Announced today by NBC News president Steve Capus Weather Plus will be history by December 31st.
And with good reason, NBC (over?)spent $3.5 bilion on The Weather Channel in July. Then put WTVJ and WVIT in Hartford, Connecticut on the chopping block to help offset some of the cost.
Post Newsweek won the bidding war for WTVJ but in late September NBC took WVIT’s for sale sign off due to the bad economy and not getting as much as they wanted for the station.
So much for a proposed name change of TWC to NBC Weather Plus Network or something like that. Good riddance.
Another way NBC has wasted money and now the people down below have to pay for corporate mistakes. I hope WTVJ sells fast. I hope they close the doors and close up shop. Why keep it going? NBC6 has been run by moronic managers who don’t know how to run a television station or how to cover the news effectively. If they knew what they were doing, NBC would be number one or at least a strong number 2.
NBC6 has an assignment desk, where interns listen to police scanners and have no idea what is, or isn’t a story. The manager on that assignment desk was a secretary and has no news experience at all. She proudly tells people in the newsroom that she doesn’t work for NBC6, she works for Telemundo. The desk is a waste of space at WTVJ so fire them all.
NBC6 has so many managers that can’t make a decision and have no street experience. They take the crap that the desk takes in and they have no clue what to do with it. Breaking news for a car accident on the Palmetto? Break in with a pedestrian struck in Miami? Don’t cut in when real news happens? Why? Because, the chopper isn’t there or the manager has no idea how to handle it. The executive producer can’t make a decision without the managing editor approving it. But, the managing editor won’t make a decision without the assistant news director giving it a thumbs up and the assistant news director won’t do anything, before he dances across the newsroom and asks the news director, “What should we do?” As for the producers, they are just puppets at the mercy of inexperienced moronic managers.
The news director at NBC is over her head. When ratings drop, they get rid of their strongest talent. Michael Williams is let go and they put Jackie by herself. Ratings don’t improve, so instead of promoting Jackie well so people know who she is and where they can see her, and, instead of covering news better, they use fireworks and MTV style camera work to draw you in, so you can watch the same old crap that was on before. The news director should have been fired a long time ago. But, because she is black, NBC is too scared to get rid of her. An African American at the helm is good for G.E.
Then, there is the on air talent. The GM lets the person who led the morning show to number 1 go – Lonnie Quinn. Now, the morning news has fallen behind – smart. They leave Jackie by herself on the desk for over a year, when it’s obvious that she needs help. Then, they put some unknown on the desk who has no gravitas and no one realizes that someone is not working? The 11pm news causes seizures it is so fast paced and shallow. In the field, Ian Wood, Gray Hall, Tisha Lewis make the station look like a college news operation. Meanwhile, some of WTVJ’s best talent like Ari Odzer, Joel Conable, Jeff Burnside and Amara Soon are hardly ever seen or promoted. You need to show off your team to get people to watch. You need to have good managers that know what their reporters do best to get good stories ont he air. That gets people watching.
The management at WTVJ buried the station. Now, they are all jumping ship and taking their friends with them, while the more talented people are left to pick up the pieces and watch a piece of South Florida hisotry crumble.
NBC, not being in the business, I have no idea if what you are saying is true or not. However, I can tell you this: Your overall description of how management operates (or doesn’t operate, as the case may be) is true for a helluva lot of companies, whether they’re in the broadcasting industry or not.
NBC used to be such a great network, but with Ben Silverman at the helm, it’s dead. I read on wikipedia that he was a Magna Cum Laude from Tufts, but I’ll bet he cheated on tests.
It sounds like Jeff Zucker and Ben Silverman need to go ASAP! They’ve contributed to NBC recent problems… the 4th place performance in prime-time, neglecting their local O&O stations (e.g. WTVJ being treated as the red-headed stepchild, and no other company having interest in ownership of WVIT), etc. NBC needs new blood at the top… someone that is truly committed to giving the respected peacock network the turn-around it’s really needing.