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Early Addition
Has WABC Changed for the Worse? We are starting to think that Bill Beutel, Roger Grimsby, or Tom Snyder would not recognize their former station if they came back to life. Sure the station is dominant in the ratings but has the quality of the news product gone down?
We think it has, especially given the recent and thankfully reversed (albeit after much public outcry and pressure) decision to relegate the bulk of the 9/11 memorial coverage to its digital subchannel and show the very profitable high rated morning line up of Live With Regis and Kelly, the Rachel Ray Show, and The View. And how did they announce their lack of coverage? A brief mention on Eyewitness News with the graphic above.
It really seems as if the mark of general manager Dave Davis has made for a fluffier newscast that seems peppered with kicker stories and an overall less serious tone. If you know anything about Davis’ last station, WPVI in Philadelphia, or have seen their ratings powerhouse 1970s themed “Action News” newscast which has a definite down market feel to it. In fact, it seems as if Davis has been trying to replicate that sort successful pandering station at WABC for the past few years.
When we compared WABC to WPVI, there were a lot of similarities in their newscasts and overall station branding which seem to have both a throwback and blue collar quality to them. True, WABC’s Eyewitness News doesn’t have a lead anchorman who is more like Ron Burgundy than Bill Beutel, music that went out of date during the Nixon administration, or a set that looks like it was designed by a mob wife trying to put on airs, but the pacing, presentation, and content of the two stations newscasts is remarkably similar. Given the presence of Davis at both stations, it seems far from coincidental.
If we compare WABC with sister station WLS in Chicago, WABC looks like a station from some small market in Iowa who appears to not had the money to update their graphics or set since the mid 1990s. When it comes to ABC owned stations, Chicago’s ABC 7 makes New York seem like the second city. WLS has modern graphics, a modern studio (which they don’t have to share with another show), and an overall harder news focus which has kept them in first place in the ratings since the mid 1980s. Watching them would make you think they were the network’s flagship station instead of WABC.
So how do things compare historically? We plopped the old VCR in a tape of a WABC newscast from 2003, just a few months before Davis joined the station, and it seemed totally different. The graphics were much smaller and better looking than those of today and the newscast seemed to be less kinetic, harder edged, and more focused than the current product. It was almost as if it was a different station with a totally different vibe. We did the same for WNBC and there wasn’t the overwhelming sense of sea change that we felt with channel 7.
Still, we guess the station really doesn't have to worry about what is in the newscast as long as they are getting the ratings. Although, that sort of thinking could lead to the idea of ditching a major news event in favor of highly rated chat shows making a great deal of sense. Either that or someone had a few too many Grimsby sized drinks.
Doing Digital Right
After WABC got shamed and pressured into reversing the move of 9/11 Memorial coverage to a digital subchannel in favor of morning chat shows (irate callers overwhelming your switchboard tends to do that to stations), WNBC's plan to shunt the Today Show off to their digital subchannel WNBC 4.4 in favor of 9/11 coverage on the main station seemed like the perfect counterpoint. NBC 4 has recently started doing this when local programming, like Giants pre-season games, has conflicted with network programs. The only down side to this is those who don't have cable or a digital television receiver can't watch the pre-empted network shows, but it does give the majority of viewers a choice.
BBC to Take on American News
On October 1 at 7:00 p.m., the BBC will launch BBC World News America on BBC America as well as the BBC’s worldwide news channel BBC World. Matt Frei, the BBC’s Washington correspondent will anchor the newscast which will focus on both American and world news.
20/20 vs. Dateline NBC
Tonight ABC’s newsmagazine 20/200
. (10:00 p.m. WABC 7) will be airing an expose on rival newsmagazine Dateline NBC and their “To Catch a Predator” reports. The investigation is headed up by Brian Ross, who should be somewhat familiar with the NBC program, since he was a reporter for it in the early 1990s.
New Fox 5 Talent
Andy Rosa Adler will be the first Entertainment/Web Reporter for WNYW’s website and she will report on air for both WNYW and WWOR. She joins the station from KPSP in Palm Springs, California where she was an entertainment reporter and anchor of the station’s daily entertainment show.
CBS 2 Race for the Cure
WCBS will be airing a special about breast cancer called Race for the Cure (Saturday 7:00 p.m.) ahead of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure on Sunday. The special will highlight treatments, ways to cope and will talk with survivors.
ABC News Merger
ABC News will merge the weekend and weekday staffs of its flagship “World News” newscasts. There will be no staff cuts and the merger will take place immediately.
WNBC's New York Nightly News
WNBC's new 7 p.m. newscast begins Monday, with Chuck Scarborough anchoring. We hope the name New York Nightly News means that it is more like a local version of NBC Nightly News. We'll see. And Live at Five, we'll miss you!
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"Thankfully" reversed?
