thanks to less experienced smaller staffs and that the more ambitious a producer/director is, the stronger the pressures are on those crew who have to execute. An integral part of the tech set fails: meltdown often follows in our size market. When that gear starts to fail the operator notices and figures the workaround and/or gets it fixed. Teleprompt has a bad day? That's why the anchor asked for their font pt. and style.

Here's the thing: This market has a mostly news driven, old-line operation with very good eqpt. and slow turnover; a tech school for producers and decent equipment (except the the lack of ALC on sound) with a penchant for weather and this new upstart with the research {I'd guess} that around here people would prefer to watch the news earlier, done better in a more peppy style and go to bed.

That's why
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom