National Emergency-Broadcast Network Coverage

[Prescott Joe]

During this National Emergency, there are mostly daily news conferences
held at The White House. These news conferences provide a great deal
of valuable information with the very latest on the Covid 19 pandemic.
ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are not covering these important news conferences.
With more and more people "cutting the cord" and relying on OTA television,
this is a missed opportunity. The ABC, NBC and CBS nightly news "shows"
carry only a fraction of the important information from those news conferences.
Often times, the viewer is left with the wrong impression, misinformation or
worse. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox should have these daily conferences available
to their affiliates and let the affiliates decide whether they choose to carry
them. Of course, as my father would say, "Money is the root of all evil."

 

[TheBigA]

During this National Emergency, there are mostly daily news conferences
held at The White House.

There are also local news conferences from the state governors and major city mayors. What we've seen is an increase in local news coverage by network affiliates. They are pre-empting network entertainment programming in order to present expanded local news coverage. The local information is more useful to the communities of license than the national information. Today the VP emphasized the importance of the state governments, and that the federal government is only meant to serve a support role. So the people are well served by their local TV stations with expanded local news coverage.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox should have these daily conferences available
to their affiliates and let the affiliates decide whether they choose to carry
them.

To the best of my knowledge, this is exactly what is happening.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Yeah, no thanks. I prefer the summaries.

 

[landtuna]

During this National Emergency, there are mostly daily news conferences
held at The White House. These news conferences provide a great deal
of valuable information with the very latest on the Covid 19 pandemic.
ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are not covering these important news conferences.
With more and more people "cutting the cord" and relying on OTA television,
this is a missed opportunity. The ABC, NBC and CBS nightly news "shows"
carry only a fraction of the important information from those news conferences.
Often times, the viewer is left with the wrong impression, misinformation or
worse. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox should have these daily conferences available
to their affiliates and let the affiliates decide whether they choose to carry
them. Of course, as my father would say, "Money is the root of all evil."

KSAZ (OTA ch 10 UHF and 10.2 VHF) have been carrying this hour-long item up until yesterday (3/25) - and 10.2 continues on past 9:45am or so into their news coverage. In addition, their "News Now" program (beginning at 10am) also covers feeds from other appropriate national health professionals.

I sat through the first two and discarded the remainder due to President Coronavirus Expert expounding upon issues he knows nothing about and corresponding bad medical information spewing forth.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

During this National Emergency, there are mostly daily news conferences
held at The White House. These news conferences provide a great deal
of valuable information with the very latest on the Covid 19 pandemic.
ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox are not covering these important news conferences.
With more and more people "cutting the cord" and relying on OTA television,
this is a missed opportunity. The ABC, NBC and CBS nightly news "shows"


carry only a fraction of the important information from those news conferences.
Often times, the viewer is left with the wrong impression, misinformation or
worse. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox should have these daily conferences available
to their affiliates and let the affiliates decide whether they choose to carry
them. Of course, as my father would say, "Money is the root of all evil."

I bet in most states at this point only Cable News is airing White House Press Conferences on the COVID-19. Even OTA's have pre-empted the President because the State Governor has a press conference or the Mayor announced that their respective state or city has declared "Shelter in Place Orders" or "Non Essential Business shutdown order" in their jurisdiction.

https://www.kltv.com/2020/03/26/kilgore-joins-gregg-county-shelter-in-place-policy/



https://abc30.com/health/fresnos-shelter-in-place-order-extended-to-april-12-mayor-says/6045779/

Now the City of Fresno and the State of Montana have issued shelter in place orders. In the case of Fresno they had to update the Shelter in place order to match the state of California orders.
https://www.kbzk.com/news/coronavirus/statewide-shelter-in-place-ordered-for-montana

https://helenair.com/news/state-and...cle_f92d251e-cfe6-5e99-ab9f-0aa9dd433b91.html

 

[TheBigA]

I bet in most states at this point only Cable News is airing White House Press Conferences on the COVID-19. Even OTA's have pre-empted the President because the State Governor has a press conference or the Mayor announced that their respective state or city has declared "Shelter in Place Orders" or "Non Essential Business shutdown order"

The other thing to know is in the eastern time zone, the president's briefing starts around 5:15. That pre-empts the local news. No one with any brains is going to pre-empt local news. Right now, local news is king. It's attracting the big audience. Stations would be wise to pre-empt everything and just do local news all day.

