1 of 1- RadioActive
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CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
I’ve been questioning what’s going on at CityNews for a while now, but what I saw on this week’s 11 PM show was simply baffling.
For at least a year, the station has been increasingly leaning to a non-anchor format, where a reporter introduces his or her own story, followed by a wipe to another reporter changing the subject to yet another yarn. It’s more than a bit choppy, but I suppose they’re trying to be innovative (and knowing Rogers, saving money by not having to pay expensive front people.)
But now they’ve really jumped the shark. Not only are they showing an anchorless sportscast at night (if it can even be called that) there’s not even a human being (beyond an off camera editor) involved at all. Last night, for instance, they showed highlights from the Blue Jay game, but instead of the traditional “here’s what happened,” they simply cut together the live play-by-play coverage of the game from Buck Martinez as broadcast on Sportsnet and just showed that.
No context. No commentary. No human interaction. No news about injuries, who had a great game or advisories about who’s pitching tomorrow. No post game interviews, either. Not even any keys, like they've been doing on their 6 o'clock cast. In fact, no other sports at all. I admit I didn’t see the rest of the show, but the Blue Jay highlights seemed to be the entire sportscast and then they segued straight to weather.
I’m probably old fashioned, wanting an anchor there. And while I appreciate City’s famed reputation for innovation (although that was mostly under the Moses Znaimer-CHUM aegis) I think this bare bones approach is going way too far. Or maybe that should be not far enough.
How long until they simply just show raw viz for everything with no reporters explaining anything at all? It looks like they’re getting closer to that every day. It will save Rogers a lot of cents. But it won't make any sense to viewers.
- radiokid
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Re: CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
There is some other odd things going on too.. they also played with the Breakfast Television format this week... It seems to be less interviews and conversation, and more repetitive news updates. It's really changed the flow and feeling of the show.. I can't say I really like it, as the personality has been pulled way back, which is what made the show different than the other dry/dull morning shows on the dial.
It doesn't seem to be a cut of staff in front of the camera. Kevin Frankish also seems to be on air much less.
Last edited by radiokid (May 12, 2017 1:24 pm)
- Dale Patterson
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Re: CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
I think we're seeing the future of the business - I could see they and other stations going completely anchorless someday. This station in Houston already has.
People, who needs stinkin' people?
Last edited by Dale Patterson (May 12, 2017 3:25 pm)
"Life without echo is really no life at all." - Dan Ingram
- ig
- Iain Grant
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Re: CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
Whoah.....
Is this so awful though? The 'anchors', unless they are really really good, become traffic cops, and worse, without a good staff of writers behind them, end up throwing to the story by giving away half the story, only to have the reporter re-cap it again.
It's a bit like a newspaper being strung together by articles linking you to the next article. I think, especially with the IP Future looming, the 'news' will become more of a screen of stories, ideally on an 'alternate' channel, where the viewer can click through, at their leisure, the stories they're interested in watching, in the order that appeals to them. Not everyone wants to see the news lead, yet again, with the latest shooting at Jane n' Finch, (no matter what they try to call the neighborhood for that report.)
I would be hard pressed to get up to 3 or 4 anchors who I am now willing to watch, truth be told, the majority that I did enjoy 'tying the stories together' are no longer part of the newscasts anyway. I'd much prefer that anchor money to be spent across a team of good reporters who know how to find and report a story.
Remember Rogers and Shaw now have a crapload more money to put into news as they close down the community channels and divert those budgets (which weren't small) into newsrooms. I believe there's some exciting stuff on the horizon.
(And I still HATE 'breaking news' in a newscast. The entire !%@#~#@'ing newscast should be breaking news to your viewers, otherwise you're re-hashing your last broadcast. If it's 'breaking news' to the newsroom, that's even worse. So in reality, it's only 'Breaking News' to the lineup editor and people in the control room.) At 7.38, sure, break in with 'breaking news', but at 11:07 it's just plain dumb.
My 2c.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
- RadioActive
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Re: CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
ig wrote:
Whoah.....
Is this so awful though? The 'anchors', unless they are really really good, become traffic cops, and worse, without a good staff of writers behind them, end up throwing to the story by giving away half the story, only to have the reporter re-cap it again.
