Is your network affiliated outlet's 11/10PM newscast ready to expand to a hour?

[sandiegoinexile]

Contracts

Is NBC contractually committed to a full season of Leno?  I mean, he did host Tonight for 17 years and is considered an "institution" at the Peacock (in Burbank if not at 30 Rock), no?

I believe that Jay has a two-year contract. If NBC cancels his show, he still gets a huge payout. Conan's contract allows them to show him the door for something in the neighborhood of $40M, which is why Jay was pushed into primetime.

Contracts can be broken, of course, but I doubt either will be headed anywhere soon.

Jay's ratings will stay consistent (consistently bad).  He still runs neck-and-neck with ABC on most nights and costs about a quarter of what a scripted program costs.  His ratings will spike every so often, crater periodically, and rebound. It's not a program that expects a 4.0 demo rating.

Once Comcast buys 51% of NBC, NBC will have even more cable channels and that is the future.  Broadcasting is dead.  Nichecasting is the future.  Oxygen, Bravo, MSNBC, CNBC, Syfy, CI, Sleuth, WeatherChannel, and a few others will become the focus of the new Comcast.

NBC will have 4 hours "Today", four hours of "Tonight", extensive sports programming, and two hours of Prime Time.
NBC needs to fix 8-10PM before worrying about the other 22 hours a day.

 

[sandiegoinexile]

KOVR

That reminds me, will KOVR now actually be airing an hour and 35 minutes of news, as opposed to just one hour?

It's more like 10 minutes of "here's what happened today" news, 25 minutes of commercials/promos/"stay tuned" reminders, 6 minutes of weather, 4 minutes of sports, and 15 minutes of infotaining, consumer-ish, healthcare-ish, what-are-they-saying-on-twitter drivel that has passed for "news" for the past decade or so.

Basically the late afternoon 4PM-ish hourlong news that most cities have, only broadcast at 10PM while NBC shows Jay and ABC shows scripted programming.

Dave starts at 11PM.

 

[DToTheJ]

Re: Contracts

Jay's ratings will stay consistent (consistently bad). He still runs neck-and-neck with ABC on most nights and costs about a quarter of what a scripted program costs.

And let's not forget, a few weeks ago, he actually got beat by a rerun (a rerun!) of a scripted CBS drama!

 

[LKellerIII]

Re: Contracts

Jay's ratings will stay consistent (consistently bad). He still runs neck-and-neck with ABC on most nights and costs about a quarter of what a scripted program costs.

And let's not forget, a few weeks ago, he actually got beat by a rerun (a rerun!) of a scripted CBS drama!

I don't understand why people are so amazed when a rerun of a hit show beats a first run show. Now that people have so many channels to choose from - not to mention DVDs, video-games, and the internet; I'm sure a small fraction of the potential audience watches even a Top 10 show the first time around.

Against Leno, you're more likely to check out that rerun if you haven't seen it. He's on 5 nights a week and he's been around for years. So unless you're a died in the wool Leno fan (a shrinking minority, I'm sure), you're likely to take a pass on his show unless he's got a guest you want to see. Then you're more likely to check out the CBS drama you missed the first time around.

I rarely watch those CBS dramas (basically, I think they're all pretty much alike, and they're dull as dirt), But on the rare occasions I do watch them, they're new to me, right?

 

[PDXREXX]

KSTP In the Twin Cities has an 11pm newscast in addition to its 10pm news which is uncommon
in the Central Time Zone and Jimmy Kimmel is bumped to 11:35pm

 

[searadiofreak]

Why would they want to do this? The affiliates run an hour of news earlier in the day. The whole point of an 11:00/10:00 late newscast is to give viewers a shorter news wrap-up before bed. I doubt most viewers want an hour of news at that hour. And I doubt the networks on the eastern and pacific time zones would want their late programming (particularly Conan and Letterman) shifted to midnight.

KOVR Sacramento is a special case. Even though they're on Pacific time, CBS has allowed them to run prime time programming from 7:00 to 10:00 to counter-program the competing NBC and ABC stations. This allows KOVR to run a full hour of news at 10:00, then start Letterman at 11:00 when the other 2 affiliates are running local news.

As far as I know, KOVR is the only station in the nation that's allowed to do this, and they've been doing it for more than a decade. KPIX San Francisco tried it in the 90s, but CBS pulled the plug on it after a few years.

I haven't been in Hawaii since the 1980s, but last time I was there, they time-shifted everything, and late news started at 9:30 on one affiliate, and 10:00 for the other 2. So Hawaii is also a special case.

Totally agree. Most 11pm newscasts would find disaster by expanding to an hour and delaying Letterman/Conan. Plus, I gotta believe that Letterman and Conan have contracts that would make this very difficult for affiliates. The Leno problem is real. I have nothing to base this on but opinion, but I don't see Leno at 10/9pm lasting much longer than early 2010. Question is, contracts, and flexibility in these contracts, and allowing for all parties to move into better situations is the key. Conan could be the odd man out here, but again, just a guess and an opinion based on no inside knowledge.

