10th in line but I made it! 🙋♂️ Here are the two, full-length (including ads) launch shows, airing at 6pm and 11pm, from the CBS O&O in Detroit, Michigan. This all aired on Monday, January 23, 2023, the first day with the highly anticipated news operation.
I was on the fence about posting this as seven other people beat me to it, and I try to avoid duplicating what you can see elsewhere. However, there were more than a few who said I should post it anyway as many of you were looking forward to my thoughts on this, so here it is!
The anticipation obviously made a lot of sense, as this was the largest major network affiliate not to do news, kind of embarrassing for an O&O of a major television network. I won’t dive too deep into the station’s history here, or what it was before CBS came into the picture in 1994. All of that is chronicled in absolute painstaking detail on their Wikipedia page, so I definitely recommend checking that out.
The best part of this newscast, far and away, are the graphics. The theme music, as I’ve said before, sucks. It is called “Dimensional” and is from the audio branding agency Antfood. I continue to maintain that it sounds like production music with the 5-note CBS mnemonic slapped on it.
I don’t care for the set either, it has a weird industrial look to it and parts of it look unfinished. A newsroom set also doesn’t really work in 2023 given that a lot of functions that once were done in a busy newsroom can now be done remotely. It’s almost like they knew this and put the control room in the back of the newsroom to make the area look busier than it is.
And… surprise, they ditched one of my favorite voiceover artists, Beau Weaver, in favor of Neil Wilson, and I was shocked they went with him. He’s not bad, and actually fits with the music, but it’s still a shame they dropped the best voiceover artist in the business.
Enough of the presentation, let’s talk actual content and talent. This newscast seemed to move very slowly. I don’t know if this is by design or if they’re trying to find their stride. Jeff Skversky and Shaina Humphries are both fine anchors but seem like they have no chemistry. Ahmad Bajjey and Ronnie Duncan are both great talent with big personalities of their own, and I think help carry the shows — those two are definitely solid hires. Very odd Bajjey wasn’t given the chief meteorologist title even though he is their weeknight met.
There’s some out there who are like this is a “streaming-first” news operation, or that this is the “newsroom of the future”, but honestly, I didn’t see anything here majorly different from what most stations across the country are doing now. I wasn’t really blown away by it, it just seemed kind of dull, not a lot of emphasis on hard, breaking news or investigations. It seems like they’re trying to be a storytelling shop, but aside from Ronnie Duncan, who is an amazing sports storyteller, they don’t really have any storytellers.
I strongly dislike the slogan “On Your Block, Around The Clock”, it sounds like they’re trying too hard to be trendy or “different”. It’s even worse when they repeat it after every report. Mentioning a reporter was assigned to cover a certain county was also kinda odd and an unusual approach as opposed to going where the stories are. This is almost certainly going to result in more fluff being reported on slow news days. The whole “neighborhood journalism” thing seems gimmicky to me.
Overall, I give this effort 6 out of 10. I am rooting for this station and hope they carve a niche out, but I don’t see them doing well in the ratings with 2, 4, and 7 all being much longer established. Despite my opinions on the operation, I do wish the team nothing but the best and am glad Detroit finally has a fourth news option. More options for local news in this day and age is definitely a good thing and I will commend CBS for doing this (though I heard CBS Television Stations head Wendy McMahon had to fight Paramount higher ups for this, and she deserves a lot of credit for believing in this).
I decided to do something different this time and leave the commercials in as I’m sure some will take interest in who the advertisers were for the first ever shows, or if they had to fill the spot breaks with direct-response ads or PSAs, and thankfully that was not the case.
Anchored by Jeff Skversky and Shaina Humphries with weather from meteorologist Ahmad Bajjey, and sports from Ronnie Duncan. Includes reports from Duncan, Ray Strickland, Gino Vicci, Alysia Burgio, Ibrahim Samra, Cryss Walker, and Luke Laster.
Commercials and station promos have been retained.
Select sports highlights were blacked out due to copyright.
©2023 CBS Broadcasting Inc. and WWJ-TV, no copyright infringement intended. For educational and historical purposes only. We do not profit off of this video.
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