Is your local news in HD? - Page 67

The Fargo, ND market got local news in widescreen SD a few days ago thanks to WDAY (ABC). As a result, the largest market with no local news in 16:9 has become #131 Chico-Redding, CA.

On another note, according to their respective Wikipedia pages, WFXG (Fox), WJBF (ABC), and WAGT (NBC) - all in the Augusta, GA market - began broadcasting news in HD last fall. The CBS affiliate in the market had already been airing local news in HD for months.

KCRG in Cedar Rapids switched to HD on Saturday January 21.
kcrg.com/yournewnine

According to Wikipedia, WIVB (CBS) and WNLO (CW) in Buffalo started doing their newscasts in HD on February 1. They are the last major broadcast news operation in that market to upgrade to HD. This leaves WNYO (MyTV) still with 4:3 SD newscasts because that station's master control is not capable of airing WGRZ's HD newscasts in the format. (WUTV (Fox) airs no local news at all whatsoever.)

WSJV (Fox, South Bend, IN) now with HD local news, according to this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=3690

Of the three 'major' affiliates, CBS's WIVB finally went HD yesterday. They were last to go HD (or 16x9).
The first was NBC's WGRZ, but only cropped SD. 2nd was ABC's WKBW, but their look isn't much better than the SD cameras of WGRZ.

Clearly, WIVB wins for the best 'on air look', quality wise.

WGRZ did upgrade its studio cameras to HD on October 29 of last year - over one month after WKBW's upgrade to "HD". Thus, although WGRZ was the first to go 16x9, it was the second to go HD.


That makes WSJV the last major news operation in the South Bend-Elkhart market to go HD for its newscasts. WSBT (CBS) was the first, going HD in November 2008. Second was WNDU (NBC), whose upgrade took place in April 2010. Third was low-power WBND (ABC), who went HD in April of last year.

Surely news to me. You would never know it.
How/where did that info come from??

At least that's what WGRZ claims. Even though they might have upgraded to widescreen HD cameras, they may very well downconvert the HD studio shots to 16x9 SD then re-upconvert back to 1080i. Nevertheless, they still claim it's HD.

And you got this info where?

All I could find besides what Wikipedia claims are a few blogs. And even if Gannett (the owner of WGRZ) made such a claim to have "upgraded" to "HD", they did so quietly without much if any fanfare.

By the way, as noted in Wikipedia, the last "in-house" news operation of a CBS-owned property that remained in 4:3 SD, WWJ-TV and WKBD in Detroit, now airs their morning news show in HD as of February 2. However, they should be currently excluded from the table because they still do not have a full-time news department nor do they air regular evening or late-night newscasts.

I disagree. Both stations are airing a news product - albeit not in the traditional news at morning, noon, 5, 6 & 11 - and it's in HD. Using that rationale, numerous stations who have news outsourced then wouldn't then be considered. Stations that use(d) INN out of Davenport (and/or whomever replaced them) shouldn't be counted, as they have no more of a news staff than WWJ: 1 or two local reporters and everything else (anchors, weather forecasters, camera operators) is coming from a "newscast mill". WWJ/WKBD at least gave local on-air talent. KMAX in Sacramento operates the same way - only a morning newscast and they're on the list. Also, Fox affiliates that have outsourced news...

Hopefully, this will eventually jumpstart WWJ's news department and they can go back to offering local evening news - maybe focusing at an alternate time such as 6-7pm for the early evening newscast and push CBS Evening news to 7. Granted, this is Detroit with all of its issues...

J

Not going to happen.

At least not for the foreseeable future. CBS itself has been cutting budgets over the past few years. Then there are the ratings: Channel 62 has never had much, if any, of what we consider a "local" newscast to begin with. (And this dates back to its early days as WGPR-TV back in 1975.) That's not to mention that WWJ-TV has been one of CBS's weakest owned-and-operated stations, with its prime-time ratings underperforming the network's nationwide average (its prime-time ratings among the "Big Four" outlets in Detroit are generally in third place, behind WXYZ and WJBK; only WDIV has lower prime-time ratings than WWJ).

When its sister station WKBD-TV shuttered its own in-house operation in 2002, ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV produced a 10 pm newscast for WKBD for a couple of years. Since the formation of The CW, WKBD has since fallen behind WMYD and on occasion behind even WADL in the ratings.

By the way, WXYZ (and WEWS in Cleveland) almost dropped ABC in favor of CBS when WJBK (and WJW Cleveland) switched to Fox in 1994. That was until ABC came up with a large-scale deal involving most if not all of the Scripps-owned stations that would ultimately keep WXYZ and WEWS affiliated with ABC. (That deal called for four of the Scripps-owned stations that weren't already affiliated with ABC to switch to that network: Former Fox affiliates KNXV in Phoenix and WFTS in Tampa Bay, NBC affiliate WMAR in Baltimore and CBS affiliate WCPO in Cincinnati; in the case of WCPO, it had to wait for ABC's affiliation deal with WKRC to expire in June 1996 before it could make the switch to ABC.) Scripps also briefly owned the FCC license of KENS (CBS) in San Antonio during Fall 1997 but never held operational control of that station (as it would be traded to Belo, who actually operated the station via a time brokerage agreement during Scripps ownership, a month and a half later).