 

[JeeperOne]

Well, if KOVR/Sacramento can successfully do it, how about KITV/Honolulu...

http://www.kitv.com/station/21629752/detail.html

This could be the future of your late night newscast coming from your ABC and CBS stations (and NBC affils if they go that route), so move over FOX, CW, and Indies, you just got company.

This might hold true with small town ABC & CBS affiliates where those networks won't sweat it by having Nightline & David Letterman delayed an extra half hour, but I can't see affiliates in large cities doing this.

NBC affiliates OTOH won't be as intimidated as Ed Ansin so kindly demonstrated with WHDH in Boston. In fact, with KUSA being in a neck & neck battle with CBS O&O KCNC 4 (And ABC affiliate KMGH 7 right on their coat tails behind them), it wouldn't surprise me if Gannett pulled the trigger so they could in a full two hours of news between KUSA 9 & sister station KTVD 20 in the 9:00-11:05 PM slot. I mean, it's no like KTVD really needs to broadcast Entertainment Tonight at 9:30 PM anyway because KUSA 9 has it on at 6:30 PM to begin with.

And with KCNC 4 being a CBS O&O, I think it's pretty safe to say that PIGS WILL GROW WINGS before they deviate from network programming. They used to do that when they were an NBC O&O as they didn't broadcast The Doctors soap opera for the last 10+ years of its run & they stopped broadcasting Search For Tomorrow shortly after the move from CBS to NBC (Supposedly due to low ratings in the case of the latter. I know having wrote to the station once).

Just my opinion from Denver.....

Cheers

 

[dave73]

KSTP In the Twin Cities has an 11pm newscast in addition to its 10pm news which is uncommon
in the Central Time Zone and Jimmy Kimmel is bumped to 11:35pm

Chicago's WLS-TV airs Jimmy Kimmel at 12:05am in order to air Oprah Winfrey (repeats the same day episode in that timeslot). Oprah has been on at 11:05pm for several years. I don't know what WLS-TV will put in that time slot once Oprah ends her talk show in 2011. WLS-TV does air Nightline at 10:35pm.

 

[JeeperOne]

Chicago's WLS-TV airs Jimmy Kimmel at 12:05am in order to air Oprah Winfrey (repeats the same day episode in that timeslot). Oprah has been on at 11:05pm for several years. I don't know what WLS-TV will put in that time slot once Oprah ends her talk show in 2011. WLS-TV does air Nightline at 10:35pm.

Really? I wonder how they cover up the ABC promos for JKL during Nightline segments. Do they just suddenly cut away to a local commercial or something?

Just curious as to how they handle that.....

Cheers

 

[Markxxx]

Re: Is your network affiliated outlet's 11/10PM newscast ready to expand to a ho

Actually Jay just added more of the same to an already overcrowded field.

He'd have been better trying something along the lines of Ed Sullivan. The could've had acts along the lines of Cass Daley and hired Justin Timerberlake who would bring people in and does a decent job performing.

There's tons of news out there, the stations are too lazy to go find any of it. At least in Chicago, every news channel puts the same stories on only with the order varied. C'mon Chicago has 10 million people in the metro area, they should easily be able to fill up an extra hour of news.

So why did Fox 32 fail, because they just simply entered the market and gave more of the same. Repeating the same news stories the other networks plus WGN news does is just splitting up the pie instead of baking a new one.

 

[gr8oldies]

As far as the promos, if it's anything like my experience with a CBS affiliate, they would have to cover the JK promo with another network (not local) promo.

I don't see anyone in Eastern/Pacific running an hour at 11. More likely in Central/Mountain. We already have an hour long newscast at 10pm.

 

[JeeperOne]

As far as the promos, if it's anything like my experience with a CBS affiliate, they would have to cover the JK promo with another network (not local) promo.

No. The promo occurs just as Nightline takes a break. It doesn't occur during the break itself.

I don't see anyone in Eastern/Pacific running an hour at 11. More likely in Central/Mountain. We already have an hour long newscast at 10pm.

As I said before, if ANYONE here in Denver does this, it would be KUSA 9. In fact, I can see them doing something like this with 9NEWS before too awful long.....

9:00-10:00 PM KTVD 20 (The co-owned MyNetwork TV affiliate sister station, which currently has 9NEWS from 9:00-9:30 PM with a rerun of Entertainment Tonight at 9:30 PM. This would give them a much better chance of competing against KDVR 31, which owns the 9:00 PM news war since they started just a few years ago)

10:00-11:05 KUSA 9 (I seriously doubt NBC is going to have a cow or threaten to pull affiliation or balk like they did with KMGH 7 back in 1995 because NBC no longer has the leverage with Conan O'Brien as host of The Tonight Show).

