The CBS affiliation in Atlanta is moving from Gray Media's WANF-TV to CBS owned WUPA-TV effective later this summer. WUPA will launch 'CBS News Atlanta' as a streaming service, with no apparent mention of a broadcast news presence.
KIRO7 is a CBS affiliate here owned by Cox-Apollo. KSTW is CBS-owned on Channel 11.
WANF has been a horrific station for years under multiple managements, so CBS was glad to jettison. In Seattle KIRO has been slicing and dicing the budget, eliminating the sports dept., dumping news on weekend mornings, having news reporters do weather fill-in and cutting top talent like Jesse Jones. It's not what it used to be. Maybe CBS has had enough here.
If the switch happened, would 11 bulk up a news identity as a time when ratings and viewership are down? Would seem unlikely but there is all NEW news leadership at CBS. Or what if CBS bought KIRO and created a duopoly with KSTW to compete with KING/KONG, KOMO/KUNS and KCPQ/KJZO.
Not sure when KIRO last renewed with CBS as an affil and that could play a factor.
Lots to digest. Above my pay grade. Musing.
CBS did build a similar style of news department from scratch for WWJ, their O&O in Detroit in 2023 that they own envision for Atlanta, so its not inconceivable that they could build up a solid news presence on KSTW of they wanted to. Whether viewers would tune in or not is another story.
ReplyDeleteThe Detroit station has never succeeded and is now run by the GM on WBBM of Chicago in a shared arrangement. Maybe it makes enough money to keep news alive in a market with WDIV and WXYZ, two powerhouse stations for decades.
DeleteThe current GM of WWJ and WBBM was in charge of news at Chicago's WGN for many years prior to CBS launching the current ireration of local news in Detroit, and she did an excellent job in that role. I'm sure she is doing her best to help both WWJ and WBBM be the best they can be, though I concede that having one's attention split the way hers must be is far from ideal. As for WWJ making enough money to keep the news department going, I would have to think that Michigan's swing state status means political ad dollars are constantly flowing every two years. Also, being right on the border with Windsor, Ontario might attract advertisers wanting to have their ads seen on both sides of the border by those who have antennas or those who choose to watch Detroit news versus Windsor news, which, as I understand it, is something that people in Windsor will do when severe weather is moving through the area as the local Windsor stations don't tend to cover such events as well as the local Detroit stations.
DeleteThe CBS affiliation has flopped between KIRO and KSTW two times. First in the early 1960s, when Ch 11 lost the affiliation to Ch 7 and then again in 1995 when CBS went back to KSTW (and KIRO became UPN affiliate owned by BELO) only to have CBS go back to KIRO when BELO bought Providence Journal (owner of KING) in 1997. At that point, CBS came back to KIRO.
ReplyDeleteKIRO also supplied a 10pm newscast to KSTW around 2005 or so for a few years.
ReplyDeleteI knew th GM at 11. It failed.
DeleteWhat made that show fail? Too much competition from what is now Fox 13 and KING 5 news on KONG? Lack of viewers? Lack of ad revenue? Something else?
DeleteRatings for news on KSTW during the 1995-1997 CBS period were pretty bad, despite having network leadins back when that meant something. The lead anchors were Dale Schornack, Monica Gayle, Neal Barton (Wxr) and Rod Simonds (sports).
ReplyDeleteWell, NCIS is better than Family Feud in prime time, right? And all the NFL games, even some Hawks.
DeleteI would certainly think that NCIS and other shows like that would be better than Family Fued in primetime. However, WHDH in Boston has had Family Fued in the 8pm hour for several years now, leading into a primetime/late night local news block from 9 to 11:30pm. It seems to be working just fine for them. That being said, I do agree that its better to have some NFL games in primetime as they normally rate exceptionally well by today's standards.
DeleteWHDH lost its NBC deal back in 2016-17 and went indie. Sunbeam, which owns WHDH also owns WSVN in Miami. But now, WPLG in Miami is losing its ABC affiliation to Sunbeam's digital WSVN 7.2., effectively creating a duopoly for Sunbeam/Anson.
