The LuLac Edition #774, Apr. 3rd, 2009
PHOTO INDEX: WYOU TV INTERACTIVE LOGO, WDAU TV COLOR SLIDE, AND PROMOTIONAL PIECE OF THE OLD WDAU TV NEWS. (SOURCE: WDAU TRIBUTE WEBSITE).
WYOU GONE!!
There were rumors on the street that there might be a TV simulcast between WBRE TV and WYOU. But no one was expecting Nexstar Broadcasting to eliminate an entire news operation. But they did Friday afternoon, the classic time frame money saving corporations and bean counters use to lower the boom on people. It was announced that WYOU News, Interactive or not, would cease to exist. Gone. Kaput! Pull the plug. Finished.
For those of us who can remember, WYOU's grandfather if you will, was WDAU TV. A CBS affiliate, 'DAU was the long time ratings leader in the area. WDAU TV News was the rock the other TV stations built their news operations around. So when you shut down WYOU TV, you are not just laying off an entire news team, you are ignoring the historical significance of TV news in this region. For nearly 58 years, the local CBS outlet, Channel 22 has provided news to generations of viewers. After 11PM tonight, that will cease to exist.
As I mentioned this afternoon on the Corbett show on WILK, our local media is shrinking. Right before our eyes. Newspapers of old that used to be called broadsheets are now reduced to the size of those weekly readers you used to get in grade school. News is no longer something that is informational, now, in this short attention span, American Idol society we live in, news needs to be entertaining. We are rapidly becoming an uninformed public. And we can't blame the loyal viewers and readers in this area who thirst for news, we blame the times. News and information has become expendable. On the scale of importance, it is pretty much in the lower top 40. The lack of information and the elimination of a broadcast news outlet diminishes our community. It is an insideous attack on our freedom. Our right to know.
To the staff of WYOU TV, many of whom I had the pleasure to work with, I say thank you for your professionalism and your dedication to the community broadcasters are supposed to serve. Your commitment far outweighed the one you got from your bosses.
In the coming days, much will be written about this move by the powers that be over at 62 South Franklin in Wilkes Barre. Many adjectives will be used to articulate this set of circumstances. Right now, I can only conjure up one to describe this news on this day: UNTHINKABLE.
posted by David Yonki @ 4:46 PM
26 comments
26 Comments:
Unthinkable is too nice a word. Damn shame comes to mind.(even that is too kind)
I worked in news at WDAU and then at WYOU. When I started all three affiliates were locally, family owned. When they sold out, that was the tipping point. Though it happened slowly. At least for WNEP the NYT was a news organization, and 22 had some investors at first, then a broadcasting company, Diversified Communications, who invested heavily in the station, its image and community. DC selling was the last nail in the coffin. After that it was up to the bean counters. All that mattered was the bottom line. Especially the charade with Nexstar who gutted the operation. Nothing can live without a heart. (remember DC's The Heart of Pennsylvania campaign?)When the stations were family owned, there was a sense of pride, a sense of community, but alas that is no more.
I look back fondly at my time at 415 Lackawanna Avenue, knowing its a piece of history that is now gone forever.
I can almost see the tear in Tom Powell's eye.
Following the WYOU announcement, what local newspaper will be the nxt to go? Any predictions? And I dont mean the Dallas paper or any of the small ones.
Dave: read your site every day. It occurs to me that you are doing more tributes to institutions we thought would always be with us. Churches, people of our youth, and now TV 22,WYOU TV. Think of the hundreds of professionals who went through those doors. And you were so good with that team during tyhe last elerction cycle. Seems to be you're becoming more of an undertaker than a blogger. So sad.
K GIRL
That is bizarre!
Yonk, I heard you on Corbett and you are 1000% correct. The news business, the media is shrinking here. The only thing that matters is the buck. I read in the Times that one of the management morons said when you opened a window, you could hear people changing the channel. This is an insult to the entire WYOU team! They were attractive, smart and knew what they were doing. Run Judge Joe Brown and all the other garbage......I hope your stock tanks and you get run out of town because you are true pieces of corporate crap.
