KDNL Sinclair's St Louis station, no in house local news, lot's of infomercials, it's top rated syndicated show is probably Simpsons reruns
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Lowest budget large market network (not netlet) stations
- Thread starter nomadcowatbk
- Start date
By far the duopoly of WGBA/WACY in Green Bay seems to run on solely enough money to function and not much else more. Journal put money in at at first when they bought it in 2004, but then quickly gave up and let what was a good mid-market news team go off without renewing their deals, which resulted in the Black Spring of 2009 where every one of their syndicated shows had flopped so they ended up running infomercials straight though the afternoon and turned their mornings over to a newscast rerun and Better (after a run of their sister station from Milwaukee's morning show failed; weekend and morning weather comes from Milwaukee also).
They recovered enough to relaunch the morning newscast this year, but they're stuck with a VJ-heavy news team, a newsroom/studio set in a General Steel warehouse whose only "improvements" since 1996 have been a coat of paint, a NBC logo-patterned blind for their newsroom 'background', some flat-screens here and there and a morning news set which fits more in Green Bay Preble High's broadcasting class. Both stations also have no non-network HD capabilities to speak of, and lower-tier syndicated product (not "Comedians Unleashed" and "Cold Case Files" awful, but still pretty down there). The only thing saving them is their high school sports coverage at this point and their WTMJ connection, which is even tenuous because of how tabloid their news product and rabble-rousing their weather has gotten in the last few years.
They recovered enough to relaunch the morning newscast this year, but they're stuck with a VJ-heavy news team, a newsroom/studio set in a General Steel warehouse whose only "improvements" since 1996 have been a coat of paint, a NBC logo-patterned blind for their newsroom 'background', some flat-screens here and there and a morning news set which fits more in Green Bay Preble High's broadcasting class. Both stations also have no non-network HD capabilities to speak of, and lower-tier syndicated product (not "Comedians Unleashed" and "Cold Case Files" awful, but still pretty down there). The only thing saving them is their high school sports coverage at this point and their WTMJ connection, which is even tenuous because of how tabloid their news product and rabble-rousing their weather has gotten in the last few years.
BRNout said:
I would give it to WWJ-TV instead--for the sole reason of being a CBS-owned affiliate with NO local news.
azumanga said:
I think for the last couple years they've had a morning newscast thanks to the Free Press...
KDNL is such a horrific station. ABC should have ponied up the dough and bought KPLR a long time ago, because KDNL is an embarrassment to the network. I think they'd be better off just not airing in St. Louis entirely then giving the impression that their affiliated with such a low rent operation.
I would imagine that WWJ-TV is in a tough predicament. Starting a news operation from the ground-up in a very depressed market like Detroit is quite the daunting task. Still, a major market network-owned affiliate that OWNS an ALL-NEWS AM radio station not doing anything resembling real local TV news at all is ridiculous.
I guess I could nominate WDJT in Milwaukee (CBS 58). Like WWJ, they were one of those stations that CBS switched to during the New World/FOX shakeup in the 90s (though they didn't have to buy it). Ch. 58 was their last resort in the market, after everyone else turned them down (and it could have been a lot worse years later with the notoriously awful Sinclair owning a CBS affiliate on either Ch. 18 or 24). At the time WDJT picked up CBS, they were a bottom-dweller upstart independent that nobody watched. CBS demanded a news department as part of the deal, and Weigel eventually delivered.
Watching CBS 58 news, the newscasts do look a bit chintzy compared to the other three stations' product. There isn't much of a set, it's a desk in front of the newsroom, and that's pretty much it. Graphics and music are a bit loud. High def? Yeah, right!
Even with the limited budget (Weigel's a pretty small company compared to Journal, Hearst and Local TV), their newscast is still pretty decent. Not as sensationalistic and slick as the others. It's basically news/weather/sports and a few features (they do the "Ten at Ten" format). Looks like something one would see in Duluth rather than Milwaukee. And ratings, while at the bottom of the pile, are not bad for what they do and are somewhat competitive, helped no doubt by the CBS prime time lineup that does very well in the market. Needless to say, Weigel has always been good at doing as much as possible with very little.
I guess I could nominate WDJT in Milwaukee (CBS 58). Like WWJ, they were one of those stations that CBS switched to during the New World/FOX shakeup in the 90s (though they didn't have to buy it). Ch. 58 was their last resort in the market, after everyone else turned them down (and it could have been a lot worse years later with the notoriously awful Sinclair owning a CBS affiliate on either Ch. 18 or 24). At the time WDJT picked up CBS, they were a bottom-dweller upstart independent that nobody watched. CBS demanded a news department as part of the deal, and Weigel eventually delivered.
Watching CBS 58 news, the newscasts do look a bit chintzy compared to the other three stations' product. There isn't much of a set, it's a desk in front of the newsroom, and that's pretty much it. Graphics and music are a bit loud. High def? Yeah, right!
