It's Not Really Katie's Fault; Put The Evening News Out of its Misery

[kenhawk1160]

Also, big, flashy studios found on a lot of American stations are the exception in Canada. Although plasma screens are now commonplace, most stations still operate local news from very small studios (notwithstanding CHUM). In Ottawa, for example, CBOT has one anchor either behind a desk or standing next to a plasma screen delivering news, all in a small, plain studio; CJOH has its anchors behind a plain desk with the CTV logo on the front, with the Ottawa skyline in the background, and some maple leaf motifs to the sides. Stations in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal tend to broadcast from larger, open concept studios with more screens and views of newsrooms, but are generally far more subdued than American stations. The focus is on the news, not the set (again, not withstanding CHUM). CHUM has tried a more American-style presentation in various markets across Canada, and have failed miserably in almost every case. I'll put it another way. WDIV's "The Power of 4" would never work anywhere in Canada.

The CBC outlet I watched all the time was CBET-TV Channel 9 in Windsor. David Kyle was their local 10pm anchor when I lived in Detroit for four years in the mid-90's. I liked their local news, but as M.J. said, there's not enough local hard news. I think one reason for that is because overall, there's less crime in Canada. I would go on a date and she and I would walk down a dark alley at 3 in the morning and not be afraid of getting robbed. There was no homelessness or "street people", and there's also gun control in Canada. For a population of more than 175,000 people, it's a very safe city. I remember then-mayor Mike Hurst going on TV regularly and always having an upbeat positive attitude about his city and his country. I think you have to create human interest stories just to fill time.

The down side...the media is for the most part, government controlled. This, I'm sure has an impact to some degree on the amount of national news that comes out of Ottawa. Canada has also had the unfortunate reputation of having one of the most corrupt forms of government in the Western Hemisphere. I hope it has gotten better over the years.

Fred...to my knowledge, Peter Mansbridge was still doing the CBC national news when I was in Detroit. Proof positive you don't have to be pretty to be an effective journalist. He's not easy on the eyes by any means, but I'll bet every Canadian takes his word as gospel!

For the most part, the CBC is an effective news operation. It's very basic, yet it does the job. A co-anchor, overdecorated set, and a contingency of blow-dried poofs on that same set bantering back and forth is just for show. It's not about show with the CBC. It is what it is.

 

[kenhawk1160]

The public DOES NOT want fluff...they want the real beef. WHy is NBC and ABC still doing relatively well with their newscasts?

Here's the reason. The "real beef" that you've stated in your post has changed among today's viewers. During the golden years of television, up through the early 80's, local and national news was about news. It was not about how an anchor looked on camera, nor was it about sets, but about CONTENT. We've gotten away from that. Nowadays, you make the 2006 American Idol a lead story, and THAT's considered news. We've progressed to the point where news has had to 'dumb it down' by about 150 IQ points just to keep viewers. When most young people say the get their news from "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, it's a grim day indeed!

In writing and advertising, there are three components...to inform, to influence, or to entertain. In the early years, it was about information. Now we've moved to the latter two. It seems like people need to be entertained in order to hold their attention these days. I don't see Canada's news operation catering to that mentality. But when you're state-owned, and profit isn't that much of a matter as it is today, you can do that.

Even when Peter Jennings was THE voice of ABC's evening news, he stayed true to his craft. Must be that Canadian upbringing and all that time he spent in London. Fortunately he had the chance to see how the quality had eroded over the years before he left us. It would make me all the more proud that I was part of the old school, when the content of what you aired mattered more than how it was presented.

 

[fred flintstone]

The public DOES NOT want fluff...they want the real beef. WHy is NBC and ABC still doing relatively well with their newscasts?

And you know this how? Certainly not from audience numbers. More fluff + more blood = more viewers.
Without johns, pimps and hookers are out of business.

Canada's population is about one-tenth that of the US. All of Canada is slightly larger in population than the New York TV market alone. Local television in Canada does not reach what would be major market populations by US standards. Windsor is Canada's 16th largest city, but its population on the Canadian side would not be enough to make it a top 100 market in the US.

 

[mjlarochelle]

Canada's population is about one-tenth that of the US. All of Canada is slightly larger in population than the New York TV market alone. Local television in Canada does not reach what would be major market populations by US standards. Windsor is Canada's 16th largest city, but its population on the Canadian side would not be enough to make it a top 100 market in the US.

Um....

The New York market is 19.7 million. Canada's population is 31.5 million. That's more than 1.5 times bigger.

Here I will compare weekday local programming amounts on English commercial stations in Canada's largest market, Toronto-Hamilton, with a similar-sized American market, San Francisco-Oakland.

Toronto

CBLT 5 - 0.5 hours/day
CFTO 9 - 2.5 hours/day
CHCH 11 - 5.5 hours/day
CIII 41 - 5.0 hours/day
CITY 57 - 5.5 hours/day

Total: 19.0 hours/day

San Francisco

KTVU 2 - 7.0 hours/day
KRON 4 - 9.0 hours/day
KPIX 5 - 5.0 hours/day
KGO 7 - 4.5 hours/day
KNTV 11 - 5.0 hours/day
KFTY 50 - 1.0 hour/day

Total: 31.5 hours/day

Not one Toronto station has local morning news on the weekend, while several of the Bay Area stations do. Local morning news on the weekend is almost unheard of north of the border; I think BCTV is the only station that does it.

 

[fred flintstone]

The New York market is 19.7 million. Canada's population is 31.5 million. That's more than 1.5 times bigger.

The numbers reported for TV and radio markets are 12+ populations. Not total population.

