Home Miami TV Today: No More Local10 News at 5; 7News First at 4 is On

Today: No More Local10 News at 5; 7News First at 4 is On

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Today is the day WPLG’s great experiment – dropping the local news at 5pm and putting Dr. Phil on instead – is going live. I am almost positively sure the suits at 10 are crossing fingers and toes hoping Dr. Phil survives 3 newscasts.

7News on their part are taking a pretty big risk with their 5pm newscast as well, leaving it without a strong lead-in. 

Starting a half-hour 4pm newscast followed by low-rated ‘Geraldo At Large’ neither of which has the Judge Judy lead-in pull means WFOR, with Oprah on at 4pm, has nothing to worry about. At least for the time being.

‘7News First At 4pm’ and ‘Geraldo’ will be going against ‘Oprah’ on WFOR, ‘Judge Judy’ on WPLG and  ‘Ellen’ on WTVJ!

Should make for an interesting November sweeps. I wonder if 10 will get attacked by the other stations for dropping the newscast!?

14 COMMENTS

  1. Channel 10 is already promoting Dr. Phil and Judy as “better time, better station.”

    Pretty lame shot at 7 and 4.

    I think the big winner in all this will be WFOR. They have nothing to lose. Phil was no major draw. Its all about Oprah these days.

  2. Beleive it or not Geraldo is doing well in other markets. Maybe 7 knows what it is doing? Not my cup of tea but ya never know.

    I just don’t see people that watch 10 going to 4. That would be like going from the Wallstreet Journal to the Sunday Funnies.

  3. The ratings for all 5-6 pm local newscasts in the Miami-Ft Lauderdale market are some of the lowest in the country. Trust me–I spend a lot of time working with local numbers every day in my job. What can you expect in a market with four VHF English language stations plus Univision, Telemundo and WJAN all doing news at the same time in a market where people have where people did not grow up in the local market and don’t care as much about local news as other parts of the county. It is smart for WPLG to counter program. When I worked in news, I found that news people think it is all about winning local news race. For a station, it is really all about winnning the ratings race–period.

  4. Look at the bigger picture at 10. Before David Boylan took over, it used to shut down overnight. Now it runs 24/7, but it is more like QVC than a network affiliate. There are so many infomercials it’s nauseating. There needs to be alimit on advertising, like the old Broadcasting Code had. Don’t buy that freedom of speech crap. Capitalism is not speech. There is aa difference bvetween running a profitable business and being a mercenary whore…Post Newsweek via Mr. Boylan is running 10 like a bordello, squeezing revenue from every second. Ann Bishop would be spinning in her grave if she knew how far 10 has fallen.

  5. Please!! They still include Ann Bishop in channel 10 promos. There’s no doubt the woman is turning in her grave. If she saw the crap news and crap reporters on the air there – she’d punch Pohovey and Boylan.

    The people that watch 10 at 5pm for news have only 4 to turn to. 6 is an embarassment and unwatchable. And the 10 viewer will never turn to 7 for news. They are smarter than that. 4 needs to beef up investigations and step up content. That’s the only way they’ll be able to take 10 viewers away from them.

  6. I concur with previous poster, GERALDO may not be your cup of tea but he has improved ratings on lots of stations. Plus he is “low rated” at 1230am.

    Instead of Geraldo, perhaps SVN could put on an old MATLOCK or Roseanne or maybe even Hawaii Five-O? oh wait….

    please,someone at FOR, change all the red/orange colors…

    and Sandy Payton confirms that Ann Bishops is indeed spinning in her grave

    Stay classy

  7. I agree with Patmedown that 4 should try to do something to beef up it’s content. The problem they have is that even if you beef up the content it won’t hide the fact that they have the worst reporting staff in the market. Given some of there specialist and Kirsh are great! That won’t make up for the guys/gals on the street daily that are terrible.

  8. Researchqn,

    Actually, it’s about winning the profits race, as opposed to the ratings race. Oftentimes, stations find it’s more profitable to program news rather than syndicated programming, even if the ratings are about the same. I guess 10 figures counterprogramming will bring high enough ratings to more than overcome the cost of Dr. Phil.

    LMB,

    I think you’re right. 4 has some great reporters that are as good as any reporters anywhere, but they have WAY too many reporters, and even anchors, who are downright embarassing. I won’t name names, but we all know who they are. No question 4 has both extremes.

  9. Who Wants to be a Millionaire is on WSVN at 11am and 1130am….give it a month before SVN replaces it with an hour of Mama’s Family or Jake and the Fatman.

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