Just my opinion though.....

Cheers

 

[bpatrick]

Re: Is your network affiliated outlet's 11/10PM newscast ready to expand to a ho

I thought KCNC was the NBC affiliate in Denver
before KUSA. Would it have been CBS that had
the problem with KMGH over the scheduling of
Letterman?

I can remember when only two NBC affiliates were
allowed to delay Carson (and I'm not counting the
ones like WMAR, WTMJ, and WSMV that dropped him
for "Thicke Of The Night" or sitcom reruns for a time
in the '80s); for years, KARE Minneapolis-St. Paul and
WVTM Birmingham carried Carson on delay but not
because of expanded local news-- both led into Carson
with sitcom reruns (OK, I think KARE's 10 PM
news might have run until 10:35 or 10:40).

 

[searadiofreak]

In Denver, a rarity...all three big-3's changed affiliation in '95.

KUSA9--ABC to NBC
KCNC4--NBC to CBS
KMGH7--CBS to ABC

Amazing the calls never changed with any of them.

 

[LKellerIII]

In Denver, a rarity...all three big-3's changed affiliation in '95.

KUSA9--ABC to NBC
KCNC4--NBC to CBS
KMGH7--CBS to ABC

Amazing the calls never changed with any of them.

Why would the call letters change? I'm not from Denver, so I'm not sure what the significance of KMGH is...but if your call letters are as great as K-U-S-A, you'd be crazy to change them.

KCNC actually works better for CBS than NBC. Kind of reminds me of KNTV - which became the Bay Area's NBC affiliate in 2002. Perfect call letters, but they actually had those same calls in the 60s and 70s when they were an ABC affiliate.

 

[bg02445]

KMGH=McGraw-Hill, the owner of the station.
KCNC=Colorado's News Channel

 

[bpatrick]

Re: Is your network affiliated outlet's 11/10PM newscast ready to expand to a ho

I'm sure KUSA gets its calls from the fact
that its owner, Gannett, publishes USA
Today. Its sister station in Washington
is WUSA.

I can't think of an example (maybe one)
where the call letters changed on an
affiliation switch; I think WTVK in Knoxville
became WKXT (and now WVLT) and moved
from Ch. 26 to Ch. 8 when it went from NBC
to CBS.

I do remember (citing the network switch I
remember best) that when WSB and WXIA
switched, both stations got a number of calls
asking if it was now going to be WXIA Ch. 2
and WSB Ch. 11 (since NBC had been on 2 and
ABC on 11). Personnel at both stations had to
point out that only the network programming was
going to change, not the personnel, channels,
call letters, or non-network programming. In short,
ABC would move to WSB Ch. 2 and NBC to WXIA Ch.
11. Done and done.

 

[mleach]

KCNC=Colorado's News Channel

and before KCNC it was KOA-TV where thanks to its then-radio partner 50,000 AM radio station 850 KOA stood for "Klear Over America". KOA radio talk show host Rick Barber has brought this up on his program quite a few times in the past.

 

[searadiofreak]

Re: Is your network affiliated outlet's 11/10PM newscast ready to expand to a ho

I'm sure KUSA gets its calls from the fact
that its owner, Gannett, publishes USA
Today. Its sister station in Washington
is WUSA.

I can't think of an example (maybe one)
where the call letters changed on an
affiliation switch; I think WTVK in Knoxville
became WKXT (and now WVLT) and moved
from Ch. 26 to Ch. 8 when it went from NBC
to CBS.

I do remember (citing the network switch I
remember best) that when WSB and WXIA
switched, both stations got a number of calls
asking if it was now going to be WXIA Ch. 2
and WSB Ch. 11 (since NBC had been on 2 and
ABC on 11). Personnel at both stations had to
point out that only the network programming was
going to change, not the personnel, channels,
call letters, or non-network programming. In short,
ABC would move to WSB Ch. 2 and NBC to WXIA Ch.
11. Done and done.

Yeah, I guess call letter changes are quite rare, despite network affiliation changes. And I think there were a lot more of them in the 50's/60's. I just thought that is was odd that all three Denver big-3's changed and kept the same calls. I agree, KUSA is unbeatable. Frankly, I always thought KMGH meant "mile high", but "McGraw Hill" makes more sense!

 

[mjlarochelle]

WGPR-TV in Detroit changed call letters to WWJ-TV shortly after it switched from being an independent to a CBS affiliate in late 1994. It wasn't immediate, but it was less than three years later.

There were a few cases of call letters changing when UPN and The WB shut down, and The CW and MyNetworkTV were launched. Again in Detroit, WDWB changed to WMYD. It seems to me this also happened with the CW affiliates in Pittsburgh and the Bay Area.

Call letter changes tend to be more heavily associated with ownership changes, and in the case of WGPR/WWJ there was an ownership change involved as the station became a CBS O&O.