What needs to be fixed in television news most?

[imhomerjay]

You can do that now, it's called the Internet.

 

[KeithE4]

That would work about everywhere. Some stations that have three hours of news is rediculious. They constantly repeat the same five or six stories. Everything you need to know, you can see in the first block of a newscast.

They get viewers. They get advertisers. They make money. If they didn't, we'd be watching The Six O'Clock Colon Blow Infomercial instead. ;D

In an ideal world, the newscasts would be 30 minutes each at 5, 6, and 10/11, with the fluff segments moved to separate programming before and after. But that isn't what the public apparently wants.

And, in that same ideal world, those 30-minute newscasts would be 25 minutes of real news, 5 minutes of sports - all local - and a 2 minute weather forecast with a mention of their 24/7 weather on the .2 channel. Emphasis would be local. I can get the national news from the networks, out-of-town scores on SportsCenter or one of many websites (and even on my phone), and a more detailed weather forecast on the aforementioned .2 channel. Those things are not necessary on a local newscast anymore.

But emphasizing hard news is a recipe for disaster. Folks won't watch. Period. It's been tried and it's failed (most infamously at WBBM-TV Chicago several years ago). We get what we get because we don't live in my ideal world, and the stations know what will get ratings and advertisers better than I do.

 

[KeithE4]

As I see it, the "Numbers-driven, Advertiser-supported" newscast can't survive.

It's not going away anytime soon.

Although many of your viewers would like to get more detail about a particular story, the fear is that other viewers, who have no interest in that particular subject, will tune out. So, we get the same old "ten-second soundbite", and go to the next subject...hopefully, before the dis-interested viewer can reach for the remote.

I wish there was a way to create "sidebar" information to go with a story. Give us a way to grab background information, and more in-depth reports, without it intruding on the story for the "don't care about this" crowd.

Perhaps a way to "shop" for more information on a story, by pressing a button on your remote during the story. That would start a DVR-like device that would download, bit-by-bit, background information that relates to the story. This data could be sent out during the less bandwidth-intensive parts of the newscast (the "Talking Head" shots, where there is little motion), and your DVR-like recorder would assemble them in to a package, for later viewing. Since it's not strictly "broadcast", it could be anything from a jpeg, to a text file, to a PowerPoint, to full video and audio. It would trickle in to the recorder's hard drive, and be available for viewing later. That way, advertisers wouldn't be able to complain that we "took viewers away" from their spot, since the viewing is not done in real time.

A station's website is ideal for this. They can include longer print stories as well as longer and more detailed video clips. That, of course, would make the TV station's website and that of the local fishwraps pretty much one and the same.

 

[gr8oldies]

Three hours of local news is not ridiculous if you factor in that viewers are in and out during those three hours. No one (or nearly no one) is sitting with rapt attention to the TV screen. They're fixing dinner, helping the kids with homework, etc. The longer newscast is just more opportunity for viewers to catch those headlines at various times.

 

[kenglish]

How many stations' websites do any more than re-print and re-peat the same short-form stories that already aired? If anything, they give exactly the same information. At the least, they truncate the story.

Plus, if we concentrate on ONLY "driving them to the website", what is the purpose of being a TV station? We might as well give the spectrum back to the FCC, and just be one of the millions of websites that exist on the web. Digital TV can, and should, give us options for the broadcast viewer.

 

[imhomerjay]

The "purpose" is being a company that generates revenue from multiple sources. For the time being, and likely forseeable future, the biggest chunk of that comes from the TV side. The suggestion wasn't to concentrate "only" on the website, but as an added resource. Given the reality of limits on how much content you can pack into the TV side, you can add content to the Web to supplement it.

 

[landtuna]

Three hours of local news is not ridiculous if you factor in that viewers are in and out during those three hours. No one (or nearly no one) is sitting with rapt attention to the TV screen. They're fixing dinner, helping the kids with homework, etc. The longer newscast is just more opportunity for viewers to catch those headlines at various times.

If you are talking about the morning editions where news, weather, traffic are alternated to those folks rushing out of the house I would agree. However, in the evening three hours of repetitious story airing, local news duplicating the just-aired national news and inclusion of fluffy non-news segments is ridiculous.

 

[imhomerjay]

gr9oldies explains it well. With differing commuting patterns, differing dinner patterns and so forth, the late afternoon/early evening block with a number of repeating features is a quite logical business decision. People can watch the piece that fits their schedule (whatever it may be on a given day).

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Nothing is more upsetting, to me at least, than watching a TV news anchor adding his or her editorial comments, or feeling they need to add any comment after each story. Who gives a damn what they think? Just read the teleprompter! :
If they want to be an editorial commentator, then give up the anchor chair to someone else.

