WSEE / WICU merger: losing diversity on the local airwaves?
Erie-Meadville: Over the past few weeks, rumors have turned into reality as WSEE carried its final newscast at 1220 Peach Street on Thursday night. A move by WSEE to the WICU building on State street meant job losses for all behind the scenes people as well as some on air talent including Raychel Vendetti, Charles Santini and Jennifer Mobilia. With the merger, this will mean that Erie will no longer have three news gathering organizations since WSEE and WICU will share news resources as a way to save money. In addition, WSEE will carry a 7pm newscast instead of a 6pm newscast in the near future as well as re air a 10pm newscast at 11pm that will be carried live on CW affiliate WBEP. The concept of at 10pm newscast to rival "Fox 66 News at Ten" is a good one for Erie. However, do you think many people will watch an hour old newscast on WSEE at 11pm when they can watch WICU or WJET live at 11. Can 7pm news work against "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy"? Both very successful game shows which now air on WSEE will move to WICU from 7-8pm. Sadly, the flavor of local news on TV is being watered down by economics.Readers’ Forum
I’m pretty sure that the 10pm newscast will be 35 minutes to directly compete with fox 66 and easily fit it into the 11-11:35pm slot before david letterman on cbs
jamie - May 31, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Well, the only times that a tape delayed newscast would be an issue is in the event of a breaking news story or if some severe weather is hitting right at that point. I wonder how thoise issues will be addressed?
JimGriffey - June 01, 2009 at 08:41 am
They could run a crawl on WSEE to tune into WICU for a breaking news event since this newscast on WSEE is an hour old. That or just cut into WSEE with a live WICU update. What I saw tonight at 6 on both was a total trainwreck.
Tom Lavery (URL) - June 01, 2009 at 8:35 pm
WSEE Newswatch at Noon wasn’t much better. Bremner had only 1 camera shot the entire time and Ray Petelin’s weather cast looked taped. There’s not a Noon news on WICU 12, so I don’t know why it looked so bad.
Brian - June 02, 2009 at 12:36 pm
I’ve seen College TV Stations put on a more professional looking product.
Sad…just plain Sad :(
Tim - June 02, 2009 at 5:22 pm
A little birdie told me that Ray Petelin has to come in REALLY early to tape the morning news for WSEE. Ray doesn’t stay around for the noon newscast – thus the taped, DATED weather report.
This is no way to run a Television station!!
Tim - June 02, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Yeah you really need to do weather live because weather sometimes does change in 8 hours. When this idea was going to occur in Youngstown between WKBN and WYTV, I thought it would be a mess. By far, they pulled it off alot better than WICU and WSEE. One thing, now you can see Jeopardy at 5:30 on WICU and impress your friends with your “knowledge” when it airs AT 7:30 on WSEE.
Tom Lavery (URL) - June 02, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I’d have to agree with you Tom on WKBN/WYTV. I don’t get Erie stations in New Castle, but I can take your word for it on the mess. Meanwhile, both WYTV and WKBN/WYFX have largely kept their identities separate but have done a very good job merging their resources together. To be honest, it has benefited both: WKBN-TV has largely been an also-ran since the death of Tom Holden (if not his retirement just weeks before his death) and WYTV has long been a distant third behind WFMJ-TV and WKBN. I see even more intergration soon. I just wonder how the two stations still air live newscasts simultaneously out of different sets in the same studios. I’ve driven by WKBN studios where both are housed at now. It is VERY small, at least compared with larger market stations like KDKA-TV & WPXI.
I think the big difference is that at least NVT did the merging of the operations of WKBN/WYFX & WYTV once the LMA went into effect, and not waited seven years like Lilly did with WSEE & WICU. If WSEE & WICU merged their operations from the get-go like they did in Youngstown, the look might’ve been more professional. Probably makes me a little relieved that I don’t have to see this.
Joe Gerad (URL) - June 03, 2009 at 09:12 am
I agree with everthing everyone is saying! wsee just sucks and will only be getting worse lost me as a viewer definately wont watch 12 never did to lame for me Raychel and Ray were mornings live!!!!! still cant believe they ley raychel go and put stephanie schelkun on in am show bad bad bad!!!!!
gail fries - June 03, 2009 at 1:22 pm
I have to agree with Gail . . .
Stephanie Shelkun is just “Bad Bad Bad!!!!!”
Morning’s Live just isn’t fun to watch anymore.
Troy - June 11, 2009 at 06:36 am
I’ve only lived in Erie for 2 years, but I’ve seen old clips of WSEE on YouTube. After seeing those, it’s a shame what it has become. CBS and NBC, respectively, need to come into Erie and buy WSEE and WICU, turning them into O&O stations. Erie may be a small market, but it can be done. I once lived in a market where every station is an O&O (New York City), from what I’ve seen, O&O newscasts are top quality, and always in HD.
John - September 06, 2009 at 4:15 pm
I think that the WKBN and WYTV are doing a good job. However, I don’t get why they have Stan Boney working as both the meterologist and news anchor? Is NVT a bunch of cheapskates?
Gianncarlo - March 29, 2010 at 10:13 am