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Worst local TV Newscast ever.

Interstate4Jammer said:
much of the problem was that owner Media General spent next to nothing in establishing a local news operation
Click to expand...

Media General seems to enjoy killing great news operations. Take for an example WJAR here in Providence. At one time, they had at least three quarters of the viewers in the market. But, they've been sliding downhill fast. They even fired their chief meteorologist of 25 years, Gary Ley. I would say that their 10 PM newscast is the worst however. Gene Valicenti isn't the best solo anchor. They usually wrap up really soon, and have a long close (take a look at this disaster http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaS6ME-bju4, or they can't compensate for breaking news, for example, last night, they cut Gene off in the middle of a story, no copyright notice or anything, and ended the newscast. In my opinion, that was completely unneccesary, because all they have scheduled after the 10 PM is a half hour of weather radar (during which you can see the taskbar at the bottom of the computer screen that the radar is on).
 
An NBC affiliate runs a half hour of weather radar after the news? Or are we talking about a digital subchannel?

EDIT: Nevermind, stupid question. An NBC affiliate on the east coast would still be in network programming at 10.
 
bg02445 said:
Interstate4Jammer said:
much of the problem was that owner Media General spent next to nothing in establishing a local news operation
Click to expand...

Media General seems to enjoy killing great news operations. Take for an example WJAR here in Providence. At one time, they had at least three quarters of the viewers in the market. But, they've been sliding downhill fast.
Click to expand...

Here in the Tampa/St. Petersburg market Media General has been seemingly working to destroy the news operation of their WFLA-8 (NBC). Several highly visible reporters and a couple of long-time anchors have left in the past several months, most recently morning co-anchor/managing editor Bill Ratliff after 27 years (not all behind the anchor desk), and 6/11 PM co-anchor Bob Hite left last November after 30 years. They have also nearly eliminated their sports staff, leaving one full-time on-air reporter/anchor and having reporters from the co-owned Tampa Tribune appearing on camera.

To be honest, NewsChannel 8 is still quite good when compared with the competition: Gannett's WTSP-10 (CBS) and Scripps' WFTS-28 (ABC). However, Fox O&O WTVT-13 has actually bucked the trend over the past couple of years, becoming the best overall television news operation in the market.
 
WJAR has killed off so many people that when the weekday meteorologist takes the day off, the sole morning anchor (Frank Colletta) also has to do weather! It must be pretty empty in there on those mornings...2 people to control everything, including cameras, Frank Colletta, probably some sort of floor director (unless they've automated that too), and a few in the newsroom. Traffic has been outsourced.
 
Interstate4Jammer said:
bg02445 said:
Interstate4Jammer said:
much of the problem was that owner Media General spent next to nothing in establishing a local news operation
Click to expand...

Media General seems to enjoy killing great news operations. Take for an example WJAR here in Providence. At one time, they had at least three quarters of the viewers in the market. But, they've been sliding downhill fast.
Click to expand...

Here in the Tampa/St. Petersburg market Media General has been seemingly working to destroy the news operation of their WFLA-8 (NBC). Several highly visible reporters and a couple of long-time anchors have left in the past several months, most recently morning co-anchor/managing editor Bill Ratliff after 27 years (not all behind the anchor desk), and 6/11 PM co-anchor Bob Hite left last November after 30 years. They have also nearly eliminated their sports staff, leaving one full-time on-air reporter/anchor and having reporters from the co-owned Tampa Tribune appearing on camera.

To be honest, NewsChannel 8 is still quite good when compared with the competition: Gannett's WTSP-10 (CBS) and Scripps' WFTS-28 (ABC). However, Fox O&O WTVT-13 has actually bucked the trend over the past couple of years, becoming the best overall television news operation in the market.
Click to expand...

Surprised? WTVT was the best overall television news operation in the Tampa Bay market when it was a CBS affiliate. Gannett, overall, seems to be going downhill, given what I see on WFMY and hear about WXIA. Media General's WSPA Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville had dropped to third in the market, last I heard, even though it's a CBS affiliate (which means little, since Katie's still in third); my only experience watching a Media General station is WBTW Florence, SC, hard to judge since it's a small market. Scripps-Howard I can't say anything about, having gotten only one of its stations, WMAR Baltimore, in the '80s (and then I watched WJLA).
 
