The so-called “number one station in New York,” which WABC-TV calls themselves, has discovered something so amazing, that you probably didn’t know about. It’s a thing called “the internet.”
On their Five O’Clock newscast, there was a report about their “new” website. Of course, WNBC, WCBS, and WNYW changed their website within the past two years and they never had a report about their website, some of the reporters did mention about it on the days of the change. And this was not a typical one minute and half report, the report lasted for nearly 4 minutes. This report was worst than the report WNBC did with their “Navigation 4″ navigation system, which is powered by MapTuit, on the station’s website. In the report WNBC sent out Lynda Baquero driving the streets of using the system. Of course, months later, most of the New York stations also use the MapTuit system on their website.
WABC-TV’s Jeff Rossen, who anchors the morning news for the station, was the reporter for the report. In the beginning of the report, which was done live, Rossen was running around the newsroom, as well as the cameraman, telling viewers of how everyone in the newsroom can submit an article or news report on the new version of the station’s website. “Here is where all of the stories from the area and the country… and here is where our website team is. There is the weather center, … then the meteorologists runs over here to ” The way how he was reported the live report, it sounded like the station felt well accomplished over something that should have been done over 13 years ago.
It then gets worse, the report tape rolls. For nearly two minutes, the tape close-ups of the site’s homepage with dramatic background music. “We’ve heard your Feedback, and now you’ve got it.” Since WABC finally got most of the local news coverage in widescreen/HD since December 2006, the videos are finally in widescreen.
And to clarify to everyone, the new site design was ABC O&O wide. This means that every ABC O&O station got the same look and feel, just a different look of the logo. For example, you can see KABC’s site here and WABC’s site here.
Why WABC-TV didn’t make a promo like the 1998 promo version of WNBC’s Doppler 4000, which lasted for 3 minutes out of this report instead of considering it as “news.” The report is close enough of making it a promo out of it.
As you can tell, I have a website, WRAJ Internet Radio, and when our current look changed back in November 2003, I didn’t make a big deal, about our site but we didn’t know that the site would of become a popular internet radio station website. We did play promos about the new site, but we didn’t make it sound dynamic like WABC-TV did.
I felt like WABC-TV was some station out in the middle of Kansas who discovered the internet.
And finally, if I had to ask WABC-TV question, myh question will be “Are you going to be changing the terrible graphics within the next decade?”
