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Last Thursday, all of the stations covered the tragic fire in the Bronx quite well and took the opportunity for some refreshers on basic fire safety. As expected, WCBS went way overboard creating a whole special set of graphics for the station’s coverage, complete with new lower thirds that used a different font which were ready by Thursday’s 5 p.m. newscast. For 6 p.m., CBS 2 needlessly sent anchor Jim Rosenfeld to the scene, as they tend to do with most big stories.
It is this sort of misdirection of resources that makes us wonder about what WCBS is thinking. In the past few months they have needlessly sent reporters to cover the Anna Nicole Smith body trial in Florida, and the murder of two college students in Arizona. It is no wonder they are not doing well in the ratings.
Quick hits:
Last Thursday, WABC’s Bill Ritter went door to door in Highbridge giving residents smoke detectors that had old smoke detectors and those who didn't have them. It made for some good television and provided a plug for the sponsor of the station's fire safety program Operation 7 Save a Live, Kidde.
Kudos to Fox 5's Charles Leaf who got some action and heat for some apartment dwellers in the East Tremont section of the Bronx on Wednesday.
We have been pleasantly surprised with Fox’s Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? Normally we don’t like Jeff Foxworthy, but he does a pretty good job hosting this fun and clever game show.
Sunday night when we tuned into Fox 5 for The Simpsons there was some unneeded post auto racing programming on. We wonder why The Simpson’s couldn’t have started on time and the in studio blathering couldn’t have been eliminated so the Fox prime time schedule could have run on time. Perhaps wasting gas leads to not caring about wasting people’s time, screwing up recordings. Perhaps they want to drive away regular viewers due to not having silly events end on time.
Finally a bit of clarification from last time. WNBC is in second place in the English language 6 p.m. news race, but overall, they are third behind Spanish language WXTV’s Noticias Univision 41 which is in the number 2 spot behind WABC.
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At least WCBS is giving it a try, with coverage that at least looks aggressive and different. FYI on tha day of the fire WCBS and WABC had their usual noon programs. with most of the news concentrating on the fire. WNBC had a lame 10-minute update, cutting into the all-important "iVillage Live" ... lame and embarrassing.
As today's NY Times says ... and conventional wisdom ... it's all about the lead-ins, and whether the previous show can build upon it.
WCBS has failed so far to capitalize on its excellent CBS prime-time 11p lead-ins ... and "Judge Judy".
WNBC has squat for lead-ins, and the NBC prime-time schedule is hurting.
WABC has the lead-ins (The View, Oprah) in daytime and early evening .. and is #1 at 11 in spite of ABC's sometimes lackluster prime schedule.
Hey I share your cynicism about the media, but come on. A new screen treatment like that takes about 20 minutes to design and 20 to implement. Complain about the coverage, but lets not pretend that precious resources were diverted to do this
Easy is absolutely right. Every local station has a KU truck and the personnel to staff it, as well as graphic artists on staff. They might even have saved money and/or pooled resources as a CBS O&O by letting the network or CBS Newspath (for affiliates) use their footage.
This was the deadliest fire in New York City since the Happy Land Social Club, and certainly newsworthy enough to justify an anchor stand-up. I would argue it was newsworthy for national coverage, actually.
Isn't that the point of "Breaking news" ? To Exhaust every angle of a story .
It is this sort of misdirection of resources that makes us wonder about what WCBS is thinking. In the past few months they have needlessly sent reporters to cover the Anna Nicole Smith body trial in Florida, and the murder of two college students in Arizona. It is no wonder they are not doing well in the ratings.
I don't get this (entire post) at all! How is it a misdirection of resources to send reporters to cover HUGE news stories??
However you feel about Anna Nicole Smith as a person, her trial was a really big national news story, not to mention all the legal implications of her will and how the outcome could affect other similar cases.
For the Arizona story - those girls were from Long Island, so obviously this is a local angle that should definitely be covered.
I can't imagine those graphics took any resources at all - can't that just get typed up in a graphics program?
What else should they be using their resources on? Buying smoke alarms?