THE WORD ON THE STREET? At KRON, now that Steve Aveson's contract won't be renewed, who's next? And where exactly is KRON headed? Eternal banality in my book.So Aveson's dullness and vanilla wafer personality on the air landed him a goner. He is dull and dreary but seriously, J.R. Stone isn't exactly Mr. Excitement either. Stone isn't getting the coin Aveson got but you get my drift.
And while Grant Lodes is competent and average he's only rather ordinary. Doesn't exactly excite the senses (which is OK) but does he move the needle? No.And that's KRON's problem; a boring, mismanaged, under-performing independent that likes to say it's the "Bay Area's News Station." Yeah, when you throw out the furniture store infomercials and the barrage of "People Behaving Bad" segments (which are OK, but not exactly worthy of the amount of runs they get).
Simply stated, KRON continues to be an albatross. They have good people. They have a few stars (Pam Moore, Radnich, Vicki Liviakis, Cathy Heenan, etc) and they even occasionally beat the competition every now and then. But a broken clock is right two times a day too.
The question: does anyone care?
That's what I thought.
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It literally took me years to correct a few decades' worth of tuning to channel 4 for NBC.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I stuck with it, because these days I'm as likely to watch KRON as I am QVC. What a waste of valuable broadcast spectrum.
Alas, KNTV is only a notch above KRON as far as I'm concerned. They're my last choice for news. KRON isn't even in the running.
A tragic case of going from first to worst, all because those in charge at Young Broadcasting got too greedy. It serves them right, but what they've become serves the viewing public wrong on a 24/7 basis.
I don't get it. People Behaving Badly is only watchable with the TV muted. Stanley Roberts and his 4th grade presenter cadence is horrible. If my TV is broken and stuck on KRON, I turn it off when Stanley comes on.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with the funky Stanley delivery but that just goes with the low budget concept and fun of it. KRON is full of terrible talkers, J.R. Stone and Grant Lodes come to mind. Grant is so up and down it is tough to follow. J.R. just talks loud. KRON has sure become a punching bag here lately, deservedly so. KRON's stories are so one-sided and simple it is laughable. There is no storytelling, no original reporting, just spewing simple facts or doing live shots showing that in fact, yes, it is raining. I really don't see why people watch KRON...or local TV news in general anymore.
DeleteIn all fairness to KRON, *everyone* does multiple live shots to tell us it's raining. I love how they feel compelled to give every storm TEAM COVERAGE! Wow, it's raining in the South Bay. Hey, it's raining in the East Bay. What do you know, it's raining on the Peninsula too! Really newsworthy! Now time for the obligatory CHP bite where the sergeant urges everyone to slow down and take more time to get where they're going.
DeleteI have my DVR get the 11pm KPIX, but that's only out of habit now. I can watch the first couple of stories and then turn it off and go to sleep. I honestly used to watch to see how horrible Roberta Gonzalessssh would be on any given night, now I perk up to watch the horrible Andria Borba. She writes her stories thinking she's so clever with alliteration and painting a verbal picture, when in reality she's misreporting the story for the sake of what she thinks is cleverness. Watch her sometime, it's so bad you can't look away. So, KPIX gets my eyeballs just because of the terribleness of Roberta, and now Andria Hyperborba.
DeleteKRON is the only ubbiased news reporting on Bay Area television. You might think it is boring if you want something more than direct, unbiased, unslanted, unstilted facts about what happened without all the editorial "color" you get elsewhere. Stanley Roberts on the other hand is just ridiculous. Likes to pick on and bully people who make honest, human mistakes and thinks he's better than them.
DeleteNo one cares go back to writing about radio
ReplyDeleteAbout ten years ago they had this "consultant" (snake oil salesman) from the UK come in and convince the suits that the way for KRON to go was to turn everyone into "VeeJays." A few talented people (Vic Lee for example) jumped ship right there. Others tried and failed. Those who remain are for the most part mediocre, though a few stars were discovered. But you can't turn an assignment editor, video editor, writer or producer into a journalist any faster than you can turn a pastry chef into an airline pilot, or a school teacher into a lumberjack. There's a reason that person became what they became and not a reporter. But they're cheaper than real reporters, and this is what the UK asshat made them believe: they'd be able to take on the other stations for less coin. Yeah, sure.