WABC made the right decision, and then bowed to misguided pressure from the vocal minority.
Um, who cares?
"Thankfully reversed" is your opinion, Toby. Not mine. Time to move on.
Relegating it to the digital channel while everyone else was preempting was a huge deal and it looked bad. Glad they're not going to read all the names though. That is a bit much.
More important will be to see the switch to 7pm for WNBC. They have much better reporting overall. (Not such ambulance chasers like WABC.) I'm sure it'll take a few weeks to iron out the kinks but it's a good experiment for them and could benefit people interested in good local news. We'll see.
The 9/11 coverage won't be news, it has always been and will continue to be theatre. The fact that they did reverse course and put it back on proves that they are just as low brow and morbidly idiotic as every other "news" outlet on commercial TV. It's infotainment at best.
Leave the 9/11 ceremonies to NYCTV and NY1. Give me Regis, Martha, live Today show, any all the other crapola. I really hope there are no primetime specials planned.
I was in Chicago recently and couldn’t believe how much better the WLS newscast looked, especially the graphics. WABC had a fire in their studio and rather than use that as an excuse to update their tired set, they recreated the burnt out crap. But then again, who needs a pretty set to look at when I am fixated on Liz Cho?
As for the 9/11 coverage, they were doing the right thing by skipping the ceremonies. Its time to move on, if the families want to continue to grieve, they should do it privately. The families are making it hard to be sympathetic towards them with all their demands. I’ve read that there are many families of 9/11 victims who are doing everything privately and want nothing to do with these people who have turned grieving into a full time job.
Are the families of the victims from the Minnesota bridge collapse going to dictate how and when the bridge gets rebuilt? Are they going to shut down the highway once a year to have a grieve-fest? I think not, on both accounts.
which is worse: TV news sucking, or writing about TV news sucking. TV news has been unbearable since I've been alive. Of course, writing about writing about......
Toby, you looking for work with Butt Bongo Dan @ WNBC?
I'm Roger Grimsby here now the news. "As the local bars raise the price of their drinks Tex A. and myself have decided to move further away from the studios. Back to you Bill."
Film at eleven.
WABC was at its best when the Starbucks at W.66th and Columbus was a good old BAR, with dark recesses and stiff drinks.
Grimsby was a regular at McGlade's, one of the lost bars of broadcasting, as Hurley's Saloon and W. 49th and 6th Ave was to NBC. Come to think of it, when Grimsby did a stint at WNBC, he was much seen at Hurley's too.
CBS folks had Armstrong's at W. 57th and 10th Ave ... WNYW then and as now has the Racing Club right across E. 67th betw. 2nd and 3rd Aves ... WPIX and Daily News guys frequented the old pressman's bar [forget the name] at E. 41st @ 2nd avenue, right behind the old Daily News/WPIX HQ at 220 E 42 ... Fox Newsies and that Ozzie drunk Dunleavy have Langan's ...
20/20 giving it to NBC and perverted justice, hahahahah or Bwaahhhhhhh or
Muaahhahhhhahhhhahhhh
The new best test for bad copyediting is spelling RachaEl Ray's name with out the "e."
#11 I see your point. Drinking makes better broadcasters. The Grimsby type of broadcaster is a thing of the past.
I'd like to add to the list,
Lou Grant from WJM. remember when he anchored the news when there was a strike? whiskey did the trick.
WTF is with that station in Philly?
They have something straight out of the 70's and in HD. That is just wrong.
And why the hell are they getting rid of Live at 5?
Can't they go back to the sweet shows they did in the 80's and bring back Jack Cafferty?
Cafferty is on cable news now tearing it up and speaking the truth! He's an angry angry man and it's awesome.
Did everyone forget how fast WABC's coverage was for the steam explosion? It took all the other channels like 1 hour before they started covering it. WABC is pretty good.... or at least they did well with that.
WPVI is successful because it makes Philadelphians feel like they're part of a close community (albeit one with a disturbingly high crime rate). The anchors are like family to people who watch this broadcast.
The station actually tried to update the '70s theme a few years back, but there was so much viewer backlash that they went back to the old one. They also took much longer than other local stations to start using digital graphics for weather forecasts, because the meteorologists used to draw smiley faces on cut-out clouds and stick them to the forecast board.
I can see how it would seem ridiculous to an outsider, but having grown up with WPVI, all other broadcasts seem to fall short of its blend of homey, cheesy charm and decent coverage of events that affect residents.
I totally agree here. WABC is a joke compared to other ABC O&O stations, and the other stations in NYC area. WABC is just as worst as News12LI, they better get their act together. What also bothers me is that WABC copies other station operations; for example; when WNYW released their new HD copter WABC upgraded their copter to HD within a few months, and the samething happened when WNBC went in HD, and when WNBC released their Weather Plus and Dt 4.4 feeds.