Branching out from their evening newscasts, new C’ville TV stations CBS-19 and ABC-16 debuted a new morning show last Friday, “Good Morning Charlottesville”. The two-hour long broadcast apparently appears on both networks (I don’t get either station, so I really don’t know). To make the show happen, the staff has to arrive at work in the middle of the night, which is either “torture” or it leaves the anchors “chipper,” depending on who you believe.
The two new stations are trying to chip away NBC-29’s decades-old market share. With the recent addition of Fox, it’s increasingly clear that the Atlanta-based Gray Television is trying to bludgeon NBC into losing market share through sheer number of stations.
Thanks to Jim Winthrope for the tip.
Saw this on a website called http://www.vartv.com and thought it might be interesting:
“When Gray Television signed on two new newscasts on “CBS19” WCAV and “ABC16” WVAW-LP in Charlottesville, it knew it couldn’t topple market leader “NBC29″ WVIR which had had the market to itself. Gray wanted viewers to have a choice when comes to news (and a piece of the TV news pie). Unfortunately, very few have taken notice…
Time/Station/July ’05 Rating/July ’05 Share/July ’04 Rating/July ’04 Share
6pm/NBC 29/16.1/49.0/16.7/45.0
6pm/CBS 19/0.7/2.0/—/—
7pm/ABC 16/0.6/2.0/—/—
11pm/NBC 29/11.6/45.0/10.0/38.0
11pm/CBS 19/0.5/2.0/—/—
11pm/ABC 16/0.1/0.0/—/—
NOTE: The chart covers June 30 to July 27, 2005 (M-F, 5-day avg). Some ratings/shares figures are estimated.” -www.vartv.com
Isn’t Gray’s WCAV CBS19 coming up on its one-year anniversary, too?
that number is crazy. First off, I don’t watch CBS or ABC here in CVille. Why? They don’t broadcast in HD. I have HD. I want my HD dammit.
Nobody really believes that the new stations are that far behind. Really..how many little books are filled out for the official cville tv viewing area. Maybe 300-400. Not a far overall representation of what we watch.
Plus i see the new guys everywhere. Time will tell I guess.
The new stations are doing much better than the numbers reflect (not that I even believe those numbers, because they were probably posted by someone at WVIR). The on-air staff at 19 and 16 is getting better every time I watch and it will only be a matter of time before they are able to catch on in the news race. I will admit, they still need to work on improving the types of stories they cover, but overall I like watching them much better than 29. Everyone at WVIR seems so self righteous and off-putting, while the youngsters on WCAV/WVAW have likeable personalities and much more pleasant. I wish them the best and I hope they catch up soon.
It doesn’t say on the vartv website who put them up, but I’m under the impression the webmaster posts them because there are ratings for stations in other cities on his site. I guess he does all the research…or maybe he has an in with the ratings people or something??? But the comments have me thinking…why don’t we do our own informal, unscientific survey of who we watch? I’ll offer that I don’t watch TV news much, but when I do, it’s usually 29. That’s mostly because I forget about the others. But I agree with ctrlvaguy, watching the folks at 19/16, you feel like a lot of them actually care about what they’re telling you and not the fact that they’re the ones telling it to you. You just have to get over the college-station vibe that 19/16 puts off sometimes. Although, their new morning show looks pretty professional. Anyone else?
If these new stations really wanted to rock out the younger demographic, and get themselves a lot of attention, they’d establish a video podcast of their news broadcasts. They already archive their news story-by-story. Just encode them in an RSS feed, and they’d be the first TV station in the nation (to my knowledge) to podcast their news.
But they’re part of Gray, which is a huge media conglomerate, so I can’t imagine that they have the sort of freedom to do that sort of thing. Which is a shame, because if they set something like that up, they’d be my new C’ville media heroes.
Hell, I might do that myself. It’d just take a little screen scraping (like the Daily Progress, Cavalier Daily, and WINA RSS feeds), but I don’t think it’d be more than a couple of hours’ work.
To their credit, they recently established RSS feeds…kind of. It’s through a third party, and it’s not a simple listing of all of their news articles, but only the “most e-mailed stories,” the “most printed stories,” and the “most saved stories.” I just want a listing of stories. I don’t care if they’ve been printed or e-mailed. Ah, well.
I like the news stations since they are just about everywhere. I some times turn to Dateline 29 from time to time, but overall enjoy ABC16 and CBS 19 more.
I agree with a few others who’ve posted so far with regards to their people seeming more personable, passionate about what they cover, and how they are always out in the community.
The morning show is by far the best thing offered from the stations, but IT is the best in the town. NBC 29 is just so dry and boring with the Norm Sprouse schtick creating excruciating pain in my entire body. Instead of complaining on some message board, I’d rather just turn the TV. I wish they had their 5:00pm news, too. However, I am more prepared to watch at 7:00pm.
Again, I agree with others who says the numbers of viewers are mistaken, but there’s no proof either way. I am sure NBC 29 beats them, but it can not be that bad. The new guys are EVERYWHERE. They cover news when it happens, and actually get to know us around town. I am a business owner who just bought advertising, and it’s word of mouth that is carrying them. They are everywhere, so only time will tell if they ever dethrone NBC 29.
Way to go on the morning show, and the news at 7:00pm. I can only say I hate all the judge shows. The people seem very professional, but sometimes they do not let some of them get more face time who should be. It seems they have the same look for those at the desk. Not many things to hate, but it’s what I see. Please mix-up the people more.
Keep up the good work MegaNewsPlex!