Comments on: Even with CBS winning 10pm, affiliates still not satisfied with lead-in to local news

By: Bitey

Bitey — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:21:26 +0000

Viewership may have been about quality, but the business never has been and never will be. Don’t even make an exception for those cases where a network can get a free publicity boost by boasting that they are keeping low-rated quality shows alive. That free publicity is worth real advertising money so don’t even count that as “being about quality.”

Besides, quality is subjective. I don’t watch talk shows but many people do. Millions consider the genre to have enough quality to tune in. I don’t care about doctor shows but people often consider these to be among the highest of quality and profitability. It’s all subjective until you get to the networks’ reason for being: Making money.

I’m sure someone could make a very good drama very cheaply as CGI improves when you could have a small cast talking in front of a green screen, then replace the screen with any environment. Syfy already does this for the megacheap Sanctuary show. Just because I don’t personally like Sanctuary doesn’t mean that quality writing couldn’t be done on TV with that same cheap format.

By: jay

jay — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:11:08 +0000

JT – I’ve learned from this site how little I know about the television industry, even after spending one whole Kansas winter reading about the history of vaudeville, the movies, TV etc. The TV history books were broad brush indeed compared to the info you can get here by going to the right sources. Right now, I am willing to concede ( don’t mean to sound pretentious, I mean privately concede in an ms. I’m working on) that TV went,from the 1960’s to the present, from being basically an advertising forum with filler programs to a combination of both an art form and an advertising venue. What seems up in the air to me now is the future of quality shows – defined simply withouit subjectivity as dollars spent per half hour or hour on the product – can be sustained with diminishing returns on network spots. It seeme the huge ad dollar bonanzas of the 1980’s were actually spent by the nets on expensive production values; that the network share kept decling relative to cable anyway, and now …???

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:09:16 +0000

Anon, thanks, I will try and check it out.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:55:27 +0000

@ Bill

Someone at PiFeedback occasionally posts the primetime numbers for all brodcast networks by market (usually the top 10 cities)

By: DenverDean

DenverDean — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:17:17 +0000

Good example of how to bleed audience. During time between end of Bills/Jets game and 60 Minutes: No less than six minutes of ads and promos. (I was waiting so I could set DVR for TAR.) Ridiculous. I would’ve started 60M immediates and worked ads into program. I’d love to see how many people switched during that lag time.

By: Rick

Rick — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:40:34 +0000

I work at a local CBS affiliate. The 10 pm lead in is a HUGE factor in who wins the 11 pm news. That 35 minutes is our biggest money maker. And Leno has been a Godsend to us. After years of playing second fiddle to the NBC station, we are now consistently #1 at 11 pm. However, we still bleed a big chunk of our audience between 10:57 and 11 pm. A seamless format would not only help us, but the CBS O&Os that bring in a lot of revenue for the network.

By: Terrence

Terrence — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 07:56:09 +0000

If local news is going to remain relevant, it should focus on exactly that — LOCAL. Let the cable networks and the internet handle the national and international. Then the local news becomes a destination for what’s going on in your area.

By: Joe Jackson

Joe Jackson — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:39:43 +0000

Sunday, The Unit 2.6 vs Sunday, Three Rivers/Cold Case 1.7

Maybe canceling The Unit was not such a good idea

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:06:45 +0000

I might have to agree that the local news does not depend on the network’s rating in the 10:00 hour. Here n Atlanta, WSB channel 2 (an ABC affiliate) has always had better 11:00 news ratings than every other channel combined. It’s been that way for 30 years now. I think people get used to their local news channel and will tune into it no matter what they are watching at 10.

By: Julia

Julia — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:47:58 +0000

And, yet, you still come here.

By: JT

JT — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 02:43:27 +0000

why oh why has everyone on this site become so pretentious and condescending, as if their opinion is the only thing that matters. everyone is arguing what’s more important: demos vs. total viewers vs. transgender adults betwen the ages of 10 and 12. all here seem forget to realize that the truth is, while ratings matter to an extent, nobody really knows the deals that go on behind the scenes. while this site may be “all about the numbers”, the decisions of tv networks are definately not always just that. everyone here seems to think they know the answers to everything, when the truth is most are likely broadcast majors who were rejected. seriously. it’s annoying to no extent, and I’m a guy who really had an interest in following tv ratings. not anymore, that’s for sure!!!!!

