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CTV London Gets Worse

180K views 691 replies 54 participants last post by  audiofool 
#1 ·
Southwestern Ontario's News Leader keeps lowering the standards that should be applied to local newscasts.......some of the worst anchors in the business, using old rehashed stories, taking US medical clips and using as if they were Canadian. The only positive for CTV London is the weather reporter. Interestingly enough one of the sports reporters is now doing general news......or is he just filling in. Time to rethink and have only one CTV station with appropriate staffing and current technology (HD) in place. Guess nobody complained when the morning news programing disappeared some time ago. I suppose if no one is watching then no one will complain.
 
#30 ·
Eh? :confused: I used to think Julie Evans (before she got married) was actually quite a looker, but then nobody's been able to see her in HD... lol!
A test for whether CTV London really is getting worse: does Julie do formulaic, irritating teases like her counterpart at CTV Kitchener? Tonight's example from Kitchener:
"Well they say April showers bring May flowers, but will all this stormy weather clear out in time for the weekend? Your weather forecast is just ahead"
My reaction to these talking heads? Okay, quit wasting time pandering. Everybody knows the forecast (that for some pointless reason is now called "futurecast") isn't coming up next, but not for at least another ten minutes. If you absolutely must give multiple mini-previews of what's to come in the newscasts, please, almighty CTV writer staff: stop using rhetorical questions!! It's so incredibly oldschool to script newscasts that way, and almost condescending to viewers. The lame sensationalism annoys me to no end, and it's made 1000 times worse when the anchorwoman's delivery has forced intonation as if that exaggerated dramatic effect will create interest.
Anyway, inspired by this thread, I checked out a bit of CTV [Two] London's newscast, this evening, and the end-of-show ad-lib among the three people at the anchordesk was painfully - nay, hilariously - awkward. Ahh, so that must be a common thing among CTV stations! :p
 
#29 ·
Don't let the secret out that you can watch CTV 2 in London on HD. I was amazed when I saw the beauty of HD when placing a paper clip in the back of my HD TV. Bell only broadcasts it in really crappy SD.
 
#31 ·
And now, some completely useless TV...

That type of useless drivel is merely used to compensate for the fact that nobody at the station is capable of doing any real journalism. They only have about 5 minutes of content to fill the half hour so they fill the rest of the time with useless BS. That pretty much describes most Canadian TV content in a nutshell.
 
#32 ·
^^ Bingo. They even throw to each local reporters' stories using rhetorical questions -- pathetic! There are better ways to make a newscast flow, y'know, like just writing straightforward lead-ins without fabricating hysteria. I have to assume that excessive use of social media is "corrupting" journalism as less and less context is put into reporting these days. Those working in media are so obsessed with trends that they can't see the forest for the trees. Just this week, I've noticed a handful of reporters from different networks reference stuff they found on the new "Periscope" app, as if nothing previously existed that allowed a person to stream live video for free.

Back to CTV criticism... the music bed used for the weekday AM updates in Kitchener is perfectly suited to the junk journalism often seen. I literally laugh out loud when I hear the trumpet "wah-wahs" that are ironically accentuated at the end of each two minute newsbreak. The comedic undertone is a perfect match to the poor-quality low-definition presentation.
Note that not all CTV Kitchener anchors/reporters are that bad. Some are, in fact, quite good at what they do. Unfortunately, two of the most notorious infotainers are regularly tagteaming weeknights at 6PM.
 
#33 ·
maybe CTV Kitchener is now worse than London?

Has Bell Media already started another round of layoffs as alluded to in this newsletter? CTV Kitchener didn't even bother to do a webcast, tonight; usually they've done that when the usual newscast gets pre-empted by NFL games, but tonight: nothing and no explanation on their Twitter feed. Hooray for corporate indifference. Maybe they've gone "bankrupt" when faced with the bill to replace a broken window. :rolleyes:
 
#34 ·
more 4K reporting from a "0.6K" station

CTV's obligatory "tech expert" was interviewed on Canada AM from the CTV Two London studio, this morning. The topic was another discussion of the state of 4KTV. As usual, whenever they cut from Toronto to the signal from London, it was fuzzy 4:3, showcasing the lovely wall of oldschool CRT monitors and '80s neon decor at decaying CFPL. Always amusing how ironic it is that Bell Media covers pseudo-news about 4K from one of its stations that itself is broadcasting at best "0.6K"!
Should be interesting what, if anything, comes of migration to 2K HD, during licence renewal procedures this summer.
 
