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What's the deal with WWJ TV Detroit?

G

Garrett

The station is something of an anomoly. They are co-owned with WWJ AM, and the local CW affiliate, by CBS. Yet the station has no local newscast, and seems to be the only CBS O&O still using the old Viacom Networks web template. I looked on Wikipedia.org and it claims that the reason there is no news is because they could not compete, but this is not a satisfiying answer for me, as their sister WWJ AM is a CBS Newsradio format station (much like WBZ, KNX, etc...) . Is CBS planning on doing anything with this station (that's in Market #11, no less), or is there a sale in the works.
From the looks of it, it does not seem like CBS is interested in running a TV station in Detroit, and it's not what I would expect of them.

Anyone?
 
Garrett said:
The station is something of an anomoly. They are co-owned with WWJ AM, and the local CW affiliate, by CBS. Yet the station has no local newscast, and seems to be the only CBS O&O still using the old Viacom Networks web template. I looked on Wikipedia.org and it claims that the reason there is no news is because they could not compete, but this is not a satisfiying answer for me, as their sister WWJ AM is a CBS Newsradio format station (much like WBZ, KNX, etc...) . Is CBS planning on doing anything with this station (that's in Market #11, no less), or is there a sale in the works.
From the looks of it, it does not seem like CBS is interested in running a TV station in Detroit, and it's not what I would expect of them.

Anyone?
Click to expand...

Well to be rather honest this topic about WWJ lacking news has been discussed to death already. But I'll gladly throw in my two cents. Yes, WWJ was unable to compete because of its weak singal and for a long period of time it had cable coverage woes.
This link to another posting here at Radio-Info gives some interesting insight: http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,43724.0.html

As for the duopoly, Viacom has tried to have a newcast in the past, otherwise known as  the WKBD disaster in 2001/2002. WWJ launched an 11 o'clock newscast that was produced by WKBD, which at the time had a successful news department for 15 years, used on both Fox and UPN(infact WKBD had been a strong Fox affiliate). The WWJ production flopped; WWJ lost news, WKBD shut down because of mismanagement. There was an attempt from WXYZ to produce news on WKBD, but it failed and ended. Thus the end to news on WKBD. So mismanagement killed the news on WWJ.

And with the Detroit market now averaging less than 2% growth rate, I doubt many new viewers are coming into the market.  But that is another story.


Of course CBS has had other problems too with its O&Os and UHF stations but to  CBS' credit it's has never been real strong in the Northeast, as we have seen with WCBS, WBZ, and KYW. Their stronger O&Os are to the South and West(ie WCCO, KCNC, KTVT, KPIX)
 
It comes down to this... would you rather have a low rated news cast to bitch about or no news cast at all to bitch about?
 
A market the size of Detroit needs to have a fourth newscast. It's pretty pathetic that Erie, PA has the same number of TV news operations as Detroit, and that Cleveland has more. All markets in the top 30 should have at least four stations producing news. That doesn't mean there should be three stations with one producing a 10 PM newscast for a 4th station either, and it does not mean the 4th station should be News Central.

There's no reason why WWJ cannot have a newscast. I would doubt that its ratings were going to rival WXYZ and the others no matter how good it was in its first few years - it takes time to build up a successful news department. WOIO in Cleveland jumped into the local news game quite late, and they're doing quite well after almost eight years of struggling against WJW, WKYC and WEWS. And much like WWJ, it was a former independent that built its news department off a newly-affiliated UPN station following an affiliation shuffle.

With WWJ Radio, it can be done right. They just haven't been trying. In the later years the newscast on UPN 50 was pretty pathetic for content, and while I never saw a newscast on 62, it would've been quite similar.

Another possibility - could WWJ not just rebroadcast the local newscasts from WLNS, WTOL, or WNEM, with the other station establishing a news bureau in Detroit? WWJ would continue to be owned by CBS, but it could be operated by Raycom (WTOL) or whoever owns Lansing and Saginaw.
 
M.J. said:
Another possibility - could WWJ not just rebroadcast the local newscasts from WLNS, WTOL, or WNEM, with the other station establishing a news bureau in Detroit? WWJ would continue to be owned by CBS, but it could be operated by Raycom (WTOL) or whoever owns Lansing and Saginaw.
Click to expand...

...what, to me, would make more sense would be for CBS to strike up a deal with CBC to have CBET produce a WWJ-TV newscast in exchange for making CBS News material available to CBC NewsWorld. Of course, this may make too much sense for either New York or Toronto to okay...
 
For an example on a CBS-affiliated UHF that actually has a pretty decent full-service news operation, look no further than CBS58 in Milwaukee. It's owned by tiny Weigel Broadcasting, and while they're the #4 newscast in the market, they do a good job. They heavily promote weather every ten minutes, and are also heavy on headlines and sports.

They also have been pretty aggressive at marketing their sister station, a tiny low-powered independent UHF (Ch. 41). They loaded it with local college sports and higher-tier syndicated shows and strong-armed their way into a prime spot on the local Time Warner Cable (Ch. 7). They re-air the news show on 41 later at night. They also own a low-power Telemundo affiliate in town.

For CBS to fail in Detroit, even while owning an all-news radio operation there, is just plain embarassing. Then again, we are talking about CBS, and they can't seem to get anything right anymore.
 
