Author Archive for admin

WTVJ Layoffs Is it the Economy or a Buyer?

Author admin on 7/3/2009 in Local Media.

1. A buyer for WTVJ has emerged, interested in the station:

a)  Buyer looking to run things on the lean. Assuming NBC isn’t flexible on the asking price this potential buyer is probably willing to give NBC the asking price but only in exchange for less burden i.e. high-paid on-air talent, too much staff.

b) the buyer is a  media company who sees the need to invest in WTVJ in order to make them a viable competitor but to do this, and give NBC the asking price, WTVJ has to ’shed some weight’ if you will.
Continue reading ‘WTVJ Layoffs Is it the Economy or a Buyer?’

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Fisher Communications and KOMO Suffer Huge Outage

Author admin on 7/3/2009 in Media Headlines.

btw I’m near Seattle, in case you’re wondering why I’m blathering about this …

update3: KOMO is back via cable and it’s a very barebones newscast.

They have laptops for Paul Deanno and the traffic girl placed on top of covered up recycling bins. There are no graphics or ad breaks. Paul is delivering his forecast without any visuals at all. And the traffic girl used her laptop and a website to show traffic conditions. The anchors have no prompters, obviously, so they are all ad libing their way trough this.

And it appears that KOMO was knocked out around 11:15pm PST last night! So they have been out for nearly 7 hours.
Continue reading ‘Fisher Communications and KOMO Suffer Huge Outage’

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DTV: NBC Asking FCC to Move WTVJ Repeater to Channel 51

Author admin on 7/2/2009 in Local Media.

NBC has filed a displacement application with the FCC, asking them for permission to move WTVJ’s low-power repeater which is still operating from analog channel 58 to analog 51.

According to the application analog 58 was sold and can’t be used, NBC still has analog 51 which has been freed up since WSCV-Telemundo (NBC-owned)moved to digital.

I guess analog lives for a few more

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WSVN Updates Hurricane Graphics

Author admin on 6/29/2009 in Local Media.

News Never Stops at WSVN, and their graphics staff never sleep either.

Barely six months after the launch of HD (in January 2009) and a whole makeover to go with it, on Friday during the afternoon news WSVN debuted new hurricane graphics and updated weather graphics.
wsvn.new.weather.gfx

The virtual weather set has been redesigned, no more walking on a big giant circle seven by Ferro and the rest of the weather talent. Most of the blue is gone, in its place a lot of black and red.

Overall good eye candy as expected I suppose. Not having the big giant silver 7 on the “floor” is a lot less distraction and shiny. Much more watchable in 16:9 than 4:3

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MSNBC Testing New Look Before Monday

Author admin on 6/29/2009 in Videos.
MSNBC HD New Graphics

MSNBC HD New Graphics

Caught a glimplse on MSNBC of their new graphics. They’ve been testing them all day on Sunday before the official launch on Monday (June 29,2009) which is also when they’ll be broadcasting in high definition.

They’ve gone the opposite direction of bold, flashy and loud. The colors are a bit sterile using a faded silver/gray as the base. The lower thirds are the same shape as CNN’s and (I think) using the same technology. They’ve replaced the time bug with a long bar at the top of the screen showing the channel slogan, time and rather big logo. Not sure I’m too crazy about it

After the jump a video from the 10:30pm east coast time news update:
Continue reading ‘MSNBC Testing New Look Before Monday’

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WJW Fox Cleveland Ridiculous Bear Story

Author admin on 6/26/2009 in Media Headlines.

WJW FOX 8 Cleveland, OH does a story on a local bear in the woods. Must watch!

That really aired on TV, all 2 minutes of it. And TV newsers say Miami is the most ridiculous market in the country.

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Did NBCMiami.com Flop? A JustNews.com vs NBCMiami.com Comparison

Author admin on 6/25/2009 in Local Media.

I was reading the TVSpy.com forums recently and someone mentioned that NBC’s Locals Only sites were a flop and lost traffic after the switch from regular TV station branded sites.

So I decided to do some digging and compare how the Miami station web sites rank against each other, mostly for my own amusement.

This comparison is based on public data from Quantcast. Both NBCMiami.com and JustNews.com track their web traffic using a pixel on their sites and the analytics are publically available. However, from personal experience the numbers are probably a little lower than what the stations see with their private web analytics tools.

Right off the bat … JustNews.com wins quite handily. In total traffic terms, WPLG’s site has about 1.7 million readers monthly vs 417,326 for WTVJ.