 

[raccoonradio]

Drudge headline--no article linked, but here it is:
>>S.O.S. COURIC: CBS 'EVENING NEWS' PLUNGES TO 7TH PLACE IN TIMESLOT IN LOS ANGELES ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT; BEHIND 'FRIENDS' RERUN, 'KING OF QUEENS', 'MILLIONAIRE'... 1.1 RATING/2 SHARE LOWEST SINCE TAKING CHAIR...

 

[fred flintstone]

Drudge headline--no article linked, but here it is:
>>S.O.S. COURIC: CBS 'EVENING NEWS' PLUNGES TO 7TH PLACE IN TIMESLOT IN LOS ANGELES ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT; BEHIND 'FRIENDS' RERUN, 'KING OF QUEENS', 'MILLIONAIRE'... 1.1 RATING/2 SHARE LOWEST SINCE TAKING CHAIR...

Since Friends is doing better than Katie, maybe the solution is for CBS to scrap the newsroom set and do a coffee shop set. Katie and four or five Ken and Barbie news types sit on a sofa and easy chairs talking and kvetching - not about the news but how their day was in the news business, and how this causes problems in their personal life.

 

[Morgan Wick]

Let's not be so quick to slam our neighbors in the Great White North or their base of operations overseas. I have watched Canadian and British network news before, and I can say that in their newscasts, they broadcast REAL world news. It's not 20 minutes of domestic stories, five minutes of what's happening in Iraq, and then another five minutes for commercial avails, but you get a real feel for what's happening in every corner of the world. The world doesn't end at the Canadian borders, and they don't treat it as such. Canada's audio news network, BN (Broadcast News) is the radio version. Nicely done on both counts.

Part of the difference is Canadian networks don't treat news as a profit center, therefore they can broadcast the news they think people should be interested in, not necessarily what they are interested in.

Why isn't US network news treated this way? Quit trying to get more and more and more ratings, since that's probably a fruitless venture (in this respect getting rid of Schieffer was probably a mistake but some of the non-Katie changes weren't), and simply perform a public service for the public good.

Oh, that's right: "Public service" and "public good" are concepts that have completely vanished from American minds, especially in corporate and political America.

I think I know what the world needs, and it's not an Einstein, Roosevelt, Fonda, or even an Alexander the Great. We need a Plato, or a Muhammad.

PS: If you live near enough to the Canadian border, you wouldn't have needed NWI to get the National; up here, the cable systems carry the nearest CBC station (if you live with a non-Comcast cable system that doesn't carry Versus this is very handy if you're an NHL fan during the Stanley Cup Playoffs). Actually, when I lived in Los Angeles about 12 years ago I think I got CBC there as well.

I didn't even know CBC had any local programming left - it seems like CBC is basically a cable network with a ton of local stations showing it OTA across Canada...

 

[fred flintstone]

Why isn't US network news treated this way? Quit trying to get more and more and more ratings, since that's probably a fruitless venture (in this respect getting rid of Schieffer was probably a mistake but some of the non-Katie changes weren't), and simply perform a public service for the public good.

Oh, that's right: "Public service" and "public good" are concepts that have completely vanished from American minds, especially in corporate and political America.

I think I know what the world needs, and it's not an Einstein, Roosevelt, Fonda, or even an Alexander the Great. We need a Plato, or a Muhammad.

Yup, Plato believed in Guardians, philosopher-kings, an elite making decisions for everybody.

Public service is stuff that doesn't make money.
It doesn't make money because people don't want to watch it.
However, the elite thinks they should watch it.

A free market is the purest form of Democracy.
If people like it, they watch it - and it makes money.
If people don't like it, they don't watch it - and it goes away.
Unless the anti-free choice elite interferes.
Then we have "public service" programming.
Most "public service" programming is little more than free publicity for the elite and their pet projects.

 

[mjlarochelle]

Why isn't US network news treated this way? Quit trying to get more and more and more ratings, since that's probably a fruitless venture (in this respect getting rid of Schieffer was probably a mistake but some of the non-Katie changes weren't), and simply perform a public service for the public good.

Canada emphasizes national news programming too much, at the expense of local programming. Public service is certainly there at the national level, but the lack of seeking profits has been hard on local television. Since they're not seeking profits like American stations, they cut and dumb down local programming as much as possible regardless of the ratings losses, just to create an impression of consolidated, "efficient" operations for shareholders. While American stations are working to put as many local hours on the air as possible, Canadian stations are cutting as much as they can. I wouldn't be surprised to see no local programming outside Toronto left in another ten years.

 

[Morgan Wick]

Revisiting a discussion from earlier in the thread:

Easy solution:
Twice a year we adjust our clocks one hour (spring forward, fall back).
One time, Eastern Time Zone moves back 90 minutes; Central back 30 minutes. Pacific Time moves ahead 90 minutes; Mountain 30 minutes. Then set it and forget it. No more time changes. Everybody sees everything at the same time. If anybody wants more sunshine in the summer, set your alarm earlier.

Let news divisions strip program 8 pm to 9 pm five nights a week. Merge the evening news and the magazine shows. Do breaking stories and magazine pieces in the same show. Save money with an ensemble cast instead of over-priced readers like Katie.

If this works, expand to 90 minutes by taking back the 7:30-8:00 time period for network time (prime time access rule exempts news programs).


Canada is a whole different case. No first amendment. The government censors news media (but they always have a good reason), controls broadcasting and operates the CBC..

Something that those who sing the praises of Canada seem to forget.

Only on Radio-Info will you find people who would change the work, social and sleeping habits of Americans just to have a live, nationwide evening news show. ;D

http://www.slate.com/id/2152155/