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WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Discussion pertaining to Lansing, Jackson, Owosso, and all areas from Alma to Hillsdale
wsummers
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by wsummers » Wed Nov 18, 2020 1:05 pm

MasterB wrote:
Wed Nov 18, 2020 12:52 am

Also will have a very tight relationship with WXMI Fox17 as well. It will be an uphill battle for WSYM when they do the news I just don't see them being a major player in Lansing when it comes to news.
I don’t see why they can’t be successful as long as they focus on local news at times when 6 and 10 don’t...they already do 7 to 9 am, 10 to 11 pm. Maybe add a 4 to 5 and 12:30 to 1:00.



sinklair
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by sinklair » Sat Nov 21, 2020 10:14 am

Except for Fox 2 in Detroit, none of the Michigan Fox stations are News powerhouses. Fox 17 in Grand Rapids, Fox 66 in Flint, Fox Local 32 in Cadillac are all bad. Fox 47 will be just as bad with an overhyped news producer at the helm.



Editorcj
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by Editorcj » Wed Nov 25, 2020 3:48 pm

Fox 47 will be just as bad with an overhyped news producer at the helm.
I guess you should have put your resume in then.



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MWmetalhead
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by MWmetalhead » Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:10 pm

Fox 17 in Grand Rapids, Fox 66 in Flint, Fox Local 32 in Cadillac are all bad.
Is Scripps running WXMI into the ground?



statmanmi
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by statmanmi » Wed Nov 25, 2020 7:55 pm

MWmetalhead wrote:
Wed Nov 25, 2020 5:10 pm
Fox 17 in Grand Rapids, Fox 66 in Flint, Fox Local 32 in Cadillac are all bad.
Is Scripps running WXMI into the ground?
From my perspective as a viewer not in the business, WXMI's newscasts are fine. They're my second choice of what I watch from the TV newsrooms in Kent County. I'll leave you guessing who #1 and #3 out of three total are for me.


What does baffle me a bit regarding Scripps starting up a newsroom at WSYM is why didn't they do so earlier this year, so as to garner revenue from all the political ads? Perhaps they couldn't break the commitment with WILX without significant expense. Then again, in the Detroit market earlier this year, wasn't the speculation that the new 10pm newscast on CW 50 was a money grab for political ad dollars. (Has that stayed on the air now that we're past election day?)

Cheers! ~~ Statmanmi



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MWmetalhead
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by MWmetalhead » Fri Nov 27, 2020 7:12 pm

I watched Fox 17 this morning when visiting my folks and observed no slippage in on-air quality. If anything, the product looked just a bit better than when I last saw it (early October).
What does baffle me a bit regarding Scripps starting up a newsroom at WSYM is why didn't they do so earlier this year, so as to garner revenue from all the political ads?
I'm not sure if "in-sourcing" the newscasts would've affected political ad spending on the station or not.

As for CW50, the newscast is still on the air. It is run on a shoestring. The meteorologist was already on staff (she has been doing local weather updates on 62 for years), the anchor stands in front of a chroma key screen and is based at channel 5 in Dallas/Ft. Worth, and I think the station hired only a couple local reporters.

Wouldn't surprise me if it's gone by this time next year, but now that I see how cheap of an operation it is, it also wouldn't surprise me if it sticks around.

Circling back to West Michigan, WWMT's new on-air visual look is better than I was expecting. I was quite impressed, actually.



sinklair
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by sinklair » Sun Nov 29, 2020 6:29 am

Editorcj: I love it when someone disagrees with a perspective that they result to saying “you should have put your resume in then.”

The fact is Fox 47 has had a long history of failed attempts at putting on news. This will be another one of them. Unless they:

(A) get a real news Director with real experience knowing how to build a local news operation from scratch.

(B) hire enough local reporters and photographers to cover the market at a comparable frequency as WILX or WLNS.

(C) have a refined presentation that will give viewers an alternative to the current low budget look that has driven viewers away for decades.

Without all three, they will be third place at best despite not having any competition in key time periods like 10pm.



wsummers
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by wsummers » Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:53 pm

WSYM has announced starting on the 4th they are adding newscasts at 6am, 12 noon, 5:30pm, and 7pm. They are discontinuing the 6:30pm news and continuing 7-9am and 10-11pm.



gotigers
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by gotigers » Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:51 pm

Wow! That's coming up quick. Interesting that they're moving their evening news back to 5:30. I assume that was a good timeslot for them before, but at the time, 6 and 10 didn't have newscasts at 5:30. Now they both do, so we'll see how Fox can do when competing with the other local stations.

Any news on the news team they've assembled? Who (if anyone) from WILX is moving to the new Fox 47 News? The main anchors will likely make the switch, but what about the meteorologists? Ever since Darrin Rockcole's departure from WILX, the meteorologists have been crossing over so much it's hard to tell who is technically supposed to be on which station. Claire Cameron and Justin Bradford are the meteorologists listed on Fox 47's website, but they're also listed on WILX's site.



MasterB
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by MasterB » Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:58 pm

Why not do the news from 5:30PM to 7PM why have a 7PM newscast? I think Fox47 News will be in last place and isn't going to compete with 6 & 10.


Go Pistons, Let's Go Redwings.

high fidelity
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by high fidelity » Wed Dec 30, 2020 1:07 am

WLNS will no longer be the only station with a noon news. But they are probably not concerned. Their news is between 2 popular shows, The Price is Right and The Young and the Restless.



EdWalker
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by EdWalker » Wed Dec 30, 2020 7:59 am

gotigers wrote:
Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:51 pm
Wow! That's coming up quick. Interesting that they're moving their evening news back to 5:30. I assume that was a good timeslot for them before, but at the time, 6 and 10 didn't have newscasts at 5:30. Now they both do, so we'll see how Fox can do when competing with the other local stations.
Pretty sure the reason WSYM's current evening newscast is at 6:30 is because WILX added a 5:30 after WLNS did the same....and you can't have two newscasts (WILX & WSYM) going on at the same time in the same studio.



gotigers
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by gotigers » Wed Dec 30, 2020 5:34 pm

EdWalker wrote:
Wed Dec 30, 2020 7:59 am
gotigers wrote:
Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:51 pm
Wow! That's coming up quick. Interesting that they're moving their evening news back to 5:30. I assume that was a good timeslot for them before, but at the time, 6 and 10 didn't have newscasts at 5:30. Now they both do, so we'll see how Fox can do when competing with the other local stations.
Pretty sure the reason WSYM's current evening newscast is at 6:30 is because WILX added a 5:30 after WLNS did the same....and you can't have two newscasts (WILX & WSYM) going on at the same time in the same studio.
That's correct. My point was that Fox never had to compete directly with local news on WILX or WLNS because when Fox had the 5:30 news, WLNS and WILX didn't have news on then. Now they both do, so moving the Fox newscast back to 5:30 (a sort of random time) seems like an odd choice to me since WILX and WLNS will already be a half hour into their own newscasts.



SBaxley
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Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by SBaxley » Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:27 pm

Well, if the ads announcing the 7pm newscast are any indication, I kind like the scrippsian look, I'll be watching !



wsummers
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat Apr 01, 2006 6:22 pm

Re: WSYM Hiring It's Own News Staff

Post by wsummers » Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:22 am

Well, new WSYM morning news is a strange, low budget affair. No anchors instead using graphics to introduce the next story. Very little local content other than a few feature stories. Brief infrequent weather forecast from Grand Rapids with little information other than forecast for the day. If this is the template for the rest of the newscasts I don’t see this as anything 6 or 10 have anything to worry about.



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