Worst Local TV News Markets

[mleach]

Flip side of the best..what are the worst when it comes to local TV news?

For YEARS I have always heread that the Richmond, VA market is the pits when it comes to news from "Washington DC wannabe" WWBT to "what can we do?" WRIC and "we are soooooooooooo bored" WTVR. "Useless" "Stupid" "Worthless" are words often to describe this market. On the website www.city-data.com in the Richmond section the subject of Richmond TV news was brought up and it was dittos...nobody had anything good to say about this market.

Are these people right?

Two months ago I caught WTVR's 5pm newscast. One the air the female anchor was seen tryping something on her laptop while her male counter-part was doing the same with his blackberry..and neither looked into the camera, actually during the first 10 minutes both looked at everything around the studio..except the camera.

...and they say that WWBT and WRIC are "worse"?

 

[amisdead]

I thought about following up with this same thread. You beat me to it.

I'll throw out 2 markets in Texas that I have had the displeasure of seeing more than once.

Austin (44): Not the worst market I have ever seen, but the quality has never really caught up with the growing market size. I think there are several markets close to the 100 ranking that have as good or better local news. Only one VHF which is a FOX O&O that calls it in. Are they serving up HD news yet? Weak, revolving door talent at all four stations.

Waco-Temple-Bryan, TX (89): It's been a while since I have seen it, but one of the worst markets ever. The CBS affiliate was decent the other two network stations that had newscasts were unintentionally hilarious. The FOX affiliate didn't even bother. Bottom-of-the-barrell, amateur talent. Sloppy editing. Tons of hype and about 15 minutes of crime, fires and rapes every night.

 

[formeraa]

I thought about following up with this same thread. You beat me to it.

I'll throw out 2 markets in Texas that I have had the displeasure of seeing more than once.

Austin (44): Not the worst market I have ever seen, but the quality has never really caught up with the growing market size. I think there are several markets close to the 100 ranking that have as good or better local news. Only one VHF which is a FOX O&O that calls it in. Are they serving up HD news yet? Weak, revolving door talent at all four stations.

Don't forget News 8 Austin on cable!!!

 

[azumanga]

Austin (44): Not the worst market I have ever seen, but the quality has never really caught up with the growing market size... Weak, revolving door talent at all four stations.

Don't forget News 8 Austin on cable!!!

You mean "YNN Austin" -- Time Warner is starting to expand its YNN branding outside New York state.

 

[charlestondxman]

Savannah (96): A very poor market compared to Charleston right next to it. Two out of the three news operations have HD (WJCL/WTGS does too), but WTOC just got it a few weeks ago.

Most of the news consists of shootings and car accidents in downtown or news from out in the rural areas. The WTOC main anchors show up at every ribbon-cutting and barbeque in the area. WSAV added a 5:30pm news last year after just doing 6pm for several years. WTOC still uses "Newschannel" even with the HD.

Macon (121): Stations there are very poor compared to the near-network quality Atlanta stations. Only two stations have competitive news, with the 3rd just getting it a few years ago. CBS has 75% of the rating. If you see some of the TPIR videos that some guy put on YouTube, they are mainly from Macon and show how lame those stations were.

Greensboro-High Point-WS (47): When I was there a couple years ago, I was unimpressed with their news. ABC doesn't do news, WFMY still shows Andy Griffith at 5:30 every day, with NBC and Fox the only two decent stations other than 2, which could have been better. It was kind of weird to see one of the stations live from a HS basketball game. I wonder how crazy they are during the ACC tournament.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Savannah (96): A very poor market compared to Charleston right next to it. Two out of the three news operations have HD (WJCL/WTGS does too), but WTOC just got it a few weeks ago.

WJCL/WTGS, of course, was the subject of the TV Guide Channel's "Making News: Savannah Style".

They had just been bought by New Vision, which promised upgrades to the station's high-school-AV-type equipment (they must have delivered on that promise, if they went HD, the stuff they had was poor quality even for SD!) and a new studio, which I don't know if they did yet.

