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New cbs4/upn38 nd

F

fatbastard

Guest
If anyone cares, 4/38 has promoted Jennifer Street from interim to fulltime news director today. The only interesting point here is that all 5 local TV news departments in Boston are now managed by 5 women :

25 Lisa Graham
5 Coleen Marren (former 25 nd)
7 Linda Miele
56 Pamela Johnston
4 Jennifer Street

Also good news for 4 is that they're finally moving dr.phil back to 3pm in
early jan. he has been getting hammered by oprah's monster lead-in for 5's news at 5pm. Poor bastard. 4 will fill 5-6 hour with local news. More Josh at 5. More local news choices at 5 : 25,4,5,7. and there's god awful necn.
 
> Also good news for 4 is that they're finally moving dr.phil
> back to 3pm in
> early jan. he has been getting hammered by oprah's monster
> lead-in for 5's news at 5pm. Poor bastard. 4 will fill 5-6
> hour with local news. More Josh at 5. More local news
> choices at 5 : 25,4,5,7. and there's god awful necn.

Do you know if they're cutting the hour of news at 4? It would leave 7 as the only game in town. If they're leaving the hour, they must know that the 2.5 hours of lousy news on 4 would be no match for the 2.5 hours of the so-called tabloid news on 7.

Also, does Oprah have some sort of contract with Channel 5, or is it on a year-by-year basis? Last time I checked, CBS owned the Dr. Phil/Oprah enterprise. Although corporate must be getting big bucks from WCVB, would/could they ever move Oprah to Ch. 4? Dr. Phil at 3 and Oprah at 4 would have to pack a strong punch for the weak CBS4 News.
 
No, they're not cutting the 4PM news. They are just adding an extra hour of news from 5-6 like there used to be. They will now have a news block from 4pm to 6:30, just like WHDH.

Any word on news anchors? Please don't tell me that it's going to be Josh and Lisa from 5-6:30. They need to promote Jack Williams!!!

Josh may be a nice guy, but he is so boring and plain... Doesn't the station realize that personalities matter again!? Look at cable news. the only successful shows are the ones hosted by successful personalities. Jack Williams is a winner. Ted Wayman is a winner. Josh is no winner.
 
> Do you know if they're cutting the hour of news at 4? It
> would leave 7 as the only game in town. If they're leaving
> the hour, they must know that the 2.5 hours of lousy news on
> 4 would be no match for the 2.5 hours of the so-called
> tabloid news on 7.
>

no, they're not touching the 4pm newscast..yet. that's 2 1/2 hours of boring cbs4news if anyone stand it?! 4 does badly at 4 vs. oprah and 7tabloid. i'd throw anything into the 4-5 hour(game show, court show, reality off-network crap) just stop the bleeding.

> Also, does Oprah have some sort of contract with Channel 5,
> or is it on a year-by-year basis? Last time I checked, CBS
> owned the Dr. Phil/Oprah enterprise. Although corporate must
> be getting big bucks from WCVB, would/could they ever move
> Oprah to Ch. 4? Dr. Phil at 3 and Oprah at 4 would have to
> pack a strong punch for the weak CBS4 News.
>

oprah's syndicator has a longterm deal(thru 2008) with hearst-argyle station group. 5 is part of the h-a empire. 4 used to run oprah when the show first came
on in '86. it's been on 5 since '87.
 
> No, they're not cutting the 4PM news. They are just adding
> an extra hour of news from 5-6 like there used to be. They
> will now have a news block from 4pm to 6:30, just like WHDH.
>
>
> Any word on news anchors? Please don't tell me that it's
> going to be Josh and Lisa from 5-6:30. They need to promote
> Jack Williams!!!

maybe they can switch one of the radio stations to jack-fm and
use him in a promotional campaign...jack here..

nothing yet, but the big buzz in town, aside from lobel facing
permanent shift to weekends, is that the only logical
reason why they'd choose to keep the 4-5 hour and extend it to
a 2 1/2 hour news block so that they could work someone new
into the mix, possibly a new 6/11 team with josh getting likely
bumped up to the 4 and 5 casts. that makes senses, but
that's about it.

>
> Josh may be a nice guy, but he is so boring and plain...
> Doesn't the station realize that personalities matter
> again!? Look at cable news. the only successful shows are
> the ones hosted by successful personalities. Jack Williams
> is a winner. Ted Wayman is a winner. Josh is no winner.

yea, we've been thru this before. josh is locked in for another couple
years. mistake? yes, but viacom doesn't pay people to do nothing all day. they'll use him in different roles. joe shortsleeve was a bigger disaster,
imo. that was two years down the toilet. it killed 4's momentum.
 
a few comments...

