| Topic Name: |
Question for Charlotte |
| Message Name: |
so it's ... |
| Date Posted: |
06/15/2005 |
| In Reply To: |
It wasn't making money right away, but it did have an audience.
Word was, research showed 70 percent or so of cable viewers had already sampled News 14 by its third week on the air, and something like 44 percent "liked it better" than the broadcast stations. Take that with a big grain of salt. What people say in research isn't alway what they do.
I also heard that the Saturday before they lowered the boom, one of their Saturday morning quarter hours got something like a 7.4 -- beating all the other stations who were going head to head with it in that quarter hour. Again, use a big glass of water to wash down that grain of salt -- but as the other blonde said, it is a sampling station. 14 was not about sustained viewership, it was about getting people to flip on weather on the ones before they go out, or keeping news on in the background to catch Mrs. Fixit, car guy, and some local news along with the weather updates.
The station as they knew it died the exact same day the Belo shareholders filed suit against the company over the circulation over-estimates at Dallas Morning News. It was purely about the money -- capital outlay against their bottom line. Nearly 500 college-educated professionals and journalists lost their jobs because of it. After all, business is business. Gotta please the shareholders -- TV isn't a charity. News 14 was just too new to be making money for them when they needed it.
And to answer the first poster's question -- maybe other stations don't respect 14, but John Q. and Mary Public don't seem to know the difference about whose reporters have more experience and whose don't. Viewer habits die hard. |
| Message: |
... Belo's fault that News 14 isn't very good. No, it's that the programming is totally different and that's why the product is mediocre. No, it's that the "best reporters" are held back because they one-man-band. Oh wait, I just saw a standup where the camera zoomed (pointless though the zoom was), does that mean there was a photographper there? That pkg was pretty good ... for market 100+. Last I heard, Charlotte was in the 20's.
Whether News 14 gets any respect from their peers and whether News 14 has viewers are 2 different things. They definately fill a niche need, mostly the wx on the ones ... that's where y'all can make a mark. Personnally, I don't feel like I know much about what's going on in Charlotte by watching 20 to 30 minutes of 14. It's actually kind of painful. Not everyday do you get to see the Bewitched video, but it's relatively common ... just saw it yesterday. Those little feed/franchise/network/whatever you want to call them pieces are so boring ... can you fill the time with anything slightly more informative???
Quality and timeliness are lacking. There are lame reporters at all the other stations, but just about every pkg I see on 14 seems so small market. Use the experience there to learn and get better ... the truely great reporters are always doing that, they don't think "I'm the best" ... so GET OVER YOURSELF, don't whine and make excuses, work to get better!!!!!!
(btw, News 14 is still better than Fox 18, if that makes you feel any better).
|
|