 

[bpatrick]

Savannah (96): A very poor market compared to Charleston right next to it. Two out of the three news operations have HD (WJCL/WTGS does too), but WTOC just got it a few weeks ago.

Most of the news consists of shootings and car accidents in downtown or news from out in the rural areas. The WTOC main anchors show up at every ribbon-cutting and barbeque in the area. WSAV added a 5:30pm news last year after just doing 6pm for several years. WTOC still uses "Newschannel" even with the HD.

Macon (121): Stations there are very poor compared to the near-network quality Atlanta stations. Only two stations have competitive news, with the 3rd just getting it a few years ago. CBS has 75% of the rating. If you see some of the TPIR videos that some guy put on YouTube, they are mainly from Macon and show how lame those stations were.

Greensboro-High Point-WS (47): When I was there a couple years ago, I was unimpressed with their news. ABC doesn't do news, WFMY still shows Andy Griffith at 5:30 every day, with NBC and Fox the only two decent stations other than 2, which could have been better. It was kind of weird to see one of the stations live from a HS basketball game. I wonder how crazy they are during the ACC tournament.

WFMY goes all out during the ACC tournament, since they carry it. I think the quality of their local newscast has declined considerably in recent years, and I don't think it's going to get any better with Tanya Rivera anchoring, having been moved from the "Good Morning Show" where she and Rosemary Plybon added a new chapter to the cutesy book. WXII is the best, in my book; very serious, wouldn't take much to make it as good as some of the big-market stations that have been mentioned on the "Best Local TV News Markets" thread. WGHP has a decent weather segment; I don't care for co-anchor Julie Luck, who never seems to know when to shut up.

Unfortunately, you're not going to see Andy go away; he beats everything at 5:30, you know that? ;D

 

[wncc]

And don't forget WFMY has Mount Airy, NC (aka Mayberry) in their DMA.

 

[kilamanjero]

Columbus, GA DMA is horrible. WTVM runs the market with the "News Leader 9" branding. It's product is the only full time news operation in the market. It even produces a 10PM/9PM Central newscast on the market's FOX affiliate, WXTX. Since the economic downturn, Media General reduced formerly competitive CBS affiliate WRBL from a strong #2 to the default #2 since the NBC affiliate WLTZ pipes in a news product via the INN out of Iowa. It was so bad at one point that the only news to watch was WTVM's product which mainly consists of the mundane issues of crime, Columbus-Muskogee County consolidated government, Phenix City and Russell County (Alabama), and occasionally Auburn, Opelika, and Lee County government.

WTVM dominates and WRBL follows and WLTZ uses it's local reporters to keep up with the other 2. WRBL is trying to "rebuild" itself by bringing back its midday newscast and Sunday night newscasts, but it's a long way from being a "full-fledged news operation" again. The newscasts in the market are as predictable as the change of seasons, which is sad. I dread being in this region and can't wait to leave this boring place...

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

And, as mentioned elsewhere, not far from Mt. Airy, WDBJ/7 in Roanoke VA still runs Andy each weekday, and wins...big.

 

[TheRob]

It's difficult to criticize smaller markets considering many stations don't have the revenue, nor the staff to produce a nice show. Years ago I saw KIEM in Eureka, California, and it looked like the product had not changed since the 1980s.

 

[azumanga]

Years ago I saw KIEM in Eureka, California, and it looked like the product had not changed since the 1980s.

And where local news is concerned, they're practically the only game in town -- KVIQ discontinued local news in 2002 and KBVU has no local news, while KAEF's newscast is a simulcast of sister station KRCR's out of Redding.

 

[bpatrick]

And, as mentioned elsewhere, not far from Mt. Airy, WDBJ/7 in Roanoke VA still runs Andy each weekday, and wins...big.

And at 5:30, against (I believe) the second half of Oprah on WSET.

