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How are the news ratings for WANF and WUPA

B

BarryATL

We are a few months in with WANF becoming a mostly news independent and WUPA starting up CBS News Atlanta. Anybody in the know have an update on how they are doing in the ratings?
 
If Wikipedia is to be believed, WUPA's ratings per households tripled with the joining of CBS while WANF still faces an uphill climb. Their 11 PM news drew only 6,400 viewers during spring sweeps; nothing of recent has been noted in regards to ratings.
 
Im disappointed the roku app for CBS news that airs the newscasts from every O&O still does not do it for CBS Atlanta. I have wanted to watch since it launched but Im now in the Greenville market.
 
I went to school for meteorology and wanted to be on the broadcast side. Fast forward 25 years and of course, I do something else. All that to be said, I watch a lot of broadcast meteorologist across the country during severe weather. I focus on style (how well do they know the community they serve including the small towns; how good is the technology they are using; etc). CBS Atlanta is all about presentation on the weather. Not necessarily the science behind it and outside of 285, I'm not so sure they can properly pronounce towns. The presentation is all new age and cool but it's hard for me to even know what I'm looking at and I'm sure the same holds true for the average viewer. I think the whole 3-D approach is a bit too much. I can't even tell what in the world I'm looking at.

For Atlanta, I flip between 2 and 5 for my severe weather coverage. 11 comes in close but all the others are an after thought.
 
acheron1982 said:
For Atlanta, I flip between 2 and 5 for my severe weather coverage. 11 comes in close but all the others are an after thought.
Click to expand...
I trust WSB-TV, however, I have to give ANF credit. When there is a weather event, they have the MOST reporters in the field. Now, those reporters really don't know the metro or North Georgia, the mispronounce names (geeze do they mispronounce names) and just don't come across as they really have anything to say. I feel like I am watching a small town news organization that had a budget to add 20 reporters but all are of a Hattiesburg, MS caliber.
 
acheron1982 said:
I went to school for meteorology and wanted to be on the broadcast side. Fast forward 25 years and of course, I do something else. All that to be said, I watch a lot of broadcast meteorologist across the country during severe weather. I focus on style (how well do they know the community they serve including the small towns; how good is the technology they are using; etc). CBS Atlanta is all about presentation on the weather. Not necessarily the science behind it and outside of 285, I'm not so sure they can properly pronounce towns. The presentation is all new age and cool but it's hard for me to even know what I'm looking at and I'm sure the same holds true for the average viewer. I think the whole 3-D approach is a bit too much. I can't even tell what in the world I'm looking at.

For Atlanta, I flip between 2 and 5 for my severe weather coverage. 11 comes in close but all the others are an after thought.
Click to expand...

I’ve lived in Atlanta for 20+ years and have no idea what I’m looking at most of the time during their weather coverage.

The map on the floor of the studio with a meteorologist standing on it, shot at an angle with a moving overhead camera isn’t easy to decipher. It may work in coastal markets where the coast is easy to identify, but not an inland market like Atlanta where the map is all land and county lines.

In the past, both Brad Nitz and James Spann have cited a study that over 50% of people can’t identify their county on a map. I imagine that stat is over 95% of people looking at a CBS Atlanta map during one of their weathercasts.
 
BoboKnight said:
I’ve lived in Atlanta for 20+ years and have no idea what I’m looking at most of the time during their weather coverage.

The map on the floor of the studio with a meteorologist standing on it, shot at an angle with a moving overhead camera isn’t easy to decipher. It may work in coastal markets where the coast is easy to identify, but not an inland market like Atlanta where the map is all land and county lines.

In the past, both Brad Nitz and James Spann have cited a study that over 50% of people can’t identify their county on a map. I imagine that stat is over 95% of people looking at a CBS Atlanta map during one of their weathercasts.
Click to expand...
And Georgia has 159 counties, many of them very small. It's confusing.
 
acheron1982 said:
I went to school for meteorology and wanted to be on the broadcast side. Fast forward 25 years and of course, I do something else. All that to be said, I watch a lot of broadcast meteorologist across the country during severe weather. I focus on style (how well do they know the community they serve including the small towns; how good is the technology they are using; etc). CBS Atlanta is all about presentation on the weather. Not necessarily the science behind it and outside of 285, I'm not so sure they can properly pronounce towns. The presentation is all new age and cool but it's hard for me to even know what I'm looking at and I'm sure the same holds true for the average viewer. I think the whole 3-D approach is a bit too much. I can't even tell what in the world I'm looking at.

For Atlanta, I flip between 2 and 5 for my severe weather coverage. 11 comes in close but all the others are an after thought.
Click to expand...
CBS ATLANTA weather presentation is horrible. The 3D presentation while they use and look down at an iPad is just ridiculous.
 
If I had to watch an "all graphics" weathercast the Weather Channel does OK in my opinion. The carrying around the IPad is distracting. I will give Johnathan Stacy credit on channel 5 for accuracy. 46 weather at times has shown it's competitive.

IMHO 69's news set needs some content. It does take time to build local news connections.
 
There’s currently massive flooding in downtown Atlanta with I-75/85 shutdown. WSB, Fox 4, 11Alive, and WANF are all covering it as breaking news with multiple reporters.

CBS Atlanta isn’t. They are airing a normal newscast. The only mention of the flooding was towards the end of the weather segment and during their regularly scheduled traffic reports. Their only video was from DOT cameras.
 
Supposedly this set of graphics is at all the CBS O&Os. I can only guess building a giant green screen room is the future. Some of the movie studios use them. Also in the long run it will be cheaper, no furniture to replace when you get a "new set".

As best as I can tell both 46 and 69 make the studio anchors stand up all the time. I don't watch either newcast enough to verify so I might have missed a segment where the studio person actually sits behind a desk. I worked two "stand up" operations on the 1970's. There was a stool available but usually I stood up for 4 to 6 hours.

Since the accessibility laws started to really take effect in the late 1980's, I haven't seen a "stand up" radio studio. The way things are going I might not see a new radio studio in the future.

I will state the obvious again. It's not fancy sets or graphics, IT IS CONTENT.

IMHO: 69 or any new news department needs at least a couple of years to develop local contacts. I will wait at least 2 or 3 years before I criticize. Even if you start grabbing talent (on or off camera) for the other ATL stations, I believe the existing news operations have lengthy non competitive clauses in their contracts so it will take time if you went that route.
 


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