Peoria Pundit

Barrington Broadcasting (owner of Creve Coeur-based WHOI) has released its 4th quarter and year end financial statements. Radio and Business Report says this:

Pilot Group LP, the sole shareholder of Barrington Broadcasting, injected $16 million of new capital into the TV group owner last month. Meanwhile, Barrington reports that Q4 net revenues increased 7.2%, or 4.3% on a same station basis. Like so many others, Barrington has been cutting costs, although CEO Jim Yager notes that not a minute of local news has been dropped.

Oh sure. The company fired it’s local news staffs (the wonderful severance package was four weeks worth of pay, from what I hear)  and outsourced the “local news” to former competitors (in Peoria’s case, WEEK). This means that the same news reports are now running on two stations in the same market. But they didn’t “drop” news. They just deprived viewers in their market of one source of information.

Phil Luciano wrote something dumb in one of his columns the other day. That, by itself, isn’t unusual. But this time, he said something dumb about WEEK anchorman Tom McIntyre. When Mac’s many fans let Luciano have it, Luciano responded with a tongue-in-cheek column extolling Mac’s many virtues.

But he forgot some of them:*

• Tom McIntyre doesn’t read from a teleprompter. Tom McIntyre speaks into the camera and the teleprompter, out of fear, transcribes his words.
• Tom McIntyre doesn’t “Gotta Eat.” Tom McIntyre derives sustenance from the Yellow Rays of the Sun.
• That big smile on Vanna Whitewall’s face? Tom McIntyre. Enough said.
• Bob Larson has a Tom McIntyre voodoo doll. But every time Bob tries to stick it with a needle, the needle breaks.

* The inspiration for this list.

Two sources confirmed today that staff meetings are scheduled Monday at WHOI and WEEK. One source confirmed and another said it was highly likely that it will be announced that the news staffs will be consolidated.

One source says that no more than six people from WHOI would be retained by WEEK. Four will be on air people, and two would be engineers and/or sales people.

As has previously been reported, WHOI’s owners — Barrington Broadcasting — is essentially outsourcing its news programming to WEEK, which is owned by Granite Broadcasting. The end result will be a single newsroom producing news programs for two stations. WEEK has built a separate HOINews set within the walls of their spacious WEEK studios. The two stations will essentially be running the same news stories. I would expect the two stations to use different anchorpeople to try to create the semblance of different programming.

Who how does ONE station produce two separate news programs that air at the same time? Simple: Film of them an hour ahead of time. WHOI’s 10 p.m. show will be filmed at hour in advance of air time, surrendering the option of airing breaking news during its nightly news broadcast.

And the early deadline will cripple both local and national sports coverage. There won’t be enough time for video and scores to come in from high school or Bradley University. National sports video feeds often don’t arrive until after 9 p.m.

Oh, and apparently WEEK isn’t going to renew its contract with the Associated Press, leaving the station without access to any wire service.

And then add the previously reported fact that WEEK planning to begin using a canned weather report based in Indiana.

This is driving me friggin’ insane.

In my real life, I do telephone technical support for a company that sells flat-screen televisions. I am hesitant to blog about work. But I think it’s safe to say that one of the types of calls I receive are from people — mostly elderly — who are concerned that their televisions will have to be replaced once the Feb. 17 deadline for all television stations to broadcast a digital signal.

There’s been some discussion that the federal government ought to push that deadline back because there’s no more money in the fund to help poor people pay for converter boxes that convert digital signals to analog, letting them use their old televisions.

We’ll, the the corporate overlords at WEEK have decided to flip the switch on Feb 17 anyway. I agree with that decision. The public has had plenty of time to get new televisions or get one of those converters. At this point, delaying the switchover will postpone the inevitable. Some people will simply refuse to take any action until they are forced to do so. And if they don’t, all they are missing is television.

But what ticked me off today was this statement, read by anchor Tom McIntyre, who told viewers that they only have to worry if they don’t use cable, satellite or a digital converter box.

That is wrong. Absolutely wrong. Most of not all the televisions made during the past three or four years utilize a digital television tuner. They can pull the digital signal right out of the air and play it. Most owner’s manuals, in the specifications, will say what kind of tuner it it. Look for the words QAM or ATSC.

If your television is digital ready, you DO NOT need to get cable, satellite or a converter box. Period. End of discussion.

I received the following information from a source who has been reliable and accurate in the past, and who has many contacts in the media:

WEEK is seriously considering an agreement that could lead to ONE Indianapolis-based person doing weather for stations in a FIVE STATE REGION. I’m already aware that this is the arrangement on weekends, but this would be a regional only broadcast. My source says that the worry is that there would be no mention of the conditions in places Chillicothe or Goodfield. Hell, there are parts of Peoria that never seem to get the same weather,

It was two weeks ago, I think, that I and hundreds of co-workers were huddled together at work, using computers to track the exact locations of the tornadoes reported just a few miles away. You can get away from mediocre weather coverage on days when the weather is bland and safe. On those days paying a someone to be your private meteorologist can seem like an extravagance. But then there are days when it’s worth a year’s salary to have someone who knows when to tell you to get your sorry ass the hell to the basement NOW.

And the source says WEEK is probably going to lay off an anchor or two and go down to one anchor per show.

Perhaps there will be something official on Friday

Edgar Sandoval is reporting that this Friday may be when staffers at WHOI and WEEK hear what will happen under the long-expected management contract that supposedly will mean WEEK will start producing news for HOI. Edgar, a former local TV newsman, had this to say:

… It’s not much better in many of the big markets and many of the same things, like ownership issues/consolidation, are happening there too. Some big markets stations have moved towards one man bands so unlike when I was coming up and there was the explosion in growth with FOX affiliates… there are fewer and fewer jobs.

And as the mainstream media continues to perform these acts of self vivisection, the door is opens wider for online, community based citizen journalism, like what we are doing at the Blog Peoria Project, which is now accepting new bloggers.

The last time I caught WEEK sports reporter Marc Strauss reading the news at 10 p.m., he was pretty agitated at the behind the scenes crew for it’s seeming inability to play the sports clips he was actually talking about at the time. This was more than a month ago, as I recall. Tonight, I watched Marc Strauss getting a little agitated at the behind-the-scenes crew for its seeming inability to play the sports clips he was actually talking about at the time.

I’m sitting here watching the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games, and I’m growing increasingly annoyed at the annoying pop-up ad for Sherman’s that WEEK is running. It’s bad enough during regular television shows because they tend to make it hard to get lost in the story. But the graphics are covering up the information that NBC is running across the bottom of the screen.

WEEK is the highest-rated station in the Peoria market. Granite Broadcasting cannot be so hard-up for money that they must run these ads. Stop it. It’s the Olympics for crying out load.

If you feel the same way, contact the general manager.

WEEK announced at last night’s 10 p.m. newscast that weekend anchor/producer Jenny Li was leaving the station to work in public relations for State Farm Insurance in Bloomington.

What’s good for Jenny — better pay and better hours, no doubt — is bed news for news consumers. I’ll miss seeing her around the press table at Peoria City Hall.

And I’ll never forget watching her and another reporter arguing over whose turn it was to interview General Parker before the start of a City Council meeting.