Worst Local TV News Markets

[EricStein]

I don't see why Flagstaff can't be its own TV market with sattelites in Kingman, Sedona and Holbrook.

It's too late in the game for new TV markets to get established (Bend, Oregon was a one-station market for many years, and even when a higher-quality news station came to town in KOHD, they could not even steal the audience away from KTVZ and cancelled their newscasts). I don't think Flagstaff can develop into a full-blown TV market in today's local TV environment.

Speaking of Oregon, their smaller markets are an oddity. Does KOBI still dominate the ratings in Medford, despite being the most small-market and dated-looking of the stations there? Also, Yuma/El Centro is basically a one-and-a-half station market these days, because KSWT's owners have had financial troubles and KECY doesn't have news (and I thought that their owners, NPG, were committed to news, given KTVZ's dominance in Bend, as well as their KIFI taking over Fisher's KIDK news operation in Idaho Falls).

 

[kilamanjero]

Phoenix does a horrible job of covering anything outside of Maricopa and Pinal counties. Even when Show Low and Blue Ridge high schools (in the White Mountains) had a huge football game this fall...*crickets chirp*

Money could be made in ratings providing better high school sports and general news coverage up that way. Regional reporters, anyone?

The problem is apparently lack of ad revenue in those areas. KNAZ had a full news operation in Flagstaff, but couldn't sell enough ads to pay the bills. The other problem in Arizona is the sheer distances involved for the Phoenix stations.

That being said, the idea of a Northern Arizona newscast is interesting. But you would have so many bureaus to cover the area: Prescott/Sedona, Flagstaff, Page, Show Low, etc. The advertising revenue would probably be miniscule.

I don't see why Flagstaff can't be its own TV market with sattelites in Kingman, Sedona and Holbrook.

If Flagstaff couldn't even support the one station it had then you already know they can't even their own market...

 

[Sammi Brie]

Phoenix does a horrible job of covering anything outside of Maricopa and Pinal counties. Even when Show Low and Blue Ridge high schools (in the White Mountains) had a huge football game this fall...*crickets chirp*

Money could be made in ratings providing better high school sports and general news coverage up that way. Regional reporters, anyone?

The problem is apparently lack of ad revenue in those areas. KNAZ had a full news operation in Flagstaff, but couldn't sell enough ads to pay the bills. The other problem in Arizona is the sheer distances involved for the Phoenix stations.

That being said, the idea of a Northern Arizona newscast is interesting. But you would have so many bureaus to cover the area: Prescott/Sedona, Flagstaff, Page, Show Low, etc. The advertising revenue would probably be miniscule.

I don't see why Flagstaff can't be its own TV market with sattelites in Kingman, Sedona and Holbrook.

If Flagstaff couldn't even support the one station it had then you already know they can't even their own market...

When one-station markets largely collapse, they end up absorbed into the nearest market. Tuscaloosa and Anniston were merged into Birmingham in 1998 after Allbritton turned those markets' CBS outlets into ABC repeaters of its new LP Birmingham outlet.

 

[TheRob]

I don't see why Flagstaff can't be its own TV market with sattelites in Kingman, Sedona and Holbrook.

It's too late in the game for new TV markets to get established (Bend, Oregon was a one-station market for many years, and even when a higher-quality news station came to town in KOHD, they could not even steal the audience away from KTVZ and cancelled their newscasts). I don't think Flagstaff can develop into a full-blown TV market in today's local TV environment.

Speaking of Oregon, their smaller markets are an oddity. Does KOBI still dominate the ratings in Medford, despite being the most small-market and dated-looking of the stations there? Also, Yuma/El Centro is basically a one-and-a-half station market these days, because KSWT's owners have had financial troubles and KECY doesn't have news (and I thought that their owners, NPG, were committed to news, given KTVZ's dominance in Bend, as well as their KIFI taking over Fisher's KIDK news operation in Idaho Falls).

A friend of mine started her reporting career at KDRV in Medford. She said KOBI was #1 at the time. Her station still used three-quarter inch tapes when she was there (around 2006). I hope that's not the case anymore.

Once a market is absorbed into a larger market, in the case of Flagstaff to Phoenix, there is no hope of splitting them again. Phoenix media won't want to give up the potential revenue.

 

[mleach]

Once a market is absorbed into a larger market, in the case of Flagstaff to Phoenix, there is no hope of splitting them again. Phoenix media won't want to give up the potential revenue.