Yonk!!! Remember when we were at Rock 107 in the 90s and the then GM Jim Loftus coined the term "out of town jaspers"? These guys had no idea what made this local community click. And the saddest part about all of this is that these idiots had no idea that it takes YEARS to build an audience and a format. 107 is an institution because the management, either through brilliant strategy or just plain dumb ass Irish luck, left it alone and gave it the opportunity to grow. I am convinced that was what was going on with WYOU TV. But the "out of town jaspers" got impateient. Screw them and my best goes out to the laid off staff and talented people.
I wonder how these media companies heads salararies are cut down? Most likely NONE. A CBS station with no news? Where have you gone Edward R. Murrow???
As a culture, we value beauty and ignorance. Being smart is often more of a handicap than you would think. We have dumbed everything down to the point that I can't imagine how we can continue to compete in the world economy. What's happened to WYOU is just an extension of this American Idolization. What we have lost is an opportunity to inform ourselves of what's happening in our own communities. As broadcast corporations suck up and gut local stations, and as the same thing happens in the world of newspapers, look for more hideous corruption in all levels of government. The judges' fiasco will look mild compared to what will happen when elected officials figure out that, not only are the voters not paying attention, there's no local media left paying attention either.
The ironic thing is that the Interactive news format was taking off. I heard more comments about it every day from people I work with and from friends. People were taking notice. I think the company shot itself in the foot. And the community will suffer.
Dont you think there are enough problems in the world to be dealt with by church leaders without a
Bishop who goes looking for trouble? Anything on comforting the sick, the poor or any of the people Jesus might be working with? Oh thats right, the poor dont endow colleges or contribute to the church. Power, Money and Greed are the basic tenents of this Bishops faith. As proven many times, you dont have to be a good man to be a religious leader.
11:14AM.......I agree with you. If you talk to anyone who thinks they know current events, they just spout what the big media giants give them. Ever notice why guys like Kevin Lynn and Steve Corbett and yes sometimes you too Yonk get attacked? The attack is never about their arguement or substance bot about a personal thing. We get our news from the bullies on the playground (Rush, Hannitty, et al) and bounce away anything or any endeavor that challenges us to THINK! Go watch your American Idol as the storm troopers against free thought dumb you down even more than you are now.
Yesterday a caller on Corbett said that the reason why WYOU failed was because of some of the topics. He pointed out in particular the lemon law and how that was a yawner. HELLO!!!! News is supposed to be public service. Not entertainment. That lemon law show might not have been great theatre but it provided an education for car buyers who got screwed and had no where else to get the information.
Think of the names of the people who went through those doors, David DeCosmo, Tom Powell, Hoyt Kaiser, Debbie Dunleavy, John Perry, Bob Dennis, Barbara Monaco, and I can go on and on. Eric Sheiner as well as Lyndall Stout proudly carried on thyat tradition too. This stinks. I loved Ronald Reagan but he scrweed us all when he gutted the FCC to rid broascast entities from have community service responsibilities.
Hoyt Kaiser. Now there was a broadcaster with a set of "pipes".
Seems everything Hoyt was the voice of is gone, the Globe Store, Sugarmans and WGBI. Last I heard Hoyt was working for P&G in Wyoming
County. Unless they have a radio station, thats not the place for a guy with that much talent.
Old Time Radio Guy
Yonki!!!!!
The only reason why you are lamenting the loss of WYOU Interactive is because they gave you a platform for your socialist, left leaning, anti religious and anti Jesus views. Plus I bet it was a painful reminder to all of your skanky old girlfriends who thought you were long gone!
9:29
Socialist, left leaning, anti religious maybe, but I never heard a bad word about Jesus from Dave Yonki. And to call old girlfriends
"skanky" is cause for being called out on many levels! You dont have to be right to be righteous!