My vote for one of the worst: Florence/Myrtle Beach. WBTW (CBS) is the best of a bad lot; at least it has an experienced anchor in Bob Juback (who could pass for Pat Sajak's younger brother if you ever saw him), but all the field reporters in that market look and sound as if they just graduated from journalism school. And why, please tell, does NBC affiliate WMBF need two and a half hours of local news (4-6:30, leading into Brian Williams) when most of it is just repetition?

 

[recto101]

LA and NYC they are large TV markets but they carry too much Tabloidalism like Celeb crap

 

[mleach]

And, as mentioned elsewhere, not far from Mt. Airy, WDBJ/7 in Roanoke VA still runs Andy each weekday, and wins...big.

Make sense since, well let me put it to ya this way. Wanna see a "big city" version of Mayberry? Visit Roanoke !! A city so laid back ( like Mayberry ) that despite the fact that the city has a population close to 100,000 they still don't do local daily traffic reports on their local TV and radio stations.

 

[charlestondxman]

Yeah, three stations that try hard, but do a poor job of covering the area. They all try to cover both Florence and Myrtle Beach, the outer areas of the Pee Dee, and those couple counties in NC that rely on them.

I mean, WBTW still does Inside Edition at 5:30. It's been like that for well over a decade. WMBF has the only 5:30pm news in the area, serving a niche. No wonder WIS and WECT served the area for decades (and did it well), the area didn't have any investors that wanted a local NBC.

Charleston is like that too with our CBS (WCSC). They have 2 1/2 hours of local news (4-4:30, 5-6:30, 7-7:30), and they have trouble filling 90 minutes. They do have a very good news product for a market that size. All the stations do traffic reports in the morning and at 5pm, and WCSC even does them during the 6pm with a lady in front of the map.

 

[carolinaradio]

Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville/Anderson isn't the worst, but not great by any means because it covers such a huge area. Being down in Greenville, it feels like we don't have an ABC affiliate since it (WLOS) is pretty much Asheville-only (and is not a great channel, at that). WHNS, WYFF, and WSPA do a decent job of covering the upstate, but I wish we had a local ABC affiliate also.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

It's difficult to criticize smaller markets considering many stations don't have the revenue, nor the staff to produce a nice show. Years ago I saw KIEM in Eureka, California, and it looked like the product had not changed since the 1980s.

What are the best small markets?

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Ditto about Eureka, by the way.

KVIQ/6 tried, for a while, to do "local news" that was mostly simulcast from Ackerley sister station KFTY/50 in Santa Rosa.

The Ackerley stations went to Clear Channel's TV group - that's how KFTY ended up TV simulcasting the "Armstrong and Getty" morning radio show (KSTE/650 in the Sacramento market, KNEW/910 in the SF market). The show was already doing a TV simulcast on Hearst's KQCA/58, then the UPN outlet in Sacramento.

Anyway, back to KVIQ...I think Clear Channel TV kept the mostly-KFTY-based newscast for a while, and later dumped the newscast and later, the station.

It is now paired up with the Sainte group in the market.

I actually know someone who was one of KVIQ's later news employees.

 

[bpatrick]

Yeah, three stations that try hard, but do a poor job of covering the area. They all try to cover both Florence and Myrtle Beach, the outer areas of the Pee Dee, and those couple counties in NC that rely on them.

I mean, WBTW still does Inside Edition at 5:30. It's been like that for well over a decade. WMBF has the only 5:30pm news in the area, serving a niche. No wonder WIS and WECT served the area for decades (and did it well), the area didn't have any investors that wanted a local NBC.

Charleston is like that too with our CBS (WCSC). They have 2 1/2 hours of local news (4-4:30, 5-6:30, 7-7:30), and they have trouble filling 90 minutes. They do have a very good news product for a market that size. All the stations do traffic reports in the morning and at 5pm, and WCSC even does them during the 6pm with a lady in front of the map.

WPDE (ABC) also serves a niche in Florence/Myrtle Beach; it has the only newscast at 7, but its newscasts leave a lot to be desired in terms of look, personnel, etc.

BTW, WMBF, WECT, and WIS are all owned by Raycom.