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WDEL News: This morning's lead stories all ran yesterday afternoon

6

650AM

1-2-3.... Each of the top three stories on WDEL news this morning were ones Alan Loudell was reading yesterday afternoon!:

1) Dover Air Force Base story with Chris Coons audio cut [exact same story & cut!];
2) Dover Downs trash story [exact same story and cut]); and 3) "Interesting trash found along the beach" story.

Is there any recognition within WDEL that this is quite a turn-off to listeners? Or, do you have stats showing that PM drive listeners won't be listening the next morning, so they won't know the difference?

This sounds just awful. Gee, if you must run the same stories the next day at least give us a break and prepare alternate versions of them.
 
I noticed Allan reading the same word for word story with same sound this afternoon that I heard him read during the noontime report too. I'm sure they must be writing more than one version of the stories as that was what Allan had us doing at WILM back when we both worked there. I realize Loudell is not in charge at WDEL, but Chris Carl is a pro and it would surprise me if he wasn't requiring a few versions too.

Unfortunately for a news station in Delaware, our state doesn't have that much news being generated here each day, so you can be in a bind to find a new news item. That, however, gives the reporters (in this case at WDEL) that opportunity to expand and go into more details in the later versions that weren't covered in the original versions due to the time restraints in a radio news story.

At WILM back then, even on the weekends, we'd go back and update those older stories from the morning with any new info, etc, so even though it was the same story, it had new info different angle, using other parts of the sound that didn't get used in the original versions, etc.
 
Right you are, Mike.

As I understand it, there whould typcially be three versions of each news story, two with an audio cut, and one "dry" version without. The fact that Alan was reading a story in the afternoon that he had read at noon doesn't bug me as much as WDEL using the identical three lead stories for morning drive that had been read the previous afternoon. Obviously, there is not enough time or money at WDEL for the news staff to produce more than one version of a given story. I just don't understand.
 
You are correct. That is what we did at WILM and I'm sure WDEL is doing that too or some variation of that. But those other issues you mentioned in your original post, someone like Chris Carl from WDEL would have to address that.
 
To be fair, I have been noticing the same repeat pattern on KYW this week. Either we are listening to the news more or its basically a slow time.
 
When I worked at WGMD the news people wrote multiple versions of each story, and rotated them. It's not that difficult to record two versions. It would sound more professional if they would record fresh versions for the next morning, but I guess they new breed of "reporters" doesn't have the fire in the belly like it used to be. WDEL does a good job, better then they need to considering they don't have any competition, but it could be better with a little more work.
 
ka3kza, I don't think it is up to the reporter's discretion in this case. It is obviously a management "time saving" decision. It is also, in my opinion, a short-sighted one because the shallowness of the coverage shows QUICKLY when the same version of the same story is repeated throughout a complete morning or afternoon drive OR then the next day. Lets just see if the same "Bill Cosby in Wilmington" story runs on Thursday morning that ran all Wednesday afternoon!
 
I was at WDEL back in the day when a live writer was in place until midnight. When there was no game, live news reports aired at the top of the hour. You wrote fresh news to use til midnight. Two versions of the toh news ran overnight. Now, I doubt if anyone is there after 7 or 8pm. So when you get to the station in the morning, there is little fresh news. There isn't even an extra writer for the FM news.
 
Hi guys.

Just wanted to clear up some misinformation/misconceptions:

Our stories generally have an 18 hour life span on air (hitting both drive times) and 24 hours on the web. Yes, we have “stats” that show our AM audience is different than our PM audience. But even if we didn’t, the market doesn’t have enough news and we don’t have a large enough staff to make PM drive totally different than AM drive. And just because a story ran in PM drive doesn’t mean it’s still not news the next morning. With that said, we do have reporters covering nightside meetings (Wilmington and Newark City Council, NCCo Council, school boards and general assignments) that we often DO have new stories in the morning. Every day? No.

There has been no “management ‘time saving’ decision” to write fewer versions of stories. Reporters write two versions of each story – sometimes three if the story is big enough. We’ve been doing that since Todd Hallidy was news director (which is where I came in) and probably longer than that.

Do some stories run more often than others? Yes. Do some stories get run into the ground before they’re dead? Yes. Factors include how many different stories there are to cover/write in one day and staffing levels (sick or vacation days). Would it be nice to write a fresh lead/version of stories for later newscasts? Obviously, and we try to do that when possible.

Frank Gerace works each weeknight until at least 10pm, usually Midnight or longer. He is anchoring live newscasts at the top and bottom of each hour while he’s here (when there’s no game) and writing new stories. In fact, Frank probably writes more stories than anyone on the staff.

(From another thread), Mike: I don’t mind getting feedback from you guys. I just wish we didn’t have to air dirty laundry on a public message board. Feel free to contact me any time. E-mail is best – [email protected].

Hope this helps. As always, thanks for listening!
 
That is great news that you still have Frank there until 10pm or later. Frankly, as early as I hear him on somedays, I figured he was out of there earlier.

But one important point is the fact there often is not that much going on. Allan gets a break in that he covers a lot more national/international news than would be fitting for morning drive.
 
Thanks Chris for the rest of the story.

Sure, be glad to email you directly, thanks for your email address.
 
Better than announcing news that we all heard days ago, as if we were all in the dark and didn't read.
 
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