ReplyDeleteSo ten years later you have a station that's almost a parody of broadcast news. Most of the senior people are just counting down toward retirement. The suits left the station nearly insolvent and parachuted to other gigs they can fuck up. And a great brand was destroyed for a quick cash grab.
Gotta love capitalism. It always eventually eats its own.
I seriously never understood why Pam Moore remained with KRON?! Pam Moore back in the day, when NBC made the switch to KNTV could have went any Bay Area News Outlet, because she is Legit!!! I always felt that Pam would have been a perfect fit for KTVU, but that's water under the bridge as they say.
DeleteSaw Radnich doing his segment a few weeks ago (evidently, it was supposed to be a sports report). Hadn't seen him in a while, and his appearance was disturbing. Bloated, bleary, sallow, ill-fitting clothes. His tone couldn't have been more perfunctory.
ReplyDeleteTired ending to a long career.
Of the stations that went independent and/or switched to The CW after losing ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC affiliations... WJXT in Jacksonville has been quite the success story since ending their then 53-year union with CBS in 2002... few months after KRON went independent after losing NBC to KNTV. KTVU in Phoenix did a good job since losing their ABC in 1995, in the midst of the big affiliation switch in the mid 1990s (where we saw New World and Citicasters stations defect to Fox, and Group W stations defect to CBS). 2013 saw WCCB in Charlotte pick up CW after losing Fox to WJZY. 2014/2015 saw WISH in Indianapolis pick up CW after losing CBS to WTTV. 2016/2017 saw WHDH going independent when NBC decided to launch WBTS. It'll remain to be seen how WCCB, WISH, and WHDH will do in the long run... and keeping local news operations relevant.
ReplyDeleteI meant KTVK, not KTVU. I apologize for that mistake.
DeleteIf I’m Nexstar, I’ve got to be thinking how much better off I’d be if KRON shut down its news operation, outsourced its news to another station (like KOFY does with ABC7) and bulked up on syndicated shows. Nexstar would save a lot of money. I’d hate to see a local newsroom close, but I don’t see a station surviving with ratings that bad and probably very little re-trans revenue. As a previous commenter noted, a number of stations have done OK after losing a network affiliation but they had good managers with vision and intelligence. I’ve never seen those traits exhibited by anybody at KRON post-NBC. Nexstar shareholders would have been better off if the company had sold off 100% of its bandwidth in the FCC auction and shut the place down.
ReplyDeleteRich: The great anchor Tom Sinkovitz (who worked at KRON back in the day) is still living in SF & would be an absolutely wonderful
ReplyDeletereplacement for Aveson. Do you know Tom? Would he ever even consider going back to KRON to work alongside Pam Moore? Tom absolutely would be far superior to J.R. Stone & Grant Lodes & would instantly bring badly needed gravitas to the current albatross that is KRON News. Your thoughts?
John Kessler would also be a great addition
DeleteWhile it was quite prescient of the deYoung family to dismantle its media empire and cash out, one can't help but wonder how different the Bay Area media landscape would be if things had gone a little differently, especially for KRON.
ReplyDeleteTaking Young's bid over NBC's doomed KRON's powerhouse reign, and forced NBC into a lengthy rebuilding of its local affiliate presence.
Selling the Chronicle to Hearst and forcing the Examiner into the hands of the Fangs sentenced one pretty good paper to mediocrity (and worse) and doomed a decent PM paper.
KTEH is gone (as a fan of its Brit-tinged programming, this one is extra maddening), as is KICU. KRON somehow soldiers on, but for little purpose.
It is a different world, and the old guard media has a diminished role in it, but one hopes that at least some of it could have been avoided and things had gone differently, especially with Chronicle Publishing Co.
As it is, the best that the regional can hope for now is...not much.
I was hoping Big D in the am would be next on the list of lack of talent to be given the old pink slip. However, it looks like Lodes will be next to go. If you don't have that "it" factor, viewers aren't going to watch. It's not his fault, it's just that he doesn't have that presents that is needed. A good example...Dan Ashley. Enough said.
ReplyDelete"...school teacher into a lumberjack."
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ.
My brother-in-law has been a teacher in Bend, Oregon, for 18-years...and supplements his income in the summer by working as a lumberjack for a logging company. He started as a "go-fer" and gradually worked his way up to crew member. They don't use axes anymore--they use humongous chainsaws or machine-saws. But the work is still dangerous--and pays pretty well.
grant lode. his last name says it all. he has the most god awful voice/delivery...please. go away dude. please.
ReplyDelete