The Inbox...
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Let’s open up the Inbox and see what has you guys talking.
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Your article on Katie Couric and her time at the evening news was an interesting look back at history. However it made me think not about how she changed the media landscape, but rather an unfortunate reckoning that CBS has been struggling to find a good fit for the Evening News for 19 years. I would argue that they haven’t had any success with any single anchor since Dan Rather. He was the last one who was really able to draw people in.
-Scott Pelley great for 60 Minutes but not the right delivery for evening news.
-Anthony Mason was great but everyone knew it was temporary.
-Jeff Glor: hardest working guy in the building but just not the best delivery and Norah O’Donnell worked to undermine him.
-Norah O’Donnell: fantastic reporter, not a fantastic anchor.
-Maurice and soon to be just John, probably: well … that one speaks for itself.
As we have seen.. 19 years of television history and 19 years of CBS mistakes. Here’s to the next 19!
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This weekend I had a long flight. Fortunately it was on Delta so I had the live TV on my seat back screen. I spent Sunday afternoon bouncing between CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. What I found, is that Fox News wins. It’s not even about politics. Journalism 101 tells us that television is a visual medium. Fox understands this. Even on a Sunday afternoon, they have multiple reporters who are live on the ground where the news is
Happening taking viewers there to show them what is happening. MSNBC fills their time with talking heads appearing via zoom from their lovely looking home office. The most live they had was one reporter at the White House. CNN doesn’t even go live until 2 pm ET on sundays and when They do it’s a similar
Setup to MSNBC with people just on screen talking. That is so BORING! This is why Fox News wins and it has nothing to do with politics.
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By 2030, I anticipate there will be two possible outcomes.
1. WPLG model becomes the norm, locally-focused stations ditch the affiliation to chart their own course. Stations who get major network affiliations on a secondary basis obtain no retransmission revenue with the right to sell advertising during local programming, incrementally increasing revenue with minimal expenditure.
or,
2. The networks go on a buying/building spree in regionally important markets based on political regions, cut deals with distributors, cut out the station groups, and potentially cut out offering their programming free over-the-air.
As one of your viewers pointed out the following example:
Yuma is provided Phoenix O&O
El Centro is provided San Diego O&O
Also, Macon/Savannah/Albany, GA could be provided Atlanta O&O Zonecasted to provide specific advertising/weather cut-ins for the respective cities, etc.
These networks could easily hire 1-2 reporters in the smaller markets for local interest and breaking news, ironically it could result in better pay, treatment and advancement opportunities since they could be better utilized.
For Weather, it would be much like what James Spann is executing at Alabama Weather Network; if there is a Tornado Warning in any of Alabama’s counties, he would cut-in, I’d rather have the freshers learn under experienced and respected voices in the newsroom.
The reason why there are so many TikTok Journalists is because in the smaller markets they are underpaid and given no direction, so
when they get a chance in a large market they lean on the only thing they know (Social Media), if they are placed in structured environments where they can have mentors and view journalism as a sustainable career, they will stop the TikTok attention seeking nonsense.
