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Worst Stations and Markets for Local TV

A

Al Timiter

Let's have fun with this one! Can you name some once proud, dominant, successful or at least respectable TV stations that, for one reason or another have fallen from grace? Stations that were once market leaders and are now a shell of their former selves? I'm not totally versed in this but I know some of you are. I can name a couple: KRON-San Francisco and WTKR(fomerly WTAR)-Norfolk Va. but I don't know the "why" behind them.
 
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Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Al Timiter said:
Let's have fun with this one! Can you name some once proud, dominant, successful or at least respectable TV stations that, for one reason or another have fallen from grace? Stations that were once market leaders and are now a shell of their former selves? I'm not totally versed in this but I know some of you are. I can name a couple: KRON-San Francisco and WTKR(fomerly WTAR)-Norfolk Va. but I don't know the "why" behind them.
Click to expand...

I'll name KTVK Channel 3 Phoenix, aka "Lifetime Lite" as having gone down the tubes in recent years. Their programming is geared almost 100% to women, including their once-great newscasts. Heavy on Oprah, Dr. Phil, and sponsored (read: Borderline-infomercial) housewife-oriented shows. Their newscasts carry about 10 minutes of news and 50 minutes of female-oriented features per hour.

Once they dropped sports a couple of years ago, that was it for The Place With More Fluff. Phoenix's other (smaller) indie, KAZT Channel 7, is much better despite being a Class A in the city (full-power in Prescott).
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

I think that the epitome of stations that fell from grace, the textbook example, would be Los Angeles' KTLA-5.

The station that once showed the industry how breaking news should be covered has deteriorated to the point of nausea.

The station that has employed the great Stan Chambers in it's news department since 1948 now has become a joke among journalists. Mr. Chambers was a guest on the 9am KTLA news just yesterday (4-8), and was on the verge of talking about some very fascinating items, including a News Director KTLA had in the 70s who wanted to fire him, but he couldn't get any sentence finished because co-anchor Chatty Cathy, aka Jessica (Hyper-Barbie Doll) Holmes KEPT INTERRUPTING!! I wish someone would tell Miss Caffeine to SHUT UP!!! She NEVER lets anyone finish a sentence!

Miss Wind-Up Key is not the only reason for the grace fall. Virtually the entire morning news team, with one or two exceptions, are poor excuses for journalists. The KTLA Morning News is unwatchable because EVERYBODY'S TALKING AT ONCE! It's like a nerd fest over there.

The station that once beat the local network O&Os handily in local ratings has become a rest stop for syndication, re-runs, and 5th-rate networks.

Engineering legend Klaus Landsberg, who escaped Nazi Germany and built KTLA in 1947 virtually on used tool box items, chewing gum, and hamsters running on the wheel, must be spinning in his grave at what KTLA has deteriorated into.

It should also be noted that this past Tuesday (4-7) was the 60th anniversary of KTLA's pioneering live, non-stop 48 hour coverage of the Kathy Fiscus Tragedy, which had the entire region spellbound and glued to their TV sets. Everyone stopped what they were doing to see the coverage of the rescue efforts.

For the uninitiated, Kathy Fiscus was a 2-year old San Marino, Ca. girl who fell into an open well pipe and got stuck deep down inside, much like the Texas girl named Jessica (I can't remember her last name, my apologies) did a few decades later. Jessica was rescued alive and well. Unfortunately, that was not the case for Kathy Fiscus. When it was announced that Kathy did not survive, grief was widespread throughout Southern California. It was a shared experience made possible by KTLA.

I'd hate to think of how the present day KTLA would cover this.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

What a great topic this is! Well, I'll be the first to toss some very low hanging fruit into this one: KRON San Francisco. A long-time number 1 station as an NBC affiliate, it has since fallen apart as an independent under the inept management of Young Broadcasting.

And, frankly, a lot of the CBS owned and operated affiliates could qualify under this category as well. Stations like WCBS-TV, KCBS-TV, and WBBM went from decades of news leadership to being number 3, 4 or (at times) 5 in their respective markets for news and local programming. Only recently has this trend changed a bit for them - but all are a shadow of their former selves.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

WKBD-TV 50 in Detroit. They were once the dominant Independent in the market, and then a successful Fox affiliate as they were launching into their growth phase. They also carried just about every sports team and had a successful ten o'clock news franchise. Since losing the Fox affiliation, the sports and the news have since gone, and they are now just another floundering CW station.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

WTKR has been through a number of ownership changes
since the '70s, when the FCC forced Landmark Communications,
owner of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, to sell the station because
of crossownership rules. When I lived in Virginia Beach in the
late '60s it dominated the market, but now I believe WVEC is
the market leader.