DeleteOops! Rod Simons. My apologies to those who remember the late sports man.
ReplyDeleteFirst time commenter, long time reader. As you said in your post, KIRO has sliced and diced beyond the bone IMO and frankly at this point CBS should pull the affiliation. But it is rumored that in Atlanta, the existing station was offered a chance to renew their affiliation but chose not to, suggesting to me that CBS wasn't interested in spending a lot of money to build up news infrastructure for a new station. That that station chose not to do that means CBS now has to spend that additional money. I see a similar issue in Seattle because KSTW has AFAIK correct me if I am wrong Mr. Lynch no actual studio facility on top of there being no newscasts there. So if you are CBS what is cheaper? Buying KIRO with its existing resources however spartan they are and building those back up or straight pulling the affiliation and having to do the same things here you're going to have to do in Atlanta.
ReplyDeleteIf you're CBS, buying KIRO and building it back up would be cheaper than pulling the affiliation, moving it to KSTW, and having to build KSTW back up. KIRO already has a studio and news facility in place. KSTW doesn't. It would be quite expensive and time consuming to build a studio and news facility for KSTW, which would need to have local newscasts on the air sooner rather than later if CBS were to move its affilation there. Its possible that CBS could opt to have local newscasts for KSTW produced out of another of their O&O's (KPIX in San Francisco comes to mind) as a short term measure with reporters working remotely. You wouldn't be able to have a full slate of shows, but perhaps one live or pre-recorded half-hour in the early evening and a pre-recorded half-hour at 11pm could be done. However, that would only work as a starting point. Long term, CBS would need to be able to produce newscasts for KSTW in a new studio and news facility somewhere in Western Washington. Plus, CBS would need to hire an entire news team for KSTW, which would be very expensive. KIRO already has a bare bones news team. All CBS would have to do is build it back up, which would be more affordable.
DeleteCBS does not own WANF in Atlanta, Gray owns it. Perhaps Gray did not want to continue payinig reverse comp to the network. CBS is strong in prime time, but the Evening News has cratered since Norah left, CBS mornings have been bad for years and FOX has the Falcons games in the fall. Lots in play, plus the Paramount/Skydance deal and Trump suit. It's a cluster for the new news bosses to fix. BTW, you are right that KSTW has no news studio.
ReplyDeleteGood info and thanks
DeleteThanks for being a loyal reader. BTW, with virtual sets getting more tech advanced, all KSTW would need is one camera, one anchor, one mike and couple of virtual backdrops of the city, and there;s your studio. The problem is video but they could make a deal with KIRO in a sale situation to acquire some file and daily video. Anything is possible, really.
DeleteCBS already uses virtual sets in several of their O&O markets (primarly for weather, though KPIX in San Francisco uses theirs for every part of nearly every newscast), so they already have a template for how to build such a set for KSTW. They would just need a facility to house it.
DeleteI was thinking much more of a small area which could be lighted for a single anchor with a series of keywall backdrops (skylines, sports, the Capitol, etc), not a full virtual studio. With that they could do prime time cut-ins for a minute or :30 here and there for a small presence, but not full-blown news. It's mostly about getting network programming on a station they own. Even if KIRO has a long-term carriage agreement with CBS, there are always escape hatches. Anyway, just spitballiin.'
DeleteThat would work too. They might even be able to anchor full newscasts from such a setup, assuming sports and weather are always or nearly always done on location.
DeleteMaybe it would be the best thing to happen to KIRO?
ReplyDeleteWith the situation at KIRO no sports, no consumer departments and many newscasters leaving I believe this is a signal that something is brewing over there. Just we could find out how Cox’s contract is with CBS and would KSTW would build a news department? However for many years in Detroit they had no local news at their CBS owned station, so it can happen here. As much as I like the newscasters not fond of their CBS Daytime programming putting Bold and the Beautiful at 2PM when in most West Coast markets have it at 12:30.
ReplyDeleteCBS finally did build a news dept in Detroit and it does not do well at all. Never has. But who knows what is going on at CBS these days. Scott Pelley just called out the network and he's one of their premier people.
ReplyDelete