It's a bit like a newspaper being strung together by articles linking you to the next article. I think, especially with the IP Future looming, the 'news' will become more of a screen of stories, ideally on an 'alternate' channel, where the viewer can click through, at their leisure, the stories they're interested in watching, in the order that appeals to them. Not everyone wants to see the news lead, yet again, with the latest shooting at Jane n' Finch, (no matter what they try to call the neighborhood for that report.)
I would be hard pressed to get up to 3 or 4 anchors who I am now willing to watch, truth be told, the majority that I did enjoy 'tying the stories together' are no longer part of the newscasts anyway. I'd much prefer that anchor money to be spent across a team of good reporters who know how to find and report a story.
Remember Rogers and Shaw now have a crapload more money to put into news as they close down the community channels and divert those budgets (which weren't small) into newsrooms. I believe there's some exciting stuff on the horizon.
(And I still HATE 'breaking news' in a newscast. The entire !%@#~#@'ing newscast should be breaking news to your viewers, otherwise you're re-hashing your last broadcast. If it's 'breaking news' to the newsroom, that's even worse. So in reality, it's only 'Breaking News' to the lineup editor and people in the control room.) At 7.38, sure, break in with 'breaking news', but at 11:07 it's just plain dumb.
My 2c.
I'm probably just a throwback to an earlier era, but I still like having an anchor act as a point man or woman for the newscast. To me, there's a reason they do it that way, because it's been proven to work. Still, I understand the encroachment of digital and why things can't stay as they were.
That said, there's one thing I have to disagree with in your post - if you think Rogers is going to invest money in so-called experienced reporters to do better news, you're dreaming in HD technicolor. If memory serves, with a few exceptions, they fired just about everyone from City TV with any real experience, replacing them with what I will kindly call fairly green farm team types. And it shows every day at 6 and 11, especially now that they're being thrust into the forefront without benefit of an anchor.
Rogers had an investigative reporter type, and several that covered regular beats (politics, education, ecology etc.). They had a tough consumer reporter in Peter Silverman (a former officer in the Israeli army, he took shit from no one, despite his age.) They got rid of them all. Which gives me no reason whatsoever to believe there are more of those waiting to be hired at CityNews anytime soon.
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Thread Starter- Radiowiz
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Re: CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
Rogers has no excuse for their behavior regarding how poorly they cover sports on Citynews these days.
Surely there's a body over at Sportsnet that can be borrowed to do better sports coverage at both 6 & 11pm
Ideally, they shouldn't have a sports person over at City TV at all...just someone from Sportsnet doing the job and doing it both well and right. (properly is another word that comes to my mind...)
Especially since Rogers is heavily a sports business to begin with!
(Also hey,
shouldn't it really be the Sportsnet athlete of the week, not the Citynews athlete of the week, lol)
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- ig
- Iain Grant
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Re: CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
You might be completely correct, but at least let them screw it up first 
.
Both Rogers & Shaw only closed the community stations within the last few weeks and the money hasn't been re-allocated yet. As I said, this isn't chump change, there's a lot of zeros at play, and the CRTC is monitoring where the funds are diverted to, especially when they chose to move them away from community programming into news, so I don't think we can completely write off the concept yet.
On the positive side, if they do allocate those funds to local news creation, I believe everyone will be better off because of it.
They've had no real incentive to move budgets into news till now, so this might turn the tide.
That said, there's one thing I have to disagree with in your post - if you think Rogers is going to invest money in so-called experienced reporters to do better news, you're dreaming in HD technicolor. If memory serves, with a few exceptions, they fired just about everyone from City TV with any real experience, replacing them with what I will kindly call fairly green farm team types. And it shows every day at 6 and 11, especially now that they're being thrust into the forefront without benefit of an anchor.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
- TomTV
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Re: CityNews’ 11 PM Sportscast Gets Increasingly Strange
I watch CityPulse (yeah I still call it CityPulse, CityNews is a shit name) on the weekends and noticed that the anchor, Pam Seatle, seems to be slowly being pushed out of the limelight e.g. she used to open the news and throw to a reporter, now the show opens directly with the reporter who sometimes throws to another reporter, then sometimes to Pam, or even to yet another reporter. She used to throw to the sportsguy. Now on return from commercial they go straight to the sports guy. I think they're slowly phasing her out.
And Stella who does the weather, seems to now also be doing sports on some weekends.
I am waiting for them to cut the on-air staff down to just Siri reading the news off the internet...