I would add WFAA/8 Dallas/Ft. Worth. In the late '70s the
Columbia School of Journalism voted it and WCCO/4 Minneapolis
the two best news operations in the country. But Ch. 8 hasn't
come up with a team on a par with Tracy Rowlett, Iola Johnson,
Troy Dungan, and Verne Lundquist, plus the station seems to
resound with technical difficulties, which I never remember when
I lived out there.

I also thought KTVK was the one affiliate-turned-independent
that still leads its market.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Corky Marlowe said:
Was KTLA the one that was owned by Golden West (Gene Autry)?
Click to expand...

Yes it was. In fact, it was Mr. Autry who overruled the news director who wanted to fire Stan Chambers.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Great topic. I can name several stations that were big powers in the Carolinas for decades, but are shadows of what they were. One example is WIS/10 Columbia, SC. They were a pioneering station in the state, the first VHF TV station in the Columbia area, and it led the way with great local programming like "Mr. Knozit" with Joe Pinner, available in almost every county of the state (even on Charlotte and Augusta cable systems). During some newscasts back in the 70's and early 80s, they had 60% and 70% shares for their newscasts.

One time, they were off the air for 3 days during a rating period, and the 2 UHF stations in town couldn't even beat them!

Now, WIS is a shadow of its own self, firing their top talent (like Jim Gandy, who left for rival WLTX), and WLTX (CBS) almost beats them in some newscasts. They no longer are on cable in the Grand Strand (Myrtle Beach area, where they were a fixture for decades), as WMBF (a new NBC) signed on the air. Joe Pinner is still there, the elder statesman of the station, but he is only on one day a week (Friday).

Another station that has fallen is WBTV Charlotte. They were the top station in the Carolinas, often doubling WSOC's ratings, owned locally, and now, they have trouble staying in 2nd place to WSOC.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Since you brought up Carolina stations,
WFMY no longer completely dominates
the Triad. Sure, they're number one in
most timeslots (and as a CBS affiliate,
why shouldn't they be?) but the gap with
WGHP and WXII has closed considerably
in recent years. In fact, just recently
Ch. 2 flip-flopped "Ellen" and "People's Court,"
putting "Ellen" at 4 PM and "People's Court"
at 10 AM, in order to give the 5 PM news a
stronger lead-in (WXII's is Oprah). And to think
that at one time WFMY had both Oprah and
Dr. Phil!
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

KTLA definitely is a candidate. RicoGregg's post pretty much mirrors my own opinion of where KTLA lost the plot. A once great station that prided itself with heaps of locally driven personalities; Tom Hatten from the 'Adventures of Popeye' show and Weekend Family Film Festival, Chick Hearn hosting Bowling For Dollars and even Gene Autry himself. Now KTLA just an also-ran shell of it's former glory.

Unfortunately, the halcyon days of KTLA are long gone and will never return.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

bpatrick said:
I also thought KTVK was the one affiliate-turned-independent that still leads its market.
Click to expand...

Others may be able to remember specific numbers but even when KTVK was an ABC affiliate it didn't lead the Phoenix market although it did have respectable numbers.

I believe the most successful independent was KPHO (who became a CBS affiliate at the same time KTVK went indie).
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Here in San Diego, the ABC-TV affiliate, KGTV, has really turned into what could be looked upon as a college TV station.

They used to do a lot of editorials ("This is our opinion, what is yours?" Ed Quinn the former kinda scruffy headed GM used to say during his editorials shot live on scene), independent news projects under the banner of "10 News Signature." The talent on their news is now a motley crew of people with little journalistic skills or cannot be understood because of their foreign accents (their so-called "digital correspondents.")
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