IN RESPONSE
The only reason why you are lamenting the loss of WYOU Interactive is because they gave you a platform for your socialist, left leaning, anti religious and anti Jesus views. Plus I bet it was a painful reminder to all of your skanky old girlfriends who thought you were long gone!
THANK YOU FOR READING AND YOUR RESPONSE. ON J.C., I'M KIND OF LIKE THE VOODOO WORSHIPER IN THE MOVIE "MAJOR LEAGUE", I'M GOOD WITH JESUS, ESPECIALLY THIS TIME OF THE YEAR. I WAS GRATEFUL TO WYOU FOR LETTING ME SHARE MY VIEWS AND PROMOTE THIS SITE. ON MY POLITICAL BELIEFS, YOU LEFT OUT SOCIAL JUSTICE REACTIONARY. AND ALL THE GIRLFRIENDS I'VE HAD IN MY LIFE WHO READ THIS WILL DEFINATELY TAKE ISSUE WITH THE TERM "OLD".
Well David I must tell you I will miss the WYOU news as well as your apearances on them. You appeared to be having fun and in this area if you can't have fun with our politics, then you're brain dead. I will miss the commitment of the staffers and as you said, the true heritage of this channel. It is indeed a sad story but one that is so 21rst century. We'll wring our hands over American Idol but accept with great calmness the total elimination of the middle class. And as for the person who used the term skanky, well "skanky is as skanKy does". Have to see that smiling face of yours in church, you anti Jesus, anti religion freak you!!!!
YOUR KOMOTION DATE FROM DURYEA
P.S. Hey 1028pm, you can only dream how skanky I can get!!!!!!
It is a real shame about this station. Why is it that other areas are thriving, surviving even in this economy and we are not.
What other areas are thriving? It seems to me the economic problems are widespread and three newscasts were one too many for this area.
Interactive TV has probably the same call in base as Talk Radio and it is limited to less than 5% of the population at best. Anybody ever hear of survival of the fittest? Nobody seems to miss the Oldsmobile (I usta buy em) and sadly nobody will miss WYOU News.
Remember CBS aint what it once was either and even they dont remember Ed Murrow!
If the editor of this blog hadn't been a guest, I may never have watched the Interactive News. But once I saw it, I was hooked. It was a lot like talk radio, except with regular guests who had special knowledge of or interest in the topic of the day. It was intelligent and thoughtful. No wonder it failed to live up to its corporate bottom line.
Maybe the O Bomster can nationalize WYOU and insist they provide news as part of the bailout.
Just a thought.
Now Kevin Lynn is running the interactive format and those involved into the ground. Great guy Kevin Lynn is.
Caught the 6 o'clock morning news on WILK and Kevin Lynn was kind of trashing the whole interactive concept. Really classless kind of guy, he remains a freind of the Shiv and continues to defend him, then say he isn't, but will trash hard working folks who were treally trying to keep WYOU alive.
Is Katie Couric worth 15 million a year?
Just a quick note of thanks to all of those who have called and emailed me when word got out that WYOU News was 'going dark."
I had a good long run there and tried always to stick with the standards I learned in the old days.
I'm just fine but feel very bad for my co-workers involved.
I'm already planning a show I'm hoping to have used on Electric City TV and expect to be called in for some occassional special public service work at the old shop as well.
Otherwise it's time for me to take things a little easier.
Thanks to all who have watched,been available for interviews or comments,or just generally stuck with me over these many,many,years.
Maybe now I'l have some time to read more of these bloggs and comment pages.
Hope all your news is good!
Respectfully,
David DeCosmo
They should've replaced wyou-tv's 11:00 pm news with late-evening news-headlines national & world-headlines state-headlines local-headlines sports and the weather 7 nights a week from 11:00 pm to 11:35 pm on wyou-tv 22 cbs scranton wilkes-barre hazleton williamsport pa circa 2009-2012.
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