..and even if Phoenix media were willing to give Flagstaff back to well Flagstaff...the viewers there could demand to remain a part of the Phoenix market. For example not long ago there was talk about moving Cumberland, Maryland out of the Washington, DC market and into the Johnstown-Altoona-State Colege market. The Pittsburgh Steelers are very popular in that part of western Maryland and some of the "burg's" retail stores such as Giant Eagle have locations in the area and besides both Altoona and Johnstown are far closer to Cumberland that DC is so such a move would had made sense. Then some young man who isn't even in the biz had started a grass roots effort to prevent the change of market. I still remember going into that CVS on the downtown Cumberland mall, reading that poster in front of the store saying how Cumberland needs to be a part of the Washington DMA and how it would be so wrong to join a market in Pennsylvania.

I assume his efforts had paid off as Cumberland is still in the DC DMA even though the local cable system have since added with the exception of ABC..all of the channels inside the Altoona-Johnstown-State College market.

 

[Kent]

Couldn't they pull a 1990s KOAT and have one reporter in each area with a camera and equipment to send the reports back to the station? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAHe-gYhtIc – 0:34. If New Mexico can pull it off with the areas THEY have to cover...)

Hasn't KOAT shut down most, if not all, of those bureaus? I seem to remember hearing they were going to turn their licenses in for some of those outstate stations.

 

[Sammi Brie]

Couldn't they pull a 1990s KOAT and have one reporter in each area with a camera and equipment to send the reports back to the station? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAHe-gYhtIc – 0:34. If New Mexico can pull it off with the areas THEY have to cover...)

Hasn't KOAT shut down most, if not all, of those bureaus? I seem to remember hearing they were going to turn their licenses in for some of those outstate stations.

Those aren't bureaus, those are singular reporters working out of (probably) their homes. It'd be even easier to do that nowadays, what with one-man band reporting and the Internet.

In 2007, it did turn in the license for its Farmington satellite, KOFT.

 

[radiolives]

Even WMBD doesn't match up. They use Raycom's former graphics, and U-Phonix for the music.

Yeah they should. WPDE used to be in Florence, and mainly covered Florence and Pee Dee news. It was kind of weird watching WBTW when they heavily used two studios (Florence and the studio in Socastee). WMBF has overtaken WPDE. WMBF has all the money from Raycom, got HD news first, and got good talent. Already in less than 3 years, they've sent talent to Cincy, Green Bay, Charlotte, Columbus and Little Rock.

It's just like WCIV in Charleston. WCIV is stuck with Allbritton, which treats them as the red-headed stepchild of the company (they get everything last), and never has gotten any traction from their anchors. They have a good main team, but their morning anchors change every year or two, while Channel 5 stays the same.

ABC has always been the lowly network in the area. WPDE didn't sign on until '80, and many people didn't even get ABC until then, except for out-of-market on cable and the few ABC shows WBTW aired. This hampered them. Ed is a great meteorologist, and Allyson Floyd an experienced anchor, with sports also a benefit, but WBTW's 25 year head start helped them.

Im surprised one of popular faces at WPDE haven't left to go to WBTW or even WMBF. I have thought that. Wonder why they stay at WPDE instead of going somewhere else. It would be different seeing Ed on News 13 doing weather. But WBTW does have a good staff from mornings to afternoons to evenings. I noticed they hired a new anchor lady who does 11pm with Bob and also fills in at 5 and 6. In my opinion News 13 has always had a good product sure they stepped it up more when WMBF came in. WPDE hasn't really much stepped anything up the new set isn't anything big and the graphics aren't so great.

 

[desertv]

What led to the end of KNAZ was being bought out by Gannett, who owned KPNX in PHX. They turned into a mere translator for Mc12, with only one local newscast at the end.

Now the owners of KNAZ did own KMOH in Kingman in the 90s, they showed KNAZ's newscast and were briefly a WB affiliate. KMOH became a translator of KPNX when Gannett took over for a few years, but was sold and is now an MTV-Tres station directed towards PHX.

 

[johnnya2k6]

You want to see a worst local TV news market? Come up here to Fairbanks, Alaska!

KTVF may have been the top dog for years, but they're too full of themselves. With the exception of Mike Shultz, Darrell Clark, Monte Bowen, and Darryl Lewis Sr., the rest of the reporters look like they were plucked from community college. And Billie Sundgren? She annoys me to bloody death!! It was NEVER like that back in the days of Ann Secrest, Curtis Thomas, etc. in the '80s and '90s.

And KXD? Sure, they may have a professional quality small-market newscast, but in actuality their news appears to be produced from an apartment.

No wonder why the only real TV news in Alaska comes from KTUU!

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

And KXD? Sure, they may have a professional quality small-market newscast, but in actuality their news appears to be produced from an apartment.

Sure, it does! KXD can't even afford four call letters!



(Seriously, I'm joking, it's an LPTV/Class A station with the legal calls K13XD, though it appears they are also on a digital subchannel of the co-owned Fox affiliate now...complete with 13.1 on the PSIP.)