One small market station that used to be thought of as a powerhouse, and a place that people wanted to work for is WBNG-TV (Formerly WNBF-TV) in Binghamton, NY. Back in the late 1950's and 1960's the station was the TV anchor of WNBF AM-FM-TV which was owned by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Broadcasting. They were far ahead of many small market stations. By virtue of the fact that they were the only VHF station in a market made up of UHF's they had a huge jump to begin with, but they didn't rest on that. They delivered quality news and local programming. In the 1970's they were sold to Gateway and for the most part continued to be a winner. Now while they are still a market leader, their old cutting edge postion is long gone, and current owner Granite has let the place just fall apart. There was no bigger demonstration of how this station had fallen apart than during the recent massacre at the American Civic Association in Binghamton. The nation was watching this horror unfold and all the major nets and cable news outfits were broadcasting live video from Binghamton, NY. But..the live video was not coming from WBNG-TV..or any other Binghamton TV station..it was coming from TV stations in Syracuse and Albany. Cities that are somewhere between 1 hour and 3 hours away from Binghamton. Why? When WBNG-TV's Sat Truck broke down, owner Granite saw no reason to "waste" money on getting it fixed. Past WBNG engineers & news directors would have found a way to get it done just like MacGyver. The current ownership just shrugs..oh well..too bad.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

WUAB in Cleveland. Once a top-rated indy station in the 1970s and 80s, it is now a generic MyNet affiliate with endless infomercials, court shows, and Jerry Springer. They once had a respectable news department, but it evolved into WOIO's 19 Action News once that station partnered with them (and later became co-owned).
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

BaltimoreJack said:
There was no bigger demonstration of how this station had fallen apart than during the recent massacre at the American Civic Association in Binghamton. The nation was watching this horror unfold and all the major nets and cable news outfits were broadcasting live video from Binghamton, NY. But..the live video was not coming from WBNG-TV..or any other Binghamton TV station..it was coming from TV stations in Syracuse and Albany. Cities that are somewhere between 1 hour and 3 hours away from Binghamton. Why? When WBNG-TV's Sat Truck broke down, owner Granite saw no reason to "waste" money on getting it fixed. Past WBNG engineers & news directors would have found a way to get it done just like MacGyver. The current ownership just shrugs..oh well..too bad.
Click to expand...

You know, I wondered about that while watching the coverage. I kept seeing a courtesy bug for the source video reading "News 10." I wondered if that might have been some local cable-only news channel -- now that I've read your post, it hit me -- that was WTEN in Albany!

Maybe the WBNG owners had the attitude that "this is a quiet town; nothing ever happens here anyway, so why invest in fixing the live truck?" Guess again...
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Definitely KTLA which had a list of firsts including the first live coverage of "The rose Parade". But I would add WLW-T in Cincinnati and the regional network of stations that went with it. WLW-D now WDTN, WLW-C, now WCMH and WLW-I, now WTHR. They also had a lot of broadcasting firsts and a line up of local shows rivaling the network fare of the day. WLW-D was the birthplace of the Donahue show as well.

I don’t think we will ever see the day when local TV stations even in markets like Los Angeles will produce programs like they did at the start. The only local production being done is news and some smaller markets can now farm that out too.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Stanislav said:
I kept seeing a courtesy bug for the source video reading "News 10." I wondered if that might have been some local cable-only news channel -- now that I've read your post, it hit me -- that was WTEN in Albany!
Click to expand...

It might've been a cable news channel -- Time Warner Cable has a cable news channel called "News 10 Now", which serves the central part of New York State, including Binghamton.

However, like WTEN, the channel is not local to Binghamton -- it's based in Syracuse.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

Scott Fybush's site indicated that it was Time Warner's News 10 Now. Still, his write-up graphically depicts how low that station's once-respected news department has been gutted and fallen as a result. This major incident happened (literally) up the street from their studios and they still couldn't muster decent coverage of it. Sad.
 
Re: ONCE GREAT STATIONS THAT HAVE FALLEN FROM GRACE

To clarify a couple of points -

News 10 Now, while based in Syracuse, does maintain a small newsroom with a handful of one-man-band reporter/videographers in Binghamton. At this point, it's probably the second-largest newsroom in town, and has enough visibility that it was to News 10 that Jiverly Wong addressed the letter he sent before the shooting.

The News 10 product actually comes from all over the state these days - the local reporters are in Binghamton, the weather hub is in Syracuse (along with most of the channel's reporters) and the anchors are in Albany.

As for WBNG, it hasn't been on Front Street for many years. It moved to much nicer digs way up on a hill in Johnson City around 1990, so it was no better situated to get to the scene of the crime than WIVT (up on Ingraham Hill at the transmitter site, or are all the reporters at Oakdale Mall now?) or WICZ (out on Vestal Parkway) or News 10 (also out on Vestal Parkway).
 
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