1) I actually liked Joe Shortsleeve well enough... better than Josh anyways.

2) Why could Lobel be going to weekends? I thought Merenghi liked him? Who would they replace him with during the week, anyways? Steve Burton is a dufus and Dan Roache still isn't ready for prime time in my opinion.

3) Someone new in the mix... you think they'll hire a new anchor, or move Jack up?
 
A lot of questions remain unanswered:

1. If the "Dr. Phil at 5" strategy has worked so well for other CBS O&Os, why hasn't it done so in Boston?

2. Obviously no-one's ever going to match Oprah's numbers at 4pm, and I get the general sense BZ isn't trying to compete with CVB yet. But with anchor teams as established as Randy Price and Caterina Bandini and David Wade and Maria Stephanos (25's 5pm numbers are actually quite promising), can CBS4 truly compete at 5pm? My best guess is "no," especially now that the evermore popular Heather Unruh occupies that slot at Channel 5.

3. All together now: WHAT ABOUT 11PM?! I get the sense that Marenghi is ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room. CBS's national primetime lineup is the runaway leader, so why do so many people switch to 5 or 7 at 11? Adding an hour of news at 5pm, especially when your predecessor took it off the air in the first place in order to try and better compete is just an attempt at a mea culpa, and it's almost certainly not going to do them any favors at 11.

4. Even if they do put Jack on at 5, 6, and 11, is it really going to help them when local media critics often attack Lisa Hughes as a weak link? (...and Binswanger as an even weaker link!)

---

Max from BTVN
 
> A lot of questions remain unanswered:
>
> 1. If the "Dr. Phil at 5" strategy has worked so well for
> other CBS O&Os, why hasn't it done so in Boston?

because sandwiching him between 4 and 6 casts was an idiotic move.

>
> 2. Obviously no-one's ever going to match Oprah's numbers at
> 4pm, and I get the general sense BZ isn't trying to compete
> with CVB yet. But with anchor teams as established as Randy
> Price and Caterina Bandini and David Wade and Maria
> Stephanos (25's 5pm numbers are actually quite promising),
> can CBS4 truly compete at 5pm? My best guess is "no,"
> especially now that the evermore popular Heather Unruh
> occupies that slot at Channel 5.
>
yes, because they have a 4pm cast which establishes a beachhead. the 4pm cast audience is much smaller than the 5 pm or 6 pm cast and skews more female. but a station that hooks viewers in the late afternoon may be able to hold them into early evening news. that's their strategy now. 7 has been consistent at 6pm. 4 is looking for the same thing - consistency and close the gap between 3rd and 2nd.


> 3. All together now: WHAT ABOUT 11PM?! I get the sense that
> Marenghi is ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room.
> CBS's national primetime lineup is the runaway leader, so
> why do so many people switch to 5 or 7 at 11? Adding an hour
> of news at 5pm, especially when your predecessor took it off
> the air in the first place in order to try and better
> compete is just an attempt at a mea culpa, and it's almost
> certainly not going to do them any favors at 11.
>

cbs is not a runaway leader. they're in dead heat with abc.
what about it? 4 hasn't won an 11pm cast since 1994 and they're not
about to start winning with what they have in-house.



> 4. Even if they do put Jack on at 5, 6, and 11, is it really
> going to help them when local media critics often attack
> Lisa Hughes as a weak link? (...and Binswanger as an even
> weaker link!)
>
>

4 has been 3rd under liz and jack and way before lisa hughes got there.

which local media critics? they're none left. lisa has been on with joe, josh and jack and nothing. time to stop blaming male anchors.

>
> Max from BTVN
 
> 2) Why could Lobel be going to weekends? I thought Merenghi
> liked him? Who would they replace him with during the week,
> anyways? Steve Burton is a dufus and Dan Roache still isn't
> ready for prime time in my opinion.

merenghi likes 'everyone'. he's a sales guy.

> 3) Someone new in the mix... you think they'll hire a new
> anchor, or move Jack up?

anchors, not anchor. yes to the former. they have to look to the
future with new talent, not with what they have in-house.
 
Yay!
Live on 4 returns!
Now, if only they would call it: "Live on 4"...

> Also good news for 4 is that they're finally moving dr.phil
> back to 3pm in
> early jan. he has been getting hammered by oprah's monster
> lead-in for 5's news at 5pm. Poor bastard. 4 will fill 5-6
> hour with local news. More Josh at 5. More local news
> choices at 5 : 25,4,5,7. and there's god awful necn.
>
 
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