#36 ·
They are all broadcasting in digital and I'm sure that is all the CRTC cares about. I highly doubt they care if the news is in SD. Funny thing is I'm pretty sure select CTV stations are the only ones left that haven't made the switch to HD News other than maybe the ones in Dawson Creek and Terrace BC which incidentally enough is also owned by Bell Media.
 
#37 ·
Oh yeah. Duh moment. :grin

CHWI is digital and HD, just SD news. The CKCO-CTV transmitter in Oil Springs is still in analog even though CKCO in Kitchener is digital.
 
#38 ·
Add CTV Two Halifax to that list. Rogers can't be bothered to offer anything but Toronto & Vancouver in HD (!!), so we get Halifax in SD & the picture quality looks like pure crap. Like VHS tapes from the '80s taped on EP.

For CFPL, weather is the most glaring detail of SD problems. Shadows & harsh lines on live shot on the studio patio. It's awful & awefully embarrassing.

Oddly enough, I volunteer for Rogers TV London on the Daytime show that IS broadcast in HD. The studio cameras I used is ancient & I highly doubt it's an HD, but the quality on channel 13 is superb compared to CTV London!

One last tidbit: When 'A' announced a rebrand to CTV Two, they touted great things INCLUDING HD newscasts "soon". And how long ago was the rebrand? Yeah.

From the people who took away our Noon news (from 1 hour to zero) close to 20 years ago. I believe that was CHUM Group, Ltd., but concrete proof medium markets (anything that isn't Toronto/Calgary/Vancouver) gets stripped away to what feels like the barest of bones only to cut deeper.

Now Corus is buying Shaw Media > Global!
 
#41 ·
Not sure why they do not use the Windsor crew for their newscasts considering how poor the London crew is. It appears that the London on-air types are all working in some sort of rotation.....which begs the question have their salaries been reduced. In addition they use old stories from CTV.....weather stories from the US....local stories pop up everywhere in the newscast.....no use kicking a dead horse any longer....shut the whole operation down so that Bell Media will stop complaining as it heads into CRTC hearings. Generally do not watch Canadian news on a regular basis especially while the US Comedy team of Clinton and Trump are the star attractions.
 
#42 ·
Caught a minute of a local newscast the other day. The person on air could barely read and talk at the same time. It was like watching a high school station newscast. Correction, it was worse than most of the high school station newscasts I remember. What a sad downfall from the days when CFPL was locally owned and operated.
 
#43 ·
It's interesting when you start looking at the revenue these channels try to capture - I would be surprised if CFPL brings in $3000 in ad revenue from 6-6:30pm based on their current ad rates. If CFPL is just using the money earned from the advertising they sell during the news to fund the news, minus all the overhead and salaries, how are they going to keep broadcasting with a quality product?

I'm not sure how advertorial stories work (I have never purchased a fake news story for any company I work for) but maybe they get some cashflow from that or network advertorials?

I only watch CFPL occasionally, but assume they have 7 minutes of commercials per 30 minutes of news, with 1 minute for station/CTV2 promos for my calculations at $250 per 30 second spot on that channel.
 
#44 ·
I used to watch the CFPL news at either 6 or 11 almost every night. I haven't watched an entire newscast in years. When I do try to watch I find the stories and reporting to be little more than fluff. Do we really need to have a shot in every story of a person walking down a hallway or sitting down at their desk? Tara Overholt tries hard, but she seems bored or tired most of the time. Kelda Yuen has a condescending, nasal tone and slow delivery that I find frustrating.

A company that I used to work for looked into advertising on CFPL in the late '90s. The rates for the 6 PM news were the most expensive - by far - of any timeslot. The 11 PM news was the next most expensive. I remember a 30 second spot between 6 and 7 PM costing close to $1,000. Even a crappy spot (mid morning or mid afternoon) was over $100 for a 30 second ad. I wonder what they charge today?
 