Not all of us gives a rats-patoot about Lindsey Lohan, Charlie Sheen or any other those other Hollywood train wrecks. For the networks or local stations, to give these individuals even five seconds worth of coverage is not news in my opinion, but entertainment.

Finally I have to laugh at all of the promos promoting HD TV news sets & coverage. Some local reporters are even on Facebook and Twitter babbling on about how they have to wear certain color clothing and make-up. Big F***king Deal! These stations should spent more time covering real stories and hiring more investigative reporters than worrying how the color of their eyes look on TV,

$#!+ wrapped up in a pretty package is still $#!+.

 

[landtuna]

These stations should spent more time covering real stories and hiring more investigative reporters than worrying how the color of their eyes look on TV,

Or perhaps worry more about production.

Last night's news on KNXV had a story about Ajo being docked for educating illegals. The banners shown on the bottom of the screen during the segment had "education" and "special" misspelled.

Wonder if they fixed the mistakes by 10?

 

[KeithE4]

These stations should spent more time covering real stories and hiring more investigative reporters than worrying how the color of their eyes look on TV,

Or perhaps worry more about production.

Last night's news on KNXV had a story about Ajo being docked for educating illegals. The banners shown on the bottom of the screen during the segment had "education" and "special" misspelled.

Wonder if they fixed the mistakes by 10?

I wonder if they noticed the mistakes by 10? ;D

 

[Sammi Brie]

In a dictionary, KNXV would have the synonyms "barren desert, WPTF, and WGCL".

That said they are kinda good at 4pm at least.

 

[DToTheJ]

WJHL Tri-Cities, VA had Sunday night newscasts that ran 15 minutes in the 1980s. I think the news anchor did the weather and then they had a sports anchor...

No doubt, the length of this local newscast likely coupled it with the 15-minute late network news from CBS or ABC... by the way, anyone notice these late Sunday network newscasts no longer exist?

 

[firepoint525]

Three hours of local news is not ridiculous if you factor in that viewers are in and out during those three hours. No one (or nearly no one) is sitting with rapt attention to the TV screen. They're fixing dinner, helping the kids with homework, etc. The longer newscast is just more opportunity for viewers to catch those headlines at various times.

If you are talking about the morning editions where news, weather, traffic are alternated to those folks rushing out of the house I would agree. However, in the evening three hours of repetitious story airing, local news duplicating the just-aired national news and inclusion of fluffy non-news segments is ridiculous.

In my market, the early evening newscast (actually more of a late afternoon newscast since it starts at 4:00 p.m.) is nothing more than a teaser for the later evening newscasts. In other words, if they run a story at 4:00, they will say, "we will have more details on that on our 5:00 p.m. newscast." Or if it is the 5:00 newscast, they will promise more details at 6:00. Hmmm, why can't you just tell us now?

 

[Bengalsfan]

Last night's news on KNXV had a story about Ajo being docked for educating illegals. The banners shown on the bottom of the screen during the segment had "education" and "special" misspelled.

I guess they didn't realize that there's no spell check on the Chyron.

 

[DToTheJ]

In my market, the early evening newscast... is nothing more than a teaser for the later evening newscasts. In other words, if they run a story at 4:00, they will say, "we will have more details on that on our 5:00 p.m. newscast." Or if it is the 5:00 newscast, they will promise more details at 6:00...

The weather "forecast" in the first segment of newscasts also qualifies for this slick trick.

 

[firepoint525]

In my market, the early evening newscast... is nothing more than a teaser for the later evening newscasts. In other words, if they run a story at 4:00, they will say, "we will have more details on that on our 5:00 p.m. newscast." Or if it is the 5:00 newscast, they will promise more details at 6:00...

The weather "forecast" in the first segment of newscasts also qualifies for this slick trick.

Yes, but at least it is still within the same newscast. No need to tune back in an hour later (unless something has changed).

The weekend morning newscast here leads off with the weather, even when there's no "weather" going on! ??? :

 

[charlestondxman]

That's what my market does too. One of the stations has a 4pm news, and it is basically headlines with a bunch of lifestyle stories. They do the weather, but they only do a forecast for the next six to eight hours, and don't even show a five-day. They tell you to watch at 5 for a complete forecast.

Even the 5:30 news is like that. They do a three-day forecast, and tell you to wait for the seven-day at 6.

Luckily, our ABC only has news at 6 and 7 weeknights, and cuts out a lot of the fluff that the other stations do. Weekend news is even worse. Here, they might have 3 actual news stories, then they go into national stories and local fluff for the rest of the news. One station even runs a college football recap before the local news airs.

 

[gr8oldies]

How many markets are doing 15 minutes of high school football on Friday nights for their 11/10 report?

 

[formeraa]

KPNX has a separate show on Friday nights during football season, airing after Leno at 11:35pm.