 

[azumanga]

And KXD? Sure, they may have a professional quality small-market newscast, but in actuality their news appears to be produced from an apartment.

Sure, it does! KXD can't even afford four call letters!

They're more well-off than Detroit's WWJ-TV -- they can't afford four call letters OR a newscast.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

KUSI in San Diego really has the best local news coverage than its competitors, but their presentation from anchors to graphics is perhaps a few steps above a small market station in the market rank of a staiton in the 80's.

The new Fox affiliate KSWB is really giving KUSI a run for their money, and their presentation and anchor/reporters are way better and really look like a major market station.

 

[rgseark2009]

Maybe the worst local newscast I've seen was on one of Equity's Little Rock stations.  It was a half-hour at 5:30, but they apparently didn't actually have a news department.  The anchor stood there giving a couple of headlines, maybe a fill story or press release, he highlighted the "web site of the day" then a stock broker walked on the set and they did a business report.  Sports and weather segments were farmed out to INN.  They may have killed some time with a video "press release" or read some community calender type stories.  There was also a heavy spot load, mostly stuff sold with 800 numbers.  

I remember that "newscast".  It was the former KWBF 42 (now KARZ) and hosted by a former KARK anchor.  It was the second attempt by Equity to do news in Little Rock, the first attempt was in the mid-late 1990's on one of their LPTV stations (then KKYK-CA ch 22, now KKYK-CA 20) that was a complete fail.  The "WB42 5:30 Report" as this later verision 2005(?) was called was pretty bad, with the anchor en chroma key, and news headlines and commenting from various blogs.  I kid you not.  It didn't' last long with competition from network newscasts, and cable news.

KWBF was sold off at a fire-sale price to Nexstar in 2008 (closed in Feb 2009).  KARZ 42 seems a big-time station in comparison these days, there's even a 30min evening and 1 hour morning newscast produced by sister station KARK.

 

[KeithE4]

And KXD? Sure, they may have a professional quality small-market newscast, but in actuality their news appears to be produced from an apartment.

Sure, it does! KXD can't even afford four call letters!

They're more well-off than Detroit's WWJ-TV -- they can't afford four call letters OR a newscast.

And they're owned by CBS!

 

[kilamanjero]

And KXD? Sure, they may have a professional quality small-market newscast, but in actuality their news appears to be produced from an apartment.

Sure, it does! KXD can't even afford four call letters!

They're more well-off than Detroit's WWJ-TV -- they can't afford four call letters OR a newscast.

And they're owned by CBS!

CBS just doesn't give a damn about building a news operation from the ground up in modern times...

 

[radiolives]

Wouldn't it be hard for WWJ to start a newscast from the ground up in this day and age? Now if they already had a outstanding news department and wanted to add another newscast it would be easy.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

WWJ already tried, trying to expand the then-existing late news at sister WKBD/50.

It's much like what WOIO/19 did here after becoming the CBS affiliate, trying to leverage the existing "10 O'Clock News" operation at sister WUAB/43.

 

[kilamanjero]

WWJ already tried, trying to expand the then-existing late news at sister WKBD/50.

It's much like what WOIO/19 did here after becoming the CBS affiliate, trying to leverage the existing "10 O'Clock News" operation at sister WUAB/43.

The funny thing was WKBD's news operation was still quite solid even after WWJ's attempt didn't go so well. CBS just threw in the towel on local news altogether in the Detroit market and chose to be cheap and outsource it from WXYZ instead. Also I think the economic downturn during the early 00s played a major role in the dismal results as well. If CBS was in it to win it then they would have took another strategy like adding a 5, 6, 11 pm news on WWJ and had the established 10 pm on WKBD to hold it together. Instead they just went with 11 pm only on WWJ when most people in the Eastern time zone has already gone to bed.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

Compare the WWJ/WKBD pairing to what WOIO did when it became a CBS affiliate, and sister station to WUAB.

WOIO added a regular schedule of newscasts - 5, 6 and 11 - produced out of what used to be the WUAB "10 O'Clock Newsroom".

IIRC, they rebranded the whole thing, including the 43 10 PM show, as "Cleveland Television News". (Now, that's imaginative! )

Eventually, CTN gave way to "Hometeam" ("Hometeam 19" and "Hometeam 43"). There are still "Hometeam" era logos on 19/43's weather radar tower out in Brunswick.

Not really a success, but they kept with it...until eventually adopting the "19 Action News" branding and tabloid news format 19/43 uses today.

I still think it's odd that WWJ-TV basically has no news operation, aside from the headlines read during "First Forecast" (brought in from the newspaper joint venture!), with a long-running 24/7 all-news radio operation in the company.