What about CBS 3, NBC 10 and FOX 29 in Philadelphia? I think those 3 stations have very bad newscasts and bad on-air talent. 6ABC has the best newscasts in the region, no question. I would really, really like to get the posters thoughts on this?
 
bpatrick said:
Scripps-Howard I can't say anything about, having gotten only one of its stations, WMAR Baltimore, in the '80s (and then I watched WJLA).
Click to expand...

Its been a few years since I have seen WMAR much less their news but the way the posters on DCRTV talk about them, they are having issues as well such as poor ratings and a high turnover. Also in recent years WMAR doesn't blanket the state of Maryland as they once did but then again neither does WBAL or WJZ for that matter either. WJZ is available on cable systems throughout Western Maryland while WBAL is the default NBC affilate for Maryland's Eastern Shore though oddly some years back there was talk about WBAL being taken off cable in Ocean City and the towns nearby in favor of....WAVY out of Hampton Roads, VA ( WAVY has a translator nearby ). That of course never happened. WMAR..at one time they had cable coverage all the way from Cumberland ( western MD ) to the eastern shore..today its much less.

To be honest I really can't remember a time when WMAR's news did all that well. For the longest time I had throuh WMAR's heyday was the 70's when they had CBS AND The Baltimore Orioles ( then a red hot baseball club ). Of course the Orioles were the main reason why CBS had dumped them in 1981 in favor of WBAL. But over the years I have heard from many folks who had work in Baltimore back in those days tell me that no, the 70's belonged to WJZ thanks to the team of Jerry Turner, Al Sanders and Bob Turk while WMAR and WBAL were fighting for second place and WBFF with those "mini newscasts" they did back then well....they weren't even on the radar.
 
Julius May said:
What about CBS 3, NBC 10 and FOX 29 in Philadelphia? I think those 3 stations have very bad newscasts and bad on-air talent. 6ABC has the best newscasts in the region, no question. I would really, really like to get the posters thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

Since I've been in the Delaware Valley, I've watched KYW/CBS 3's, NBC 10's, and FOX 29's newscasts a handful of times each. I've never been too impressed with their newscasts, but when trying to compare those stations to WPVI's "Action News" broadcasts, there is no competition. I'll continue to move closer to my world with Jim Gardner and the rest of the Action News team.
 
I remember back in 1970 while stationed at Chanute AFB, Ill. a bunch of us in our baracks rented a TV set to watch the network television premiere of Ben Hur. The local Champaign/Urbana station had a fire just before airing the movie causing them to lose their sound. We all drank beer and had a laugh watching Charlton Heston play Juda Ben Hur. We didn't watch it very long as that got boring pretty fast, but did remember somehow to tune back to that station to see how they'd do their newscast that followed the movie. We all figured they'd just skip it and air something else, maybe a Charlie Chaplin silent movie from the 1920's. However, that plucky little TV station did air their newscast without sound.

The newscast opened with a wide shot of the news studio desk and the anchor and anchorette both waved and then pointed away from the anchor desk. The camera followed and there was a black musicstand with a pile of type written pages on it. The camera moved in for a close up shot and you read the news copy yourself. After a minute or two they'd pull the top page off so you could read the next page and so on. Every now and then they'd pause and air their spots without sound and then back to more reading of the news copy. In their defense, they had no sound, no close captioning that they could have used to go with any film footage, etc. so they used what little they had. I wonder how many people actually watched or shall I say, read that newscast? Probably just one baracks full of airmen who had drank too much beer.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this one!

WJM-TV/12 Minneapolis (1970-1977)

Anchorman: Ted Baxter

-after reading a story about a Polish-American event, goes on to tell a Polish joke
-tells drivers to "drive carelessly" (this one was by head newswriter Murray Slaughter)
-mispronounces Chicago on the air (I think most of us can imagine what was said on the air instead)
-ditches a breaking news story to do an editorial on his new best friend (who becomes his worst enemy shortly afterwards)
-ditches another breaking news story for an on-air religious service
-asks the now-late Walter Cronkite to hire him as a pre-ESPN sports reader ("The Minnesota North Stars 3, The Los Angeles Kings O" - pronounced Oh)
-asks for a doctor as he suffered from food poisoning on-air (caused by a bitter, jealous, over-the-hill fellow on-air personality)
-delivered an off-beat on-air obit of a colleague who was crushed to death by a rogue elephant ("He died.....a broken man!")

;D
 
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