WSFA Developing More News Programs
I received an email earlier today letting me know I had missed out on a local news story. Apparently last Friday during Alabama Live, new WSFA General Manager Collin Gaston stated that WSFA would be replacing Oprah with a 4 and 4:30 news cast. I didn’t see it, so I went to the source and asked!
Mr. Gaston confirmed that indeed, WSFA IS ADDING a 4:00 PM and 4:30 PM news cast slated to go on the air in the Fall when Oprah’s program ends.
“We’re not going to just put the same news cast you saw at 4 and show it again at 4:30, 5 or 6. It has to be new, it has to be fresh. I’m working with our producers on a plan of how we can do this”, Mr. Gaston said.
With Alabama Live, the current 11 AM news product being more of a soft news, lifestyle program, can we expect to see some elements like this in the 4pm newscast? “It’s news #1. Definitely there will be some aspects that are softer, lifestyle…maybe more traffic as people are heading home. We have a great network of stations on the Raycom Network that we can rely on to help with keeping the content new and engaging.”
We had reported on MTR weeks earlier about the Raycom produced program, America Now, expanding to be a daily show. Mr.Gaston confirmed that this is true and will be running in the 3pm time slot. Currently there are other programs in that time slot, Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown. Plans were not firm at this point for other program changes leading up to the 3pm time slot.
Alright, here’s my opinion: Some of the positives, 1) there has to be an increase in news staff at WSFA to handle the increased workload. 2) It’s almost impossible at this point to not watch at least one news cast a day! Some of the negatives, 1) increased news cast doesn’t always mean increased news…you end up repeating things (but Mr.Gaston did say that this is an area they are aware of and working hard on a plan to not recycle the news with every news cast), 2) the whole who moved my cheese mentality…people don’t like change. People complain when they win a million dollars that it ruined their life. It happens.
I will continue to follow up some of the other changes that will happen with other stations as they maneuver to counter act the programming changes at WSFA. I personally would love to hear what you think about these changes…positive and negative…post away.
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I predict this will be failure.
Montgomery is too small of a market to pull this off.
The repetitive issue will be their problem, once the new wears off.
It doesn’t matter how hard they try to keep it from happening.
Now if we were in Atlanta, I’d say go for it.
They could do something like this and it would pan out.
Just my thoughts on the subject at hand.
I hope WSFA doesn’t lose the court shows to other stations. America Now is a great show, but I think it’s best on the weekend. I think I read somewhere that it may be anchored by Sally and Cody
Well since the Today in Alabama is just rehashed news from the night before (Terry and Davis don’t even bother to change the wording from the night before) and most of the 6:00 news is just a repeat of the 5:00 news, I would hope they would try and do something different if they are going to add more “news”.
One other question I must ask:
Will WAKA, WCOV, WBMM and WNCF add even more newscasts to their schedule this fall as well?
Inquiring minds want to know.
I ask that question for a reason. Montgomery will never be another Atlanta Georgia. If they’re trying to become one, then give it up.
Atlanta is in a league all its own.
If someone from the Atlanta were to do an all local news channel, they would have a potential goldmine on their hands. I say that because Atlanta is a bigger market and much more stuff happens there.
Besides the local Cable outlets already have a Traffic Report Channel for the Atlanta area. I saw that channel, a few years ago, when I was visiting a childhood friend. When I was watching it, I was very impressed with the presentation and liked what I saw.
With apologies to Reagan…WSFA’s news is like that ever growing pile of manure. Keep watching, folks. There’s gotta be a pony in there somewhere!
Any updates on WAKA’S new building ?
Last I heard, they were still looking for the right fit. Building one is an option also.
Bahakle, or how ever you spell it, strikes me as a bunch of cheapskates. They’ll do whatever they can to save a dime so don’t expect a whole lot.
Its funny that Bahakel spends top dollar for their bigger stations and so cheap with WAKA. Good people bad ownership. I guess WAKA is 4th out of the 5 Bahakel stations.
IMHO Gaston’s incresed news programming will fail. WSFA’s current news programming is stale and boring. Today in Alabama as a previous poster wrote is just a repeat of the previous night’s news. The anchors on all of the newscasts are dreadful. It is a shame that the capital of the great state of Alabama has the worst local tv news and also the worst newspaper.
It’s all about money. Syndicated programs cost big bucks. Local news is cheap to produce. It’s why reality TV is so prevalent. It, too, is cheap…relatively speaking. With their ratings, WSFA could run color bars or a test pattern and make money. The person who guessed that the new programs will be a re-hash of their news from the morning and evening prior is exactly right. Sure, if something big goes down, they’ll be able to show it, but on a day to day basis, it’s going the be the same ol’ same ol’ from noon and the night before.
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