Maine TV station pretaping late newscasts
Steve Safran October 30th, 2006
WVII, the ABC affil in Bangor, Maine, and its sister station (a Fox affil) are taping their 10 pm and 11 pm newscasts a couple of hours ahead of time. WVII VP and GM Mike Palmer says “Not a whole lot happens in Bangor, Maine, late at night… we can save some efficiency that way by sending everyone home a couple hours earlier and still have an 11 o’clock newscast.” There will be a note on the screen that the news was taped earlier. Of course, when there is news that has happened in the hours since the show was taped, WVII won’t have it. Story is from Oct. 13, just noticed it now. (Via Heaton)
25 Comments Add your own
1. flotsam | October 30th, 2006 at 10:49 am
Is this the same Maine station whose GM told his staff forget about global warming stories “until Bar Harbor” is under water?
If so, offering pre-taped news as news must be part of his continuing “vision.”
2. joecommonsense | October 30th, 2006 at 11:19 am
wow, the end of all sanity has arrived. why don’t we just pre-tape everything. live news? overrated.
3. thebangorchannel | October 30th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Bangor is a really small market that has never fully supported three players in TV news. WABI, the locally-owned CBS affiliate, is the only station that has both weekday and weekend newscasts produced locally. They also produce a 10PM weekday newscast for its CW-affiliated digital subchannel. Naturally, they have dominated the ratings since the dawn of time. Though their website content is minimal overall, they do post three of their weekday newscasts for download. WLBZ, the NBC affiliate owned by Virginia-based Gannett, is largely a satellite of WCSH in Portland, which produces all but the weekday 5 and 6PM newscasts for both stations. WVII, the ABC affiliate owned by Michigan-based Rockfleet, has always been the joke of the market. They only do a half-hour at 6PM and 11PM weekdays (plus the 10PM for their low-power Fox affiliate) and nothing at all on the weekends. They don’t even have a weather department; forecasts come from AccuWeather in Pennsylvania.
4. Charlie Sierra | October 30th, 2006 at 12:02 pm
Don’t know what the big deal is here, I mean you “news” guys have been making it up for years. And when Mrs. Cheney puts the slapdown on CNN, you get your feathers in a ruffle.
If you morons in the media biz haven’t figured it out yet, allow me to clue you in:
Nobody believes a damn thing you biased bastards say, so just send everybody home, and give the shareholders a break.
Just look in the mirror. You destroyed the public’s trust, and now the public will put you outta business, just as it should be.
Welcome to the internet.
5. discreet_chaos | October 30th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
As someone who lived in Bar Harbor for a few years, I clicked the comment link to say pretty much the same thing as thebangorchannel. I don’t have all of his facts and figures, but there’s a definite heirachy of news stations in that market.
6. thedetroitchannel | October 30th, 2006 at 12:14 pm
hey bangor,
how bout you drop me a line and take over my marketing…you’re sentence structure is far and away better than moi!
WABI? them folks in bangor don’t know how good they have it.
i’d like to catch a 1/2 hour of WABI every night!
7. discreet_chaos | October 30th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
Okay - So I didn’t spell hierarchy right and as soon as the thing printed, I could see my mistake. What happened to the old “preview” button and can we not get it back?
Also, I’m jumping back in to state for the record that I usually watched the early news on the CBS affiliate and the late news on Channel 2. As a general rule, I often lean toward the more laid-back style that’s often practiced by NBC affiliates. I don’t know if that just the package that most of them buy or if it’s just a coincidence, but I’ve lived all over the country and most of the time, I’ve watched the late news on the NBC affiliates.
(Also, back when I lived in BH, Channel 2 had a late anchor who was very easy on the eyes, so that may have effected that particular choice)
8. Don | October 30th, 2006 at 1:59 pm
The Fisher-owned CBS station in Lewiston Idaho does one better — they just rerun the 6pm newscast at 11pm.
9. wayoutwest | October 30th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
they should just run a weekly newscast and deliver the VHS tapes door to door. you know, like that weekly pennysaver periodical with all the political propaganda in it. who needs daily news when there are farms to run and chickens to defeather.