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:29:27 +0000

Boyd. I’ve never seen any network ratings averages by geography either for local or national primetime. I bet they exist, and I’d love to see them.

By: Jon K

Jon K — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:05:31 +0000

@DenverDean, likely a Cold Case rerun for the west coast.

By: Zedman2

Zedman2 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:59:48 +0000

The article isn’t about the leadin that CBS provides but the amount of clutter leading into the local late night new. ABC ends their shows at 11pm and the local new begins, don’t understand why CBS can’t do the same.

By: Boyd

Boyd — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:01:00 +0000

Isn’t CBS traditionally 3rd in most major markets? I always thought CBS’ primetime strength (at least with overall viewers) was with smalltown America (rural, smaller markets, esp. the South and Mid-West) and they do much worse with urban viewers (the Northeast, West coast). I know the owned and operated affiliates in Philly, NYC & LA have historically struggled. So, even though CBS has dominated the 10 pm hour nationally this season, if they are in fact down a tick from last year, wouldn’t that be a real cause of concern for their main affiliates, for which the network has never really had the stronghold in that 10:00 time slot the same way it did in lesser markets? If so, I could see where that would be a big reason for these stations to get upset and not just mere whining.

By: DenverDean

DenverDean — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Finally CBS just announced that CC will new seen next Sunday. Thanks for not wasting an episode. Wonder what will be on here (Denver) and West Coast. I’ll be watching Bears.

By: DenverDean

DenverDean — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:38:24 +0000

Well since CBS has another doubleheader game and it’s going to OT again, I expect CC won’t start until close to 11 ET. What’s the point? Another record low for CC coming up!

By: Tommy

Tommy — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:18:56 +0000

Mark Said:
LOCAL NEWS

I assume there may be a smiliar campaign in the US, but here in Canada, there are commercials airing all the time to “save the local news”, due to satelite, internet and other ways of getting television that does not ever give us our local news.

Therefore they are in the red ink by alot, and they are caving any year now! we will go to general news like CNN (the candian version).

I don’t know how affiliates handle Satellite TV there, but here we have the option to get broadcast stations via Satellite only if we do not have a local affiliate to get that broadcast station over the air, or if the local affiliate is willing to sign off that their signal will not reach that customer (Which in my area our local CBS and FOX stations , which both are owned by the same company and use the same news sets and anchors, will not do this even if you legitimately can’t get the signal over the air from them.) They even go as far as having Comcast block the out of market stations when they air anything that they themselves air in syndication (Live with Regis & Kelly, Oprah, etc.) Now I have seen them air a request to sign a petition to get DirectTV and Dish Network to offer our local CBS & FOX stations, but those attempts have been unsuccessful.

By: Dingo

Dingo — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:54:00 +0000

The concept of “lead-ins” and “lead-outs” seems more outdated than the broadcast and affiliates models. Do a lot of people still say: “I like watching Show A at 8 and Show C at 10 on X Network. I wasn’t going to watch Show B at 9 but I don’t want to change the channel so I’ll watch it anyway.”

By: J.R. Herbaugh

J.R. Herbaugh — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:41:23 +0000

Okay, Melrose Place reruns, day and night.

Anyway, the idea is unlikely because CW would have to close (like WB and UPN did) and rebrand in order to break the affiliate contracts, but would still be on the hook to Tribune for the balance of their ten year programming agreement.

By: Julia

Julia — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:53:58 +0000

JR, the problem with airing shows from their libraries is that there is still a cost to that. There are still residuals that have to be paid. It wouldn’t be extremely expensive, but still more than they spend on content now.

By: R.G

R.G — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:50:11 +0000

I think they need to put the Police Procedurals a lot earlier like in the 8pm hour. I mean nobody wants to watch local news right after the police procedural. It’s like watching fake crime come after the real thing. To many it’s depressing and scary.

By: J.R. Herbaugh

J.R. Herbaugh — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:45:54 +0000

It is. I don’t know if The Unit is syndicated outside My, though. If we’re talking the future, I heard they’re developing a late night show.

By: Bill Gorman

Bill Gorman — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:41:44 +0000

J.R., at this point I think MyNet’s only “original” show is Friday Night Smackdown, everything else is a syndicated repeat.

By: J.R. Herbaugh

J.R. Herbaugh — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:37:13 +0000

MyNet didn’t program Sunday, and gave up the Saturday reruns/movie after season 2.

I doubt MyNet would become a cable channel, as its few shows can be folded into NewsCorp’s other cable channels.