Even with the limited budget (Weigel's a pretty small company compared to Journal, Hearst and Local TV), their newscast is still pretty decent. Not as sensationalistic and slick as the others. It's basically news/weather/sports and a few features (they do the "Ten at Ten" format). Looks like something one would see in Duluth rather than Milwaukee. And ratings, while at the bottom of the pile, are not bad for what they do and are somewhat competitive, helped no doubt by the CBS prime time lineup that does very well in the market. Needless to say, Weigel has always been good at doing as much as possible with very little.
FightingIrish said:
I really can't say anything bad about WDJT beyond internal and small things (that it took eons to get on Dish network and one of their subchannels is devoted to a rolling 24/7 real estate infomercial). They've done, much, much better than WWJ and WGBA ever did after the switch, maintaining a news staff with constant stability (their two main male anchors basically launched the news operation), a schedule to be proud of (where 'GBA is content with "Real Housewives" and the dredges of TV game show syndication, WDJT has the Sony game shows and Dr. Oz, and Dr. Phil beginning this fall, and been HD for syndication for the last year), and of course, Weigel uses the market as one big test audience for their successful concepts (WMLW is basically "The U" in Milwaukee, and MeTV and This TV launched here too). Also, WDJT's newsroom produces content for their Spanish Telemundo sister station, so they're one of the few bilingual newsrooms in the country outside of NBC's co-owned NBC/TMD duopolies.
I would have rather seen CBS move to WVTV back then, but their was so much of an ownership mess back then that it didn't work at the time, and the other choice (buy religious station WVCY) would have left CBS in Milwaukee pretty well in the same position as they are with WWJ today with little local content and having to bankroll station upgrades fully rather than have had Weigel pay for the new tower, studios and build-out.
mrschimpf said:
Not knocking Weigel at all. I think they have more heart and ambition than just about any other TV ownership group. They built a fairly respectable news operation from the ground-up and have maintained their personnel. And they bought a few LP stations and turned them into local presences (WMLW with sports, decent syndicated fare and even a 9PM newscast, WYTU with Telemundo and local Spanish-language news). Another full-power purchase (WBME 49) gave them a fourth local station. And of course there's the national subchannel endeavors (Me and This). They do a rather mediocre job of juggling all their subchannels (This and the Shorewest barker should be moved to Ch. 49, rather than bog down the HD signal of 58). But all in all, I like what they're doing.
And I do like their news. Chs. 4 and 6 get a bit heavy on the fluff (Ch. 12 does a good job of avoiding a lot of this). Ch. 58 mostly does the meat-and-potatoes stuff, minus the Hollywood gossip and "dirty dining" 'investigations'. Mostly news/weather/sports (heavy on weather). Who would have thought that would be a niche in this day and age?
CBS on WVTV or WCGV looked good on paper back in 1995 (had Chs. 18 and 24 not declined), but a local CBS affiliate owned by Sinclair would have been a local disaster. Look at many of their other major network affiliates. St. Louis is a joke. The Buffalo FOX affiliate is one of the very few that refuse to air any local news (since they mostly target Canadian border communities and feel they'd rather see syndicated programming). And then there was that News Central debacle a few years back (I though their attempt to turn all those UPN/WB affiliates into a low-rent FOX News was beyond absurd!). Ch. 18 did a newscast (with the News Central bits mixed in) a few years back, and, though one wouldn't expect much from a WB affiliate, it looked like crap compared to the competition.
CBS buying WVCY would have been a mess too (though they likely would have resold that long ago, because we all know that if they weren't interested in building a strong station in Detroit, they certainly wouldn't do it in Milwaukee).
As it turns out, though a CBS station located in the upper UHF stratosphere seemed bizarre at the time (even though it also happened in Detroit and Atlanta), WDJT actually delivered the goods, and then some. Both have been good for each other.
And it looks like CBS58 is upgrading. They redesigned their website, are debuting a new HD-compatible news set on Monday, and will be the last station in the market to do news in HD by September:
http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9310
http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/forums/showthread.php?t=9310
For Your Consideration, I give you, KRON4 San Francisco! A former NBC Affiliate. Currently a MY Network Affil. Station runs on a shoestring budget. They brought VJ's to the Bay Area. Their so called newscast is mostly traffic/weather with paid segments throughout. Junior College level produced newscasts. An embarrassment to be in a large market as the SF Bay Area.
fortmill said:
Much like KDNL, local news is coming next year...courtesy of News 14 Carolina.
Establishing a news department takes time and $, something Sinclair is too cheap to do with a lot of these stations that Fox dumped in the mid 90s. People might watch a show on ABC or cable or another network and then tune to the high rated long established CBS affiliate and then tune to another channel again.
trapper12 said:
Yeah, KRON and Young Broadcasting are pathetic, but not as pathetic as some of the the stations people are reporting on this thread. Large market network affiliates without news departments? I had never heard of such a thing until recently.
KRON runs quite a few hours of news every day. Yes, the delivery has become low-budget due to Young's financial problems, but at least they are a presence.
fortmill said:
Do you know the definition of "large market", or do you not follow directions very well? :
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