Continue reading ‘Did NBCMiami.com Flop? A JustNews.com vs NBCMiami.com Comparison’

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Brian Andrews’ RCN Newscast Gets Some Mojo; Jim Robinson Joins

Author admin on 6/24/2009 in Local Media.
Jim Robinson Photo: @allplatform

Jim Robinson Photo: @allplatform

Former WFOR photojournalist Jim Robinson, aka the news mojo, recently joined Brian Andrews’ RCN News in English newscast as a South Florida based correspondent.

Jim shoots, edits and reports stories from South Florida then uploads the file to Bogota, Colombia where Brian Andrews and the RCN News in English team are based. US Americans call that a VJ (video journalist) or one-man band, which we’ll probably see a lot more at local stations in the future.

Jim was a photojournalist at WFOR and worked with Brian Andrews until Brian left CBS4 and moved to Colombia. Last year he became the station’s first mobile journalist (hence the mojo moniker) but ended up laid off at the end of 2008 when CBS went trough yet another round of layoffs at their local stations .

Some of the RCN News in English Staff

Some of the RCN News in English Staff. Photo: Brian Andrews Facebook Profile

Brian’s creation has grown like weeds since it launched an year and a half ago. What started as one-man band web newscast, with just one video a day, is now supported by 14 staff members who write, edit, report, encode video, upload and perform hosting duties for the newscast. They’re also adding video twice or more a day and in addition to news there are also entertainment reports, plus even if you have no interest in Colombian news you can check out some some of the stories on life in Colombia.

Recently RCN redesigned the site with a new look and its own domain name, ColombiaNews.tv. And also (my personal obsession) added a new large video player with big, clear video that doesn’t look like a postage stamp on my 27″ monitors unlike say some local stations. (WFOR and WSVN I’m looking at you!)

As a web geek I really like seeing how they grew backwards, if you will, at least by traditional TV standards, going from the web to now getting aired on RCN’s global channel TV Colombia as well as on those TV screens tucked in the headrests of Avianca Airlines’ airplane seats.

You can check out RCN News in English at ColombiaNews.tv and Jim is on twitter @allplatform

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WFOR Shoots Story About iPhone 3GS Using an iPhone 3GS

Author admin on 6/23/2009 in Local Media.

UPDATE: Gio Benitez in comments says that CBS4 is looking for viewer feedback. However you must do it using your iPhone 3GS. Contact Gio at his email address: gbenitez@cbs.com or @GioBenitezCBS4 on Twitter

The new iPhone 3GS, or whatever this thing is called now, has camera!!! Best thing since sliced bread!!! Nothing new for a cell phone but to the iPhone it is, considering the gadget didn’t even have copy and paste until recently.

And of course what’s a newscast without the obligatory video of crazy people who slept on sidewalks so they can get their hands on a piece of plastic and metal the day it’s released?

WFOR of course reported on the new super duper iPhone but went with a different angle. Instead of showing video from news services, or lug one of those big TV cameras around, they had producer Geo Benitez (who I guess didn’t sleep on a sidewalk for his iPhone?) shoot the story about the new iPhone 3GS … with an iPhone 3GS using the gadget’s new video camera.

Thankfully it appears they either used a device or someone with a steady hand because there were no vomit inducing hand shaking video.

I think the story came out pretty good, you can watch it here

Considering some stations are already using cheap video via Skype I’m thinking it is safe to assume that live video via iPhone (or any phone with video camera) is not too far off. It will make AT&T’s 3G network completely fall apart but who cares about them it’s the future today.

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WFOR Now an ‘Advocacy Journalism’ Station

Author admin on 6/23/2009 in Local Media.

In an ‘Inside the Newsroom’ post on June 19th WFOR’s news director Adrienne Roark writes that we can pretty much consider the station an advocacy journalism shop.

‘We are the station that is by, for, and about the people” she writes. “Consider us a media advocate; working to improve the lives of the people who live here. We take this commitment very seriously”

Wikipedia describes advocacy journalism as:

… a genre of journalism that intentionally and transparently adopts a non-objective viewpoint, usually for some social or political purpose. Because it is intended to be factual, it is distinguished from propaganda.

…

News reports are intended to be objective and unbiased. In contrast, advocacy journalists have an opinion about the story they are writing. For example, that political corruption should be punished, that more environmentally friendly practices should be adopted by consumers, or that a government policy will be harmful to business interests and should not be adopted.

Lately there has been a noticeable trend where the CBS4 I-Team label is showing up quite a bit in WFOR’s newscasts or I-Team newscasts as some might argue.
Continue reading ‘WFOR Now an ‘Advocacy Journalism’ Station’

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