NBC Considers Cutting Back Programming Hours in Prime Time

[kfbkfb]

How about licensing the use of the voices of the local news team for use with a text to voice system that reads the latest weather/news/sports from the local station website for 1/2 or 1 hour, the video would just be an image of the website.

With this approach, the local news team doesn't work any more, the station has an up to date newscast and the viewers (mainly listeners in this case) hear the local news team deliver the news.


Kirk Bayne

 

[AbrahamJSimpson]

How about licensing the use of the voices of the local news team for use with a text to voice system that reads the latest weather/news/sports from the local station website for 1/2 or 1 hour, the video would just be an image of the website.

With this approach, the local news team doesn't work any more, the station has an up to date newscast and the viewers (mainly listeners in this case) hear the local news team deliver the news.


Kirk Bayne

This is perhaps the only thing that would make rerunning the early evening news (twice) seem like a good plan. And that was a terrible idea.

 

[kfbkfb]

The affiliate could get creative about showing the image of the station web site though - maybe if it's a story about something evil, they could tilt the image a little (a la the 1966 ABC Batman TV show - the evil lairs were shown with the camera slightly tilted).


Kirk Bayne

 

[davideduardo]

Most crews now are just 3 people.

In some smaller markets, there is just one person in the control room, with either fixed position cameras or mobile ones. In some cases, the anchors do the sequencing of the recorded pieces which the control room person gets "cued up" and ready.

 

[Mediafrog+]

In some smaller markets, there is just one person in the control room, with either fixed position cameras or mobile ones. In some cases, the anchors do the sequencing of the recorded pieces which the control room person gets "cued up" and ready.

With newscast automation you can have just one person running the show, as everything is driven by a preprogrammed sequence/rundown. There might be a second person making coding changes if the newscast rundown is being shuffled while in the air.

There are some situations where the anchors can trigger video playouts and other newscast elements from the set. They are already running their own teleprompter. There is no one else in the studio.

Today there are control rooms where there is no video switcher, as everything is done via the automation GUI.

 

[powers]

In some smaller markets, there is just one person in the control room, with either fixed position cameras or mobile ones. In some cases, the anchors do the sequencing of the recorded pieces which the control room person gets "cued up" and ready.

I was watching a (newer) online news network on my Roku called Ticker News. It's not too bad. Better than Newsnet. I think they are based in Australia but cover all world news. Anyway, I noticed that the female anchor had what looked like a remote in her hand. They were probably doing just this. One anchor triggering events, much like we see weather forecasters doing.

 

[gr8oldies]

I was watching a (newer) online news network on my Roku called Ticker News. It's not too bad. Better than Newsnet. I think they are based in Australia but cover all world news. Anyway, I noticed that the female anchor had what looked like a remote in her hand. They were probably doing just this. One anchor triggering events, much like we see weather forecasters doing.

There are videos online of Cheri Preston doing ABC radio news, and firing all the elements herself (no doubt unlike the "good old days" when there was no doubt an engineer or two running the board). Set up the video clips in the order they are to run and TV shouldn't be different. I remember being the guy running the news tapes, and we had a director who was also technical director, chyron operator, and audio guy, then there was the whole crew running cameras and stringing up mics.

 

[crainbebo]

Changes abounding at NBC. First it's moving a 55-year-old + soap to Peacock streaming, now it's dropping down to 2 hours of regular prime time a night. It's probably coming for ABC and CBS.
If people stream their shows with no set schedule, it makes the OTA stations more useless (well, except for non-stop news and a few local ads for lawyers and car dealers). Albeit, KOVR Sacramento did this for many years...7-10 CBS, 10PM news and 11PM Letterman. KPIX did the same thing in the Bay Area. So it would be like a "KOVR" except nationally on NBC affiliates...

 

[Cool_guy81]

Just in the last few years in Des Moines Iowa WOI 5 (ABC) and KCCI 8 (CBS) expanded their Sunday 10pm newscast to an hour. Starting September 10th of this year (2022) KCCI 8 (CBS) will expand their 10pm News to an hour on Saturday as well.

 

[gr8oldies]

Changes abounding at NBC. First it's moving a 55-year-old + soap to Peacock streaming, now it's dropping down to 2 hours of regular prime time a night. It's probably coming for ABC and CBS.
If people stream their shows with no set schedule, it makes the OTA stations more useless (well, except for non-stop news and a few local ads for lawyers and car dealers). Albeit, KOVR Sacramento did this for many years...7-10 CBS, 10PM news and 11PM Letterman. KPIX did the same thing in the Bay Area. So it would be like a "KOVR" except nationally on NBC affiliates...