Well the days of TV having "prestige" has long ended with corporate conglomorates. Why do you think Hollywood goes after what works. It's easier to pitch "Rocky" since we know what he's done.

At the end of the day you have to justify to your board of directors and stockholders why you are wasting money on a news operation when a rerun of Cheers will get exactly the same ratings with out any cost other that buy the rights to air that rerun.

If I own stock in CBS I want to make money, not to have a newscast.

In Milwaukee the CBS isn't an O&O so the two aren't analogous. Weigel needs to show it can have a news operation if they plan on expanding to gain network affilliates.

In reality I find, at least in Chicago, the newscasts are IDENTICAL to each other. They all cover the same hard news and just vary the order. The only real difference in the station is just "soft news," and "feel good" stories.
 
Ultimajock said:
...what, to me, would make more sense would be for CBS to strike up a deal with CBC to have CBET produce a WWJ-TV newscast in exchange for making CBS News material available to CBC NewsWorld. Of course, this may make too much sense for either New York or Toronto to okay...
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that won't happen. CBC will keep CBET all-Canadian, and that means no US news product or programming deal. The CRTC will see to that.
 
How is this a "national" topic?
And, yes, it has been discussed on the Detroit board - and on the Buzzboard.

Ironic that WWJ (once known as "WWJ, The Detroit News") is currently a news format station.
To those of us of a "certain age," WWJ-TV will always be channel 4 and at one time they had the best news department in town (before they hired consultants).

What's the big deal with four different local newscasts in town - especially given the sorry state of the existing newscasts? How many can you watch at a time anyway? How many blow dried, air head, mic holding mannequins do you need standing outside a video truck where nothing is happening just so they can say "LIVE!"?

Detroit still has two newspapers (plus more in the 'burbs). Read them.
 
Poster with fake cartoon chacter as a name said:
How is this a "national" topic?
And, yes, it has been discussed on the Detroit board - and on the Buzzboard.
Click to expand...

There is no Detroit TV board and this is a TV topic.
The people who post here, do so because we wish to discuss TV, not newspapers, so that is what we are discussing.
 
Voice of reason here..
you can ask till you are blue in the face, WWJ TV/WKBD TV will NEVER restart a news department, again pulling the "too expensive to produce a local news" excuse.
 
I am not asking for that at all, I don't live in Detroit. However, I do not believe CBS TV will keep a TV station that it can not produce a local newscast on. Detroit may not be growing but it is still market #11, which is pretty big last time I checked. I believe that the only reason CBS owns the station is to ensure that their network lineup is seen in a major market, and will keep it until they figure out what to do.

But as soon as they can, I expect them to either sell or move their linup to a smaller frequency (however they may do it). Think aobut this, I am in Lubbock Texas which is over 200 markets smaller than detroit, and our CBS affiliate, whichis a duopoly with an ABC network has news. The Detroit situation, no matter how you look at it is still bizzare.

I believe that CBS Detroit could not compete with news, but not a satisfying reason. Sorry that this has been talked about to death already but its new to me, and I find it interesting. With CBS putting other stations in smaller markets on the block, I don't expect this to stay the same for long. But I just wanted to ask what the deal was. Thanks for the responses.
 
Hey Garrett,

I apologize for my bluntness in my previous post about the WWJ situation. I realize now I should have been straight forward in answering it and not chatising you for asking it. I look forward to answering questions from you that I can answer in the future. :)
 
I'll throw in my 2 cents: It's absolutely embarrassing that CBS has failed to put a news department in a city the size of Detroit.
It's expensive to do, but ultimately very valuable to the station to have that kind of visibility in the community.

CBS should take the next year to build a good studio and newsroom and launch a full slate of newscasts on January 1, 2008.
By full slate I mean 5-7am, noon, 5, 6 and 10pm - in addition to weekend morning and evening shows.

That's what I think. I'm not sitting at the top of a large company like Viacom with shareholders to tend to, but I can tell you that I believe they would make more money by having news in Detroit.
 
I must agree with tested and Garrett here. There is a prestige factor involved in having a local news department - and that prestige is vital for a "big 4" (really"big 3") network station. That the CBS O&O affiliate in Detroit does not do local news is an embarassment! Especially when they're using the same calls as the co-owned local newsradio station.

I recall traveling to Detroit a year or so ago and being amazed that the CBS station there did not carry local news. As stated before in this thread, this is a big market with a lot of viewers. Yet, they have fewer choices for local news than many markets of half the size.

If this station were owned by Sinclair, it would be getting absolutely lampooned here on the board. Well, having CBS as the owner actually makes this even more embarassing! It shows that CBS does not have a real committment to owned and operated affiliates - and it makes a mockery of the "tiffany" network moniker. At least to those in Detroit - to whom it is obvious.
 
One of these days someone is going to come along and buy WWJ from CBS.

They will do so for about ten thousand dollars. And probably no one will have heard of the guy. But he'll probably be local and do more than a piss-poor job adding news.

Since CBS' effort to make WWJ a power player failed stupendously and dragged WKBD down with it, they probably should have taken the opportunity at the CW transition to switch the affiliation of WWJ and WKBD.
 
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