Monday, January 20, 2014

KTVU Was Even More Crapped Out Than The 49ers; Local TV Sends Out A-Team on Doomsday Sunday Night From Seattle

 Think the 49ers and fans have the blues? At least take solace you're not KTVU, where the station had planned a massive show of local content, direct from New York, ( near the Super Bowl), with Fox, of course as the game carrier. Channel 2 is the Fox aff.


At a cost of nearly $3M, KTVU had planned to send Mark Ibanez and Joe Fonzi --and Frank Somerville and a production crew to boot.


Now, it'll have to settle for the game itself. They'll survive. So will the sales dept.


*Somerville worked Channel 2's Sunday night news shows and that was on purpose, as virtually all the Bay Area TV stations went with their A-team, (or what constitutes as an A-team these days)...


Highs and Lows:


*KTVU's post-game show was a technological semi-disaster. On more than a few occasions, Ibanez, who teamed with ex-49ers player, Dwight Clark, got blurted out from the wail of screaming fans from somewhere parts unknown. Clark took a shot at the Bay Area's newest villain, Richard Sherman, calling him a "jerk." Knowing Sherman, I'm guessing he was just crushed.


*KPIX: Anchor Ken Bastida and sports tonsil, Dennis O'Donnell reported direct from Seattle. Bastida did the usual fan actuality packages while the sad-looking O'Donnell tried his best to explain why the 49ers had lost. Whatever.


KRON: Gary Radnich joined Vicki Liviakis on the set Sunday night and per his usual, they, (49ers), had a great year, they lost, but let's be happy crap looked as if he was interrupted from watching a Beyoncé special on cable. Nothing surprising there.


KGO-TV: Larry Beil looked and acted as if he'd lost a second cousin following the game on Channel 7. Fortunately, Mike Schuman added a needed jolt of relevance reporting live from Seattle. I'm not sure as to why Beil looked so morbid --maybe he's a season-ticket holder and no NY trip was a downer.




**Collectively, the coverage was about a C+ --as usual, the mass reliance on SF bar shots with the usual drunk guys, (and girls) wearing the jerseys became tiresome and predictable; maybe the local TV people could pick better bars as opposed to the Soma dive saloons.




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22 comments:

  1. KTVU does no local production, and has no local production crew in house,
    so wonder where the 3 million dollar price tag comes from, unless that is the cost of hiring some,and flying them out.KTVU is tied to the network that day for programming, so I wonder when this "3 million dollar production" was to air?

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    1. "KTVU does no local production and has no local production crew in house"

      What?!?!?!?!?! are you insane? where do you people come from?

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    2. They laid off over 50% of the engineering staff (behind the scenes production people) in 2001. They have slowly removed engineering from any on air production. Local production is now those cookie cutter local "news"casts that are run with an automation program and about a third of the humans who used to be involved. No more Forty Niner Playbook, Warriors Roundtable, Silicon Valley Business, On the Money or any Outside production shoots take place in house there anymore. The studios that used sedge used for shoots are now filled with tables and phones for desperate sales weasels to cold call prospective advertisers. I have worked in broadcast tv for over 20 years, and a for a few of those I worked at KTVU,...that's where I come from you imbecilic asshole!

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  2. I'm a photog at one of the "Big 4" locals here (don't wanna give my name, because I'm one of the "travelling photogs").

    I for one am GLAD that the Niners are not going to the Super Bowl! Why? For one, travelling to the NYC area is a nightmare. I hate that city/area so much. Also, we are now spared from doing two solid weeks of the BS that Rich complained about. Having been in this market for 24-years, it just gets OLD going to the bars/hot-spots doing all these "woo-HOO" stories.

    Now we can get back to our usual "StormWatch '14" or "DroughtWatch '14" hard-hitting "news."

    I am now praying that the Warriors do not make the NBA playoffs--or at least, don't go very deep...because there's nothing I look forward to more than doing nighttime live shots in Oakland ((**rolling my eyes**))

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  3. I am a diehard 49ers fan, and am sad they lost last night. But I am so happy that we won't have the the BS for the next 2 weeks as 8:59 stated. Football is a wonderful game, but in the final analysis it's not that important. If these TV stations devoted half their resources toward informing the public of the important local issues (of which there are many) that they use for the the game "hype', local TV news might be worth watching again.

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    1. Ever since the Giants won the World Series in 2010 it's become an easy target to overhype media coverage of a sports team in the playoffs. Now after the 49ers lost again it's like they don't exist. Hilarious how fast they jump off the bandwagon, as if it were the Titanic.

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  4. Photographer@8:59

    So you are a traveling photographer who dislikes when local teams win because you have to travel and do your job. You "hate" New York City, you dislike doing nighttime shots from Oakland, you are tired of doing the same old stories after 24-years....

    You hate your job. Maybe you should find a line of work you'd prefer.

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  5. The local air talent has to look, sound and speak as if the loss by the football team was the highest level of national tragedy. Otherwise, the viewers get crazed and bombard the station's switchboard (do they still have those?) and message boards with flames. And there should be a hard and fast rule, no shooting in bars after sports events. That in itself would be a public service.

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  6. I'm just glad I won't be bombarded by endless 49er crap on the TV/radio for the next two weeks.

    How anyone can root for a team owned by the douchebag Yorks is beyond me. Suck it SF.

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    1. If fans couldn't root for teams owned by douchebags, not sure there'd be any teams left to root for.

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  7. They should have asked some of the guys in the jerseys what they thought of the drought. ;-)

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    1. Cost-saving and synergy-enhancing suggestion to local stations: Interview drunk guys (and girls) wearing jerseys while standing next to that thermometer sign in Walnut Creek.

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  8. As usual Rich has nothing but contempt for local coverage, BIG SURPRISE!
    Typically, his "Highs and Lows" lists nothing but lows.

    Are we really supposed to believe that Lieberman could do better?

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  9. And that, dear fellow commenters, is why I did not watch any local news last nite!

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  10. Ditto 11:43, I also did not want to watch the local news......I gave up my season tickets when Smith was drafted and Yorks took ownership...... Have never looked back or watched a game since.........

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  11. Spot on Rich. From the endless, dead-thinking media buffet:

    "the mass reliance on SF bar shots with the usual drunk guys, (and girls) wearing the jerseys became tiresome and predictable."

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  12. KTVU's Postgame graphic showed a score for the 49ers and the PANTHERS(?!?). Uh, weren't the 49ers playing the Seattle Seahawks??? Shades of "Ho Lee Fuk".

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  13. where do you get this $3M figure from? That is absolutely ludicrous, and shows how gullible you are.

    Also, I watched the entire post game show, and granted it wasn't great, but the audio problem you mention was about 15 seconds in an hour and 15 minute long show... your vendetta against Ch 2 is becoming more and more obvious, or you have no idea how a live remote broadcast comes together... either way your opinion is becoming less and less valuable

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  14. I'm so happy the 49ers were eliminated, so we don't have to worry about drunken morons running amok & vandalizing the city.

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  15. Regarding Larry Beil; he picked the Seattle Seahawks to win. Perhaps that "morbid" look you perceived was indigestion..

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  16. Raddy has really gotten pathetic with his worn out Las Vegas lounge act. He doesn't seem to have any real interest or enthusiasm for sports, so why is he still talking about it on the radio and TV? Because he's an 'entertainer.' But it's cheap entertainment at best, and Radnich is mostly faking it these days. I wonder if he ever even watches a game in person. I doubt it. As Radnich likes to put it: "nobody cares!" Actually Gar, it's "you don't care," because you're not a sportscaster but a cheap entertainer who has stolen a lot of money with an act that wore thin years ago.

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