10. Parker | October 30th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
Umm.. what am I missing here? Isn’t almost ALL the news on the internet pre-taped ahead of time? How much do you do LIVE on your website?
If nothing changes, who cares? What’s the “magic” in having it live at 11?
11. thomas | October 30th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
I use the 11 O’clock news to help me fall asleep, so to me it really doesn’t matter if it is pre-recorded.
12. Barry S. | October 30th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Don Said: “The Fisher-owned CBS station in Lewiston Idaho does one better — they just rerun the 6pm newscast at 11pm. ”
Is their tagline, “If you didn’t like it the first time, watch it again at 11″?
I always wanted to work somewhere that that had a catchy slogan..
“Where We’re Not Happy, Until You’re Not Happy” (That was managements internal slogan..)
“When News Happens, Its News To us”
13. flotsam | October 30th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Hey Parker..
The only “magic” of it being live at 11 is that is not masquerading as “news” that is fresh but really is five hours old and out date.
is their promo: “The world ends in 30 seconds, that story in one minute”?
Downeasters really deserve better than that I hope.
14. Michael Gay | October 30th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
The west coast markets see pre-taped versions of the evening news every night, broadcast from networks on the east coast. It’s harder to argue there is no news around the world in those few hours, than it is to argue there was no news in a tiny market. People need to get out of their “holier than thou” attitudes.
15. Dan | October 30th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
I don’t think it’s “holier than thou” so much as it is
the audience’s perception of what they have grown
to believe over the last 50 years. In general,
viewers out there believe they are
watching a live program with the latest news when they
view a 6 or 11pm newscast on a local station.
If they believe this and the station does not make it very clear this is not the case, the FTC (not the FCC) might be interested in litigation against them for
false advertising… lying to the public that is.
Put it in business terms: if you have been led to believe you are getting the latest information available
only to find out this is not the case, viewers will
most likely not tune to your station in the future.
If this is what management and the sales department
and the board of directors feels is in the best
interest of the station, then so be it.
My suspicion is, someone else, most likely
of a internet persuasion, will pick up the baton
and do a Banger MA newscast.
Grab some DV cameras, lights, battery backs,
police radios, Apple Laptops and off you go.
Dan
16. thedetroitchannel | October 30th, 2006 at 9:10 pm
banger MA ?
i’d never.
17. Dan | October 30th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
My bad.
Bangor, Maine
dr
18. brad | October 30th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
It’s not a terrible idea. The economics may not be there and after talking to someone who use to live in that area, not much happens at night anyway.
Perhaps a better plan for the affiliate would be to NOT do an 11pm and use a skeleton crew to do a web only 11p newcast that can be redone first ting by the AM team?
19. Ed | October 31st, 2006 at 6:09 am
Flotsam -
Standing live on-location in front of the burned building at 11 pm, that got put out at 3 pm, saying the same thing you said at 6pm, doesn’t really make the news “fresh”, as much as you people wish it did.
20. Steve | October 31st, 2006 at 8:28 am
Perhaps the Lewiston station slogan should be “News so nice we run it Twice!”
21. John | November 3rd, 2006 at 1:12 pm
This is the same station that claims to have the BEST local news when they have NO weekend news!!!
22. Tor | November 5th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
The only reason any of us watch 11pm news up here is to find out high school sports scores. It takes up about half of the newscast, so that has to be it.
23. Lafonda | November 7th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
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25. mary | December 27th, 2006 at 8:56 am
Could you please add to your announcements: On Saturday, January 13th, First parish Congregational Church of Saco, corner of Beach and Main Streets, will hold a delicious spaghetti dinner followed by an exciting evening of coffee house entertainment at which local performers will provide great music, and maybe a little humor…Dinner is from 5-6:30 P.M.-Adults-$6.00, Childred 6-12-$4.00 Coffee House starts at 7:00-general admission $6.00, Seniors and Children 6-12-$4.00. 5 and under are free at both events. A discount of $2.00/person will be applied for those attending both events. We hope to see you there!
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