Local news stations are heavily featured in the latest Last Week Tonight
thanks for posting that Real U 
it certainly makes you realize skepticism is a valued trait
I worked in local news in the 1990s. A College student producing a local news broadcast as my “College Job.” That should tell you the quality of their hiring process hiring me to produce the nightly news while I was still taking Philosophy 201.
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We still have cable because Comcrap is our ISP (and it works pretty well in our area), and my wife likes her stories.
I have nostalgic memories of watching the local evening news, and sometimes will tune in. I don’t think I ever made it through a commercial break before turning it off.
Same. I work exclusively from home these days, and Comcast is the only broadband option here. Google Fiber dug up our street two years ago and were supposed to offer service, but there’s still nothing available. Frustrating.
I should probably cancel the cable TV, as we really never watch it anymore. We really only do Netflix anymore, and I can get that through the built in app on the TV. I do occasionally enjoy watching a random NBA or NHL game, but it’s nothing I couldn’t live without.
Maybe I’ll cancel that today…
Hmm, I’m going about selling bikes all wrong. I should tout them as sexual therapy machines. Who do I contact at ABC4? Yes, this is sarcasm being dripped all over sponsored content.
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CCU…these days, I’m surprised you still have inventory to sell. ha
The frames, carbon, that I have in stock are easy to get. It’s the components that are extremely difficult to get right now.
I do have 3 frames worth of steel tubing right now, and 4 carbon frames. So, if you want a frame, I can do that. A complete bike? Not so much.
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The supply chains are totally FUBAR.
Google Fiber and YouTubeTV is cheaper than any bundle I ever had with Comcast.
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This happened in Salt Lake. Crazy.
They don’t make any money off of their (awful) news programming. It’s all from the (awful) network shows.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a fan. One of the little weird oddities of local television is that as an ABC affiliate, KCBX is quite profitable because of the advertising revenue that comes from regular network programming. The news programs have always been a pile of junk.
When I was in fourth grade, at Ensign Elementary, on Ninth Ave and F street (the school moved to the new location sometime in the 80’s) we did a 3 month project under the tutelage of our two fourth grade teachers, to monitor and evaluate the 3 local news stations. (It was an exceptional learning experience.)
Channel 2 ended up being graded the highest,
Channel 5 second, and
Channel 4, was a far distant third.
I’ve lived my entire life in Utah since then (although - Thank God I’ve traveled a LOT) , and would say that not much has changed. Except, that ALL of them have declined radically.
We had a guy in my neighborhood who was an accountant for KUTV-Channel 2. He would get so frustrated because all objective signs showed they were #1 in audience, but a lot of people responded in Nielsen interviewed that they watched Channel 5 to support the church.
This was when they were all down on Social Hall Avenue (before they discovered the original Social Hall was buried under the street).
SLC in the 70s was an interesting time. Auerbach’s, Wolff’s sporting good, the red-light district on west 2nd south, the Kennecott Building, etc.
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KTVX isn’t making any money that’s staying here.
Nexstar takes it all out of market.
But all of their stations are the same. I recently had to try and contact someone with a station of theirs in Philadelphia, they don’t answer their phones, have no email contact and their voicemail is full.
2 comments: I quit watching Channel 2 KUTV a few years ago when Sinclair started pushing a political agenda in their content especially in their broadcasts where they need filler at 5 pm and a bit at 6 pm. I jumped back to Channel 5 KSL because even though they’re owned by the LDS church they’ve generally impressed me with how they handle political topics. On a related note my family was one of 5 families that Nielsen used to represent the greater SLC market about 15 years ago. We had a guy knock on our door stating he flew in from Portland to find 2 new families that met certain age and demographic profiles. They hooked up tons of additional hardware and a special remote control we used to track exactly how many people watched each channel at every 5 minute interval. We did it for 3 years and they were great!
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Back when I was first in SLC as a U student, I lived in an apartment next to a young KTVX reporter. One day she wasn’t paying attention and drove her car into an open hole at some construction up near the U hospital. That became an angry “investigative report” on who was responsible and should pay to buy her a new rim. Also around this time one of their anchors did a five part series on menstrual cramps that she called, “The Curse.” KUTV and KSL were using helicopters a lot at the time. A buddy of mine had a joke that KTVX was going to compete by buying a submarine to cover the Great Salt Lake in depth. I think KTVX’s ratings were less than those at KSTU, and that was when KSTU was still on UHF channel 20 and a lot of people didn’t even know they had a news program.
Yeah, they’ve always been bringing up the rear here.
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Did you watch the John Oliver segment on the Sinclair TV stations? He shows clips of all the sinclair stations with the news anchors repeating the same lines. Clearly the line was written by corporate at Sinclair and all the anchors had to say it. Ch 2’s own Mark Kubel (?) was one of the anchors saying the line. Yeah, Sinclair is fox news disguised as local news.
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