I made a trip to Indiana shortly after WISH lost its CBS affiliation and was an independent. Even on a Saturday night it was several hours of news

 

[Kelly A]

With newscast automation you can have just one person running the show, as everything is driven by a preprogrammed sequence/rundown. There might be a second person making coding changes if the newscast rundown is being shuffled while in the air.

There are some situations where the anchors can trigger video playouts and other newscast elements from the set. They are already running their own teleprompter. There is no one else in the studio.

Today there are control rooms where there is no video switcher, as everything is done via the automation GUI.

Technically there is a video switcher. It's just controlled by the automation/rundown.

 

[Mediafrog+]

Technically there is a video switcher. It's just controlled by the automation/rundown.

But there is, in many cases, no longer a switcher panel with hundreds of buttons that could be run manually if the need arose. The “guts” are still in an equipment rack somewhere, but the traditional control panel once operated by a technical director is disappearing.

Video switchers often showed up in science fiction movies as the controls for various spacecraft, and even for the Death Star in Star Wars.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I made a trip to Indiana shortly after WISH lost its CBS affiliation and was an independent. Even on a Saturday night it was several hours of news

I visited my folks for Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving night, we watched the "News" on WISH-TV. They didn't have a sports person that night, so they filled the time normally allocated to sports to drawing and judging hand turkeys. Not kidding.

 

[TheBigA]

I visited my folks for Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving night, we watched the "News" on WISH-TV. They didn't have a sports person that night, so they filled the time normally allocated to sports to drawing and judging hand turkeys. Not kidding.

In my town, the night the sports guy wasn't there, the main anchor read the sports stories. He had fun!

Seems like you can't skip sports. It's usually sponsored.

 

[gr8oldies]

I visited my folks for Thanksgiving this year. Thanksgiving night, we watched the "News" on WISH-TV. They didn't have a sports person that night, so they filled the time normally allocated to sports to drawing and judging hand turkeys. Not kidding.

How in the sam heck can you not have sports on freaking Thanksgiving?

 

[KeithE4]

How in the sam heck can you not have sports on freaking Thanksgiving?

Maybe, now that they're a standalone CW affiliate (they lost CBS to WTTV almost 8 years ago), they didn't have permission to air any highlights. Or maybe they were just running a skeleton staff.

 

[gr8oldies]

Maybe, now that they're a standalone CW affiliate (they lost CBS to WTTV almost 8 years ago), they didn't have permission to air any highlights. Or maybe they were just running a skeleton staff.

Aat the time I referenced they weren't even a CW affiliate. Not having a network would make it difficult to get highlights, but they can affiliate with CNN for news cuts

 

[crainbebo]

How about licensing the use of the voices of the local news team for use with a text to voice system that reads the latest weather/news/sports from the local station website for 1/2 or 1 hour, the video would just be an image of the website.

With this approach, the local news team doesn't work any more, the station has an up to date newscast and the viewers (mainly listeners in this case) hear the local news team deliver the news.


Kirk Bayne

Sounds like a modern version of the news teletext that some stations (like KOMO in Seattle) used in the 1980s during their early AM off-air time. In a perfect world, they could air this all night long instead of stupid infomercials, but infomercials = $$$, and an all-night news ticker does not.

 

[kfbkfb]

IIRC, the 1/2 hour network national news programs are rerun (with west coast updates inserted) 3 hours later for the PT zone, seems like this sets a precedent, the 6P 1/2 hour local news could be rerun (with updates if needed, possibly using a text to speech computer program) 3 hours later.


Kirk Bayne

 

[bpatrick]

No way do I see primetime starting at 7 (ET/PT), regardless of what some stations in the Bay Area
did or do. If you're an NBC affiliate and you've got "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!", are you
going to give those up? Let me lay out what the NBC affiliates in the Raleigh-Atlanta corridor
have:

WRAL 7 PM News/7:30 Inside Edition
WXII 7 PM Inside Edition/Entertainment Tonight
WCNC 7 PM Jeopardy!/7:30 Wheel Of Fortune
WYFF 7 PM Entertainment Tonight/7:30 Inside Edition
WXIA 7 PM Wheel Of Fortune/7:30 Jeopardy!

WXIA would probably kill for something that could beat World News Tonight at 7, but remember
that WNT is on WSB and it's almost impossible to beat WSB in any timeslot. So NBC primetime
at 7 is probably not the answer. And when you come right down to it, I don't see these stations
giving up what they have, nor do I see any anyone else in the Eastern and Pacific time zones giving
back the time. And virtually every NBC station in the Central and Mountain time zones has local
news at 6 (and in a few markets, like Nashville, at 6:30). Sorry, folks, but if the plan goes through,
primetime on NBC is going to be 8-10/7-9 Monday-Saturday; 7-10/6-9 Sunday.