From 1978 to 2014, WGN America (known of a few years as Superstation WGN) beamed WGN TV channel 9 from Chicago to America. It aired Chicago sports and WGN News. During the last decade of that time it aired WGN's last hour of Midday news and the nine pm news. You even got the lottery. WGN America pulled that in 2014. Viewers who missed WGN Chicago news could watch online as modern world had allowed for that, but it was a change.
In 1980, Ted Turner launched CNN, the first 24 hour cable news channel, over time though the idea of a cable news channel being there just for the news has kind of died. In 2014, Al Jazeera America tried and put on a good product , but it had low ratings and when oil prices dropped AJ thought it would be better to cut loses and give up in 2016. (AJ is owned by the Qatari government) Most American cable news is more about how to keep viewers watching with excessive use of breaking news, debates and annoyance. MSNBC started as a news channel with NBC News and Mircosoft found success in not doing that and instead having opinion shows that lean politically left, doing the mirror of FOX News leaning to the right.
Cable news has an average of 700,000 viewers watching their daily prime time programming, FOX news leans towards the 2 million mark, MSNBC in the 1 million. CNN tried middle of the road and doing the news, but their prime time has filled with panels or the anchors being talking heads themselves. The prime time programming has become more join a camp you like and get daily affirmation. It does make the country look more divided and like Twitter, doesn't offer a full picture of society because they are fighting for a small amount of viewers compared to the population. Most Americans trust local news over any other media, with The Weather Channel being the highest in trust for a national news channel.
In 2019, Nexstar, a large local media conglomerate, bought the Tribune Company, which owned WGN and WGN America. Nexstar owns mostly local TV stations whose main thing is local news. They have alot of them, the largest owner in the country. They have reporters at stations who work in the television markets most national stories are someone's local story.
more after the jump
WGN America, is probably not a cable channel people heavily talk about , it was just kind of there. I remember watching it alot even more when it was Super Station WGN , it was on channel 15 on cable when I was growing up. It showed sitcoms reruns, movies, and stuff like that. In the new age of cable or some call it "cable is dying" the idea of watching a channel just for reruns is getting harder. WGN America attempted to have original dramas, which the reasoning behind the whole getting rid of Chicago sports and news on the channel. When Sinclair Broadcasting announced their intentions to purchase Tribune, WGN America canned their originals but brought in imports instead. The Sinclair deal didn't happen.
WGN America has vast empty space in programming that can be filled and Nexstar decided to do news, a sort of home coming. In January of 2020 , Nexstar announced that NewsNation was going to start , and new 3 hour prime time newscast will happen in summer. Well, then some sort of virus happened and caused a slight delay, but now it has launched, September 1st 2020. Over time, they started to put things together , having WGN 9 (not called that on the air) news director Jennifer Lyons be the news director for this project, since she has done a great job with WGN Chicago news.
From the start, NewsNation has been touted as different than standard cable news. They have two different taglines, one is "Your News Your Nation" and the other being "News not talk, Facts not Opinion" going straight after what CNN, MSNBC, Fox News Channel do between the same time slots. They like to talk and have opinions, NewsNation is saying no to this.
The idea is how local news and news really is supposed to be, where the viewer is presented with stories without knowing what the anchors and reporters think about them. They have to be upfront though and not hide things or change details to fit a thought.
The other tagline is import too, one thing about this news program is that it won't be from New York or Washington D.C. Much of cable news is done from those locations. (CNN was mostly in Atlanta but regime change really made them mostly NYC and DC based with a few bits in ATL), this program is being done from Chicago, From WGN-TV's building in Chicago. It is a nice way to fit into WGN America's heritage. The other thing is Your News Your nation the ideal is that it's your news and you live in the US and you might not live in DC or NYC, there are stories from big markets all the way down to small markets worth showing to the nation.
NewsNation is hoping that there is no bias in their news program.
Nexstar executives insist their promise of a politically neutral newscast is more than a marketing gimmick. Among the 150 people hired for the Chicago-based program (a process Jennifer Lyons, vice president of news for WGN America, described as "speed dating on Zoom") are two producers dedicated to scrutinizing every story for language that could be construed as biased.-From LA Times
The anchors are also not really national figures, they hired local anchors, also weather , and sports people to serve the roles. Anchors from different sub sections of the nation who've worked at different sub sections of the nation is a good idea.
That's a lot , with all that build up and expectations, how as their first night? We are going to give a look at their first night with a "First Watch" .
The newscast started with their mission statements, and then a run down what was coming up , the intro. The first 21 minutes were commercial free with stories running from President Trump's trip to Kenosha, WI. It presented reports from both sides of the protesters and Trump supporters. Had a live report in the city. Portland was covered using a reporter from Nexstar owned KOIN-TV. News stories presenting on both police reform and police also being under fire over the past weekend, using a balance not bias line.
The Covid-19 story came up with stories about Dr. Brix talking about rural towns needing to be aware and a story about plasma treatments needing more reasearch.
They did the national weather, and all this was before that first commercial break. After that, the came back and did a report about a road rage death in Missouri and Florida rip tides. The headlines segment at the bottom of the hour they had different stories from around the country. They did coverage of Lake Charles, post hurricane, with a live report as the town cleans up.
At the rejoin at 8:30pm ET, they had "LIVE FROM Chicago" line.
At 8:36, a longer weather update with a Tornado Watch in Texas, a tropical update. Stories about LA police invovled shooting and protests, and a cyber attack on Miami school system came up with the USPS story taking up another section. Presenting two different sides on the situation of the USPS. Also, very local news style, they have teasers for things up coming in later hours.
They do mention their mission statement and slogans frequently, hoping to remind you as much themselves. The studio is very impressive with different presentation areas, there hasn't been much of the "happy talk" between the anchors mostly focused on doing news stories.
Business news started with the boss of the newscast, the CEO of Nexstar, Perry Sook, opening the stock exchange, They had a business news segment on the upcoming Walmart Plus, and a report on black former McDonald's franchisee owners suing McDonalds.
The first hour ended with LA 2028 Olympics logo announcement and they go on break with a song. Being Foreigner's “Feels Like the First Time”.
The 2nd hour started with a look at stimulus talks in the government, problems with school including more on that story from the first hour about Miami school district having a cyber attack.
The multiplicity of different locations being covered is a nice touch.
I think the newscast has a good start and it had a nice mix of stories to cover and giving an amount of stories around the US away from the the Washington to New York corridor. It feels like a local news cast but with national stories. There's no here's two guests to debate about an issue or story, here's the host confronting a guest, and the thing giving you like one or two stories run into the ground. It's a refreshing feeling to a national newscast.
I do hope they tamper down mentioning their no bias thing , it doesn't serve much for the viewer, more than just showing them that you aren't bias would. So far, it looks like they are at least holding to that. It's a good alternative to CNN, MSNBC and Fox News channel in prime time. It will be interesting to see how this goes.
If you want to try out a newscast that's doing something different for national viewers in prime time, you should check this out. Their website is here and channel finder for WGN America is here .
No comments:
Post a Comment