 

[kwthom]

<...>No one with any brains is going to pre-empt local news. Right now, local news is king. It's attracting the big audience. Stations would be wise to pre-empt everything and just do local news all day.

Does market 10 and lower actually have enough of a 'local' news staff to manage the effort this might require?

Yet, where *are* the eyeballs landing? Local news has but a finite amount of time (morning, noon, evening, late night) to tell the stories that matter? Are those eyeballs on-line during the times when they're *not* on-air telling those stories?

With broadcasters hurting for dollars (now that the political wave of income has subsided...), do they really risk it by trying to be wall-to-wall on this story? Days and weeks have gone on - how much longer could they do so and not go broke?

 

[TheBigA]

Does market 10 and lower actually have enough of a 'local' news staff to manage the effort this might require?

If you're a network affiliate in a top 100 market, chances are you have a pretty good local news staff. That's what your station is built around. As I said, they'd rather pre-empt network shows and run local news. From what I can see, local advertisers recognize the opportunity. Online isn't necessarily a source for local news.

 

[davideduardo]

Does market 10 and lower actually have enough of a 'local' news staff to manage the effort this might require?

I am in a market ranked around 125th, and two of the local Big Three network affiliates have good, well staffed news departments (the third Big Three affiliate shares with one of those two stations as it is commonly owned.)

Each of the two competitive news departments has several mobile news vehicles and staff, three or four anchors, website programmers and weather people with college degrees in the subject.

And they all, even now, have waiting lists for news sponsorships.

Their coverage of the Coronavirus has been quite excellent, including actualities from the three major area hospitals, information from local and county authorities, interviews with health providers, ranging from doctors to hospital administrators. They have agreements with Los Angeles stations for the sharing of statewide stories, since we are outside the coverage area of the LA stations.

And both the Univision and Telemundo TV affiliates, each associated with one of the English language TV news providers, does a parallel and excellent job.

Of course, they depend on their network's national coverage for the "rest of the story" but overall, the coverage is quite complete and very well done.

That is a small market. If you look at markets just outside the Top 10 you mention, they are amazingly good at local news... just look at Miami or San Diego as examples of markets where there are several very good news departments that actively cover local news (and in those two cases there are three or four English news operations and two Spanish language once all doing full jobs).

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Does market 10 and lower actually have enough of a 'local' news staff to manage the effort this might require?

Yet, where *are* the eyeballs landing? Local news has but a finite amount of time (morning, noon, evening, late night) to tell the stories that matter? Are those eyeballs on-line during the times when they're *not* on-air telling those stories?

With broadcasters hurting for dollars (now that the political wave of income has subsided...), do they really risk it by trying to be wall-to-wall on this story? Days and weeks have gone on - how much longer could they do so and not go broke?

I am on the border of 2 TV Markets Sacramento and San Francisco and I can tell you that DMA 20 (Sacramento) has a decent sized news staff given that this is the California State Capital region and the TV News staff here has been in the lead whenever they are reporting on statewide efforts to stop COVID-19. Also their reports go to other stations within their chains though such as KCRA News coverage of COVID-19 goes to other Hearst Owned stations around the country, KTXL's news coverage goes to other Nexstar owned stations, KXTV segments goes to Tegna owned stations around the country and KOVR News coverage goes to CBS News directly.

 

[Mgomrjsurf]

Also Stations adding Newscast like KSHB 3pm starting Monday. Another thing I notice is even Fox4kc will break in from Judge Judy for coverage and some times KCTV5 won't when local News in on at 4pm.

 

[Kelly A]

Also Stations adding Newscast like KSHB 3pm starting Monday. Another thing I notice is even Fox4kc will break in from Judge Judy for coverage and some times KCTV5 won't when local News in on at 4pm.

They had better be careful. Judge Judy is a great lead-in to a 4PM newscast. Interruption of that show could be killing the golden egg laying goose. Ellen and Kelly Clarkson probably wish they could get even a quarter of JJ's numbers.

