NBC Considers Cutting Back Programming Hours in Prime Time

[vchimpanzee]

The FCC dropped the ball with OTA signals.

Definitely.

 

[anotherguyTN]

E/I programming of some sort is FCC mandated. Stations must carry at least three hours a week of such programming.

If the E/I requirement was dumped, I doubt that cartoons would return on Saturday mornings. Instead (at least on the East Coast), ABC/CBS/NBC affiliates would probably run two to three hours of local news from 5-8 A.M. or 6-8 A.M., then the Saturday edition of the network morning news shows from 8-10 A.M., then two more hours of local news from 10 A.M.-12 Noon.

And many Fox affiliates may run local news all morning on Saturdays.

Saturday morning cartoons on commercial broadcast networks are dead. News has taken over much of Saturday mornings. If the E/I rule gets repealed, news will take over all of Saturday mornings on major network affiliates.

If E/I is dropped some stations will expand their news but others will fill the time with more infomercials.😡

 

[powers]

If nbc gets rid of the last hour and airs news at 9pm what would they do for KDSM 17. Would they air News at the same time from both channel 13 or would channel 17 have to maybe get their own news team.

In the Monterey/Salinas market (and I assume other markets may do this too in similar situations), KSBW serves as the dual NBC/ABC affiliate with ABC programming on their DT2. They just simulcast the same newscast on both stations at the designated local news times and split off to different syndicated and network programming during other times.

 

[CTListener]

My cousin in Hartford can only get 3 and 30 and 61, and even that is spotty at best.

So they're getting OTA TV, just not every channel. Sorry, no law or constitutional article guarantees access to every signal, nor is that likely to be written into any law pertaining to access to television by minority viewers or anyone else.

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

If E/I is dropped some stations will expand their news but others will fill the time with more infomercials.😡

And so what if they do?

 

[CTListener]

And so what if they do?

They'll make more money. How un-American!

 

[Don CT]

So they're getting OTA TV, just not every channel. Sorry, no law or constitutional article guarantees access to every signal, nor is that likely to be written into any law pertaining to access to television by minority viewers or anyone else.

Getting OTA signals was easier before the digital conversion knee capped it. It almost pointless now when you can get the channels readily available to you.

 

[DarrenVision]

One of the major concerns within the industry is about the group that does not have any subscription service and depends on live OTA servicies entirely. With the current high inflation, there is a belief that we will see an increase in those that have no streaming servicie and no cable either. Some people in the industry have closely held figures on the growth of that group.

Since a significan portion of the unwired group is Black and Hispanic, that puts entertainment services and networks in a position of not wanting to be accused of denial of service to the lowest income Americans.

Personally, I think that such a trend will be met by government provision of basic cable as a necessary service to the community. That will, of course, be met with approval from local OTA TV channels, cable and satellite providers. and, government-wise, it fits with the provision of basic internet to lower income households.

We are looking at a government attitude that takes the concept of providing roads and trash pick-up and other basic services and adds connectivity to the array of things they do for every resident.

Since my least-favored type of business is cable companies, I would not mind seeing government at any level regulating those services much deeper. One of my usual observations when the subject comes up is that even in the lesser developed nations of Latin America, they have much higher speed connectivity at about 20% of the price... and the cable services are generally "a la carte" and if you don't want to pay over $10 a month for the equivalent of ESPN, you can opt out of such expensive cable channels.

u reallized that the FCC dont regulate Cable and Internet content right, compared to Canada u need to be a Canadian citizen to submit a license to run a cable channel. Streaming doesnt have those advantages and qualifications if u went to the regulator, the CRTC. Thats where the Bill C11 streaming act and many other countries trying to regulate streaming, recorded and on demand the same way as broadcast and paytv.

 

[Cool_guy81]

E/I programming of some sort is FCC mandated. Stations must carry at least three hours a week of such programming.

If the E/I requirement was dumped, I doubt that cartoons would return on Saturday mornings. Instead (at least on the East Coast), ABC/CBS/NBC affiliates would probably run two to three hours of local news from 5-8 A.M. or 6-8 A.M., then the Saturday edition of the network morning news shows from 8-10 A.M., then two more hours of local news from 10 A.M.-12 Noon.

And many Fox affiliates may run local news all morning on Saturdays.

Saturday morning cartoons on commercial broadcast networks are dead. News has taken over much of Saturday mornings. If the E/I rule gets repealed, news will take over all of Saturday mornings on major network affiliates.

In Des Moines iowa, WHO 13 began airing a 2 hour Saturday News program when NBC launched the Today Show in fall 1992. KCCI 8 recently began carring Saturday Morning News in like the last 5 years. WOI 5 is the only one that don't have News on Saturday Mornings and instead airs back to back episodes of Good Morning America and before that starts its paid programing.

KDSM and KCWI have other syndicated E/I programming or Paid Programming on Saturdays. Also KDSM don't air the E/I block for 3 hours like most Fox stations and instead airs one a day Monday through Friday at 8:30am with the last one on Saturday mornings.