According to a story on the 5pm newscast tonight, WDAY has gone full HD.

The official announcement from that station:

http://www.wday.com/event/article/id/59510/

According to posts made over in the local HD subforum, earlier today WIBW (CBS) became the first station in the Topeka, KS market to broadcast local news in HD.

KUVN in Dallas/Ft. Worth has gone HD - sometime between Christmas and President's Day... All that's left in DFW is KXTX/Telemundo 39 (and KFWD's repeats of News 8...)

J

The CBS affiliate in Phoenix, KPHO 5, was still SD as recently as Spring 2009. They were the last station in the Phoenix market to switch to HD.

Actually, they were the next-to-last station to switch to HD. FOX-owned KSAZ was still SD until after the Fourth of July of that year.

Re-correction: WBXX-TV 20 (CW) in Knoxville, TN finally started doing there 10 p.m. newscast in HD.

Also, WKRN-TV and WZTV (both in Nashville, TN) need to be added to this Local Over-the-air HDTV News Stations table as they have both been broadcasting HD news for a while now.

Yesterday, April 2nd, WBRE (NBC), WYOU (CBS), and WOLF (FOX) all started broadcasting local news shows in HD. These stations are in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Nielsen DMA.

According to both Wikipedia and TVPredictions, WHP-TV (CBS) in the Harrisburg-York, PA area became the last of the four major news operations there to upgrade its newscasts to HD yesterday (April 14). It is also the third in the market to broadcast its own field reports (in addition to studio footage) in HD. Only WGAL (NBC) continues to air only studio footage in HD while its field footage remains in 16x9 SD.

In addition, enter KSBW2 (KSBW-DT2) as the Monterrey - Salinas, CA's ABC affiliate. The newscasts on that subchannel are also in HD.

Lastly, Biloxi, MS has a new CBS affiliate even though it is merely a digital subchannel of WLOX (ABC). WLOX's newscasts on the main channel are in HD. WLOX's CBS subchannel does not currently transmit in HD; however, the digital cable/satellite feed is in HD. And this July 1, Biloxi's Fox affiliate WXXV will begin airing NBC on a digital subchannel.

WYFF News-4, the Hearst owned NBC affilate in Greenville, SC, is scheduled to upgrade to HD local news on Mon. April 23, with a new set designed by FX Group. Should be an impressive and long awaited upgrade, as CBS and ABC affiliates WSPA and WLOS already upgraded several years ago, leaving only Fox channel WHNS in widescreen SD.

WUPW (Fox, Toledo, OH) now has HD local news, according to this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=1878

I made that post - then someone corrected me. WUPW's newscast is still pillarboxed 4:3 SD for now.

KSTU Salt Lake City went HD yesterday.

http://fox13now.com/2012/04/23/produ...new-hd-studio/

A few more stations have started broadcasting local news in HD over the last week:

• WTOK (ABC) in Meridian, MS
• WNYT (NBC) in Albany, NY
• KFYR (NBC) in Bismarck, ND (news originating from its satellites in Dickinson, Minot, and Williston will remain in SD for the "next few years," according to the station's announcement)

In addition, wpty (ABC) in Memphis, TN has begun airing local news in widescreen SD. This was the last station in the market still airing news in 4:3.

WNCT (CBS, Greenville, NC) now with widescreen SD news, according to this post:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showp...postcount=8203

Off topic:

Speaking of mergers and buyouts, LIN Media announced that it has bought all of New Vision Television's stations - KOIN (CBS, Portland, OR), WIAT (CBS, Birmingham, AL), KSNW (NBC, Wichita, KS) and its satellites, KHON-TV (Fox/CW, Honolulu, HI) and its satellites, WKBN-TV (CBS, Youngstown, OH), WYFX-LD (Fox, Youngstown, OH), WJCL (ABC, Savannah, GA), KSNT (NBC, Topeka, KS), KTMJ-CD (Fox, Wichita, KS) and KIMT (CBS/MyTV, Mason City, IA) - plus operational control of three stations owned by PBC Broadcasting (WYTV (ABC/MyTV, Youngstown, OH), WTGS (Fox, Savannah, GA) and KTKA-TV (ABC/CW, Topeka, KS)). The group deal is expected to be completed later this year.

It beats me why LIN is buying up the group, especially since it has recently completed the sales of two stations in Ohio to other buyers (first, WWHO (CW, Columbus, OH) to Manhan Media but controlled by Sinclair's WSYX; then, WUPW to American Spirit Media but controlled by Raycom's WTOL).

And speaking of WUPW: That station will be upgrading its WTOL-produced newscasts to HD later this month. Until then, it is still in 4:3 SD.