 

[crainbebo]

Family Feud (6:30PM) has been off KNDO for at least several days now so that the eastern WA NBC cluster (KNDU/KHQ) can air a combined Coronavirus update. I have no idea if they have been airing it in late nights, SWX, or not at all. The TV listings have not been updated. KNDO normally airs 3-in-a-row game shows before primetime - Feud/Wheel/Jeopardy!

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/ente...50b5b2-6f8d-11ea-a3ec-70d7479d83f0_story.html

Nightly News coverage

Seeking a path to calmness, some sturdy tone of reassurance? One looks to David Muir, and David Muir’s deep brown eyes look back in that grim but gallant gaze, that familiar flash of intimacy between a viewer and an anchor. (The very word! Anchor. Yes, David, secure me, the way Walter would.)

“Another night of consequential news,” said ABC’s “World News Tonight” anchor, during his litany of the latest pandemic headlines that opened his broadcast Wednesday evening: “The president speaking moments ago . . . Thirteen patients all dead at one New York hospital . . . A mother of a former college athlete . . . the governor of Louisiana now sounding the alarm . . . what it was like to lose her sense of smell . . . unemployment checks . . . and Prince Charles . . . ”

Ratings are way up for these old-school yet stalwart newscasts, helmed by the figurative descendants of Cronkite, Jennings and Brokaw, themselves descended from ancient anchors of television yore. Around 12 million viewers watched Lester Holt’s “NBC Nightly News” last week, reportedly the show’s best ratings in 15 years; Muir’s “World News Tonight” is seeing a similar big boost, with the coronavirus crisis delivering the show’s biggest ratings in two decades. CBS’s “Evening News” is way up too, with viewership last week that beat nearly all of its prime-time shows.

 

[kwthom]

Ratings up for the nat'l newscasts - potentially for those that may not be viewing cable TV, with the 24/7 news on the topic.

Thus, if you're NOT getting the info you're desiring from nat'l newscasts, local newscasts, or by way of local newspapers dropping paywalls for Covid-19 coverage, one might think the story is being covered thoroughly.

Whether or not 'thoroughly' equates to 'well' in this situation will be a matter of debate for those covering the history of broadcast journalism.

 

[WheelRob]

WNBC New York has been repeating NBC Nightly News at 7:30 PM since last week, pre-empting All Access.

WFSB Hartford (CBS) added an additional newscast at 7:00 starting last week, pre-empting Inside Edition.

Starting Monday, KFSN Fresno (ABC O&O) is repeating ABC World News Tonight at 7:30 PM, bumping Wheel of Fortune to 3:06 AM Mon-Thu nights and 3:00 AM Friday night.

 

[bobjim45]

Stations would be wise to pre-empt everything and just do local news all day.

That would be extremely difficult even for the biggest markets, stations are already moving people around, there is little need for traffic and weather updates every 10 minutes for morning newscast for example so stations moved more reporters to morning programs, same with weekend newscasts, its rare to have multiple reporters assigned to the weekend shift a lot of smaller markets have none. A lot of staffers are working from home, its difficult even to get the regular newscast on the air. Soon fatigue factor is going to set in, you got others working very long hours, some will get sick and some parents are working reduced hours or not at all to take care of their children.

Also there isn't many opportunities to ad-lib this kind of story unlike say a weather event or police chase where a weather person can talk 20 minutes about a tornado or a chopper pilot/reporter to what streets the car chase is on. Also, hospitals cant release certain information to the public and media, there are laws that hospitals have to follow.

Stations will continue break into programming to air local, state and national press briefings. We will probably see a small number of stations continue to add a half hour or a hour newscasts in the evenings between 3-8 pm and possibly late night, especially if that time slot is filled with a low rated syndicated program that is in danger to be canceled and stations that air local infotainment type programs might be replace them for news. I cant see stations adding multiple hours of news to its schedule especially when this will be going on for weeks.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

Which is why I think the incremental adds make more sense. An extra half hour or hour here and there with the teams already in place.

 

[WheelRob]

Starting Monday, KFSN Fresno (ABC O&O) is repeating ABC World News Tonight at 7:30 PM, bumping Wheel of Fortune to 3:06 AM Mon-Thu nights and 3:00 AM Friday night.

Turns out this is the case for all the ABC O&O's, though the overnight time slots for WOF vary.

Of course this happens to WOF in all the involved cities but heaven forbid somebody needs to catch Jeopardy! at 1:00 AM for a week...