 

[genius]

Hate to break it to some still in denial, but Saturday morning cartoons are not coming back and even if they had a mini comeback the viewership just isn’t there as even cartoon cable networks are struggling. Saturday morning cartoons pretty much went the way of weekly made for TV movies on broadcast, game shows and daily soap operas. Kaput and/or evolved into something different.

I imagine if NBC goes through with this cutback and is successful with it, we’ll still end up with posts ten years from now saying “Why NBC needs their third hour back!!!” Sometimes that is just how the cookie crumbles folks.

 

[KeithE4]

Hate to break it to some still in denial, but Saturday morning cartoons are not coming back and even if they had a mini comeback the viewership just isn’t there as even cartoon cable networks are struggling. Saturday morning cartoons pretty much went the way of weekly made for TV movies on broadcast, game shows and daily soap operas. Kaput and/or evolved into something different.

Classic cartoons that we watched on the local kids shows 50-60 years ago are either available via DVD or YouTube (prewar and wartime cartoons that are now falling into the Public Domain).

 

[TheBigA]

Classic cartoons that we watched on the local kids shows 50-60 years ago are either available via DVD or YouTube (prewar and wartime cartoons that are now falling into the Public Domain).

I spent a few days with my 2 year old nephew and Disney Jr. is way too slow for his attention span. He watches his mom's phone and cycles through about 30 seconds of various YouTube videos. He watches for a bit, smiles, and then hits "next." Very tough critic.

 

[davideduardo]

How many of those households can even pick up an OTA signal.

Most of them. They are lower income in larger cities. The only issue would be an outside antenna, but most cities require that in apartments.

Urban Areas Facts

Counts and percentages of various characteristics of urban and rural areas in the United States, Puerto Rico and the Island Areas.

www.census.gov

80% or more live in urban areas. Rural residents may live in substandard housing, but they can put up an antenna fairly easily.

 

[TheRob]

Stations are stretched thin as it is. Sure, add another hour of local news. Watch more exhausted workers walk out the door. Managers at NBC affiliates should be thankful someone decided to leak the story to the WSJ. They have a year, potentially, to figure out how to make job candidates appear out of thin air.

 

[kfbkfb]

I live in the USA central time zone. Maybe the affiliates needing to fill the 9P to 10P hour could just rerun their 6P to 6:30P newscasts (twice), here some of the local affils (IIRC, KCTV) rerun their 10P to 10:35P newscasts at about 2AM for the 2nd shift workers.

Or, something more dramatic - multiple major network affiliations on a single station, then 3 hours of prime time could easily be filled by selecting which of the 6 hours (ABC,CBS,NBC) 7P to 9P (future?) shows would be used to fill 7P to 10P.


Kirk Bayne

 

[KeithE4]

I live in the USA central time zone. Maybe the affiliates needing to fill the 9P to 10P hour could just rerun their 6P to 6:30P newscasts (twice), here some of the local affils (IIRC, KCTV) rerun their 10P to 10:35P newscasts at about 2AM for the 2nd shift workers.

Or, something more dramatic - multiple major network affiliations on a single station, then 3 hours of prime time could easily be filled by selecting which of the 6 hours (ABC,CBS,NBC) 7P to 9P (future?) shows would be used to fill 7P to 10P.


Kirk Bayne

News can happen between 7/8 and 9/10 PM, even if there's only two hours between the newscasts. It's less likely between the end of the late newscast and a 1 or 2 AM rerun.

 

[kfbkfb]

Although - the local TV affil web site personnel do currently provide weather/news/sports info updates outside of the times when the live local newscast is OTA, maybe just promote the website for the latest info during the local news reruns.


Kirk Bayne

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

I live in the USA central time zone. Maybe the affiliates needing to fill the 9P to 10P hour could just rerun their 6P to 6:30P newscasts (twice), here some of the local affils (IIRC, KCTV) rerun their 10P to 10:35P newscasts at about 2AM for the 2nd shift workers.

Or, something more dramatic - multiple major network affiliations on a single station, then 3 hours of prime time could easily be filled by selecting which of the 6 hours (ABC,CBS,NBC) 7P to 9P (future?) shows would be used to fill 7P to 10P.


Kirk Bayne

No self respecting network affiliate is going to rerun news in primetime to lead in to a scheduled newscast. The middle of the night is one thing, this is something totally different and simply not practical.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Stations are stretched thin as it is. Sure, add another hour of local news. Watch more exhausted workers walk out the door.

Most of the time in a newscast is filled by reporter packages, weather, sports and ads. Putting an anchor or two in front of a teleprompter for 18 minutes out of an hour is hardly exhausting.

Some of the behind-the-camera crew may have a better case than the on-camera people.

 

[Don CT]

Most of the time in a newscast is filled by reporter packages, weather, sports and ads. Putting an anchor or two in front of a teleprompter for 18 minutes out of an hour is hardly exhausting.

Some of the behind-the-camera crew may have a better case than the on-camera people.

Most crews now are just 3 people.