#45 ·
yep, neighbouring CTV Kitchener gets worse, too

Tonight during CTV Kitchener's six o'clock local news, I noticed that Raphael Seth's NBC News Box Office preview (regularly used instead of anything produced locally or even within Canada) made mention that the film Where To Invade Next is now playing -- umm, no, that movie's only been released in the U.S. at this time, Canada's not getting it for a few more weeks, but apparently nobody notices/cares about airing accurate information for this country. I'm not religious, but christ, CTV!! Obviously nobody's paying any attention to the appropriateness of your foreign newswire fillers anymore. Can't you find one of the clowns from etalk to do a more relevant movie review segment? Bell operates the E! specialty channel; you'd think there'd be some synergies to be had instead of using pre-packaged American reports on CTV News. :rolleyes:

Even stranger: I haven't seen it myself, but supposedly CTV Kitchener's Community Calendar has been running free notices about Rogers TV recruiting volunteers. Really??? Ever since Rogers dropped the word "community" from their cable channel name, they've been flirting with being a wannabe competitor to CTV News, so I find it rather surprising that CTV would help promote them. Rogers certainly would never return the favour by using its likewise Worth Noting community billboard to promote CTV News!
 
#46 ·
“corporate executives who own luxury yachts and private helicopters”

So amidst all the posturing from their parent company's corporate executives, CTV Kitchener is now positioning itself to be an opportunistic fill-in for the loss of The Guelph Mercury newspaper. :rolleyes:

Hmm, how convenient when they need to impress the CRTC in order to keep broadcasting. Problem is, they're treating this just like another passing fad. Putting a "Guelph" button at the top of the station's website, where they've also previously put silly temporary stuff like "Falcon Cam" is doing nothing to increase coverage of Guelph news stories. The specific "Guelph" news page is basically nothing but what anybody would find by just searching the CTV Kitchener site for keyword "Guelph". And anyone paying attention would have noticed long ago that news from Guelph is occasional at best, on CTV Kitchener. If something big is breaking, they'll be there, but other than that, the Guelph market is mostly ignored. Whenever they do happen to send someone to cover news in Guelph, it's very noticeable that a bunch of smaller Guelph news items are shown during the same newscast -- gee, they only cover Guelph when it's handy? What a shocker! :rolleyes:

Nice try, Bell. Your regional director based out of CTV London can pat himself on the back for this one.
 
#50 ·
junk journalism

Today, in the "Around Ontario" section of news clips on the CTV Kitchener website, I noticed one titled "London: Searching for the best pizza in the city" -- apparently a multi-part investigative series. Uh huh.
So, "pizza wars" qualifies as news at CTV Two London? Stunning.
 
#51 ·
@mr.eous - it probably is an advertorial paid for by local pizza places.

Journalism is sad these days! Especially at the small CTV channels. Beyond the weather and sports stories, I find that a good 50-75% of the local news on these channels is something to do with a new business, trying to get you interested in buying something, or not locally produced advertorials.

Would like to see the CRTC force these channels to have real news to fill their news requirements. I was watching CHCH the other night and they were bragging about the hours of news coverage they still produce! Including commercial time! What a joke...and I actually consider CHCH a little better than CKCO and CFPL...
 
#52 ·
Hey, my favourite topic: bashing CTV London's newscast. The only reason I try to tune in is to get some local news coverage, although I can get that on pretty much any local radio station with far less irritation. Either way, I never go past 6:30 and always switch over to NBC at that time. To say that the newscast looks low-rent is an understatement. I'm glad they brought back the news desk, but the SD broadcast and dour set make Rogers Cable 13 look like CNN. Tara Overholt isn't awful and fairly easy on the eyes, but she's very error-prone and two-dimensional. She has pretty decent chemistry with Norm James and Julie Atchison, but is usually pretty stiff. Julie is the only ray of light on the program as she's very relaxed, has a nice smile and seems to genuinely enjoy what she does. The cost-cutting at the station is pretty obvious in that they'll throw anyone in front of the green screen to do the weather when Julie is off. Even poor Sean Irvine has had to fumble his way through that department. Worst of all though, is the utterly nauseating, over-pronouncing Cara Campbell. Obviously, this girl works cheap because they've thrown her on the anchor desk, weather, road reporting and now sports! She's sickening to listen to and I can't reach for the remote control fast enough to change the channel. Her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. She also seems to disappear for long periods of time before unfortunately popping up again (part-time?).
 
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