| Topic Name: |
Dangerous Wrong Sinclair Weather |
| Message Name: |
not bad planning |
| Date Posted: |
06/12/2005 |
| In Reply To: |
....but one concerning good business practices. Sinclair's Weather central concept is a total failure. No reason to watch when talent unfamiliar with your area opts to not update a forecast.
Sinclair Broadcasting isn't doing well, mainly because the firm hired people who are not good planners and developers of talent. |
| Message: |
The idea was to put newscasts on stations which were largely dogs in the market in the past, which NEVER would have been able to do news on their own. A great number of the Sinclair stations are dogs. This is why all of that anti-Kerry propaganda preceding last year's election was a lot of hot air. Few people watch those Sinclair stations. But I digress.
Doing local cut-ins to what are essentially national shows with decent national anchors and that right-winger commentator is the plan.
To put in full-blown weather systems and forecasters in each station would have been cost prohibitive so they came up with the "pretend you're local" forecasters. It usually works pretty well but they sure shot themselves in the foot in Buffalo, for example, the other night, when they fed the weather forecasts before a big storm came up.
They looked like fools showing a nearly two hour radar display. Either the forecaster was asleep at the switch and should be fired. Or the producer didn't yell or scream when he could literally hear the thunder crashes outside the building. He should have been on the phone, screaming and yelling for an updated forecast. He should be fired.
The Sinclair "pretend" local news does not need much of a rating to survive with the costs spread significantly across their stations. In Buffalo, their numbers stink in part because they're on a dog of a station. If they want to make some real money, they should put the newscast on their FOX station which they also own. It gets killer prime-time numbers. Putting the newscast on the FOX station would make a huge difference.
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