It will take some time to tell if the new 9 p.m. newscast produced by WGRZ-TV and the new 10 p.m. newscast produced by WUTV will become viewing habits.
But first impressions are important. And here are mine from Thursday’s premieres.
WGRZ’s new 9 p.m. newscast, which premiered on the main channel Thursday and now will only be available on its digital channel 2.2, where Antenna TV is carried, and on various streaming and online options, had a strong opener that will be tough to top.
The newscast started with a rundown of the important stories that it planned to cover in much bigger letters than usual.
The newscast led with several quick local stories.
However, the highlights of the newscast were reporter Claudine Ewing’s interview with India Walton, the winner of the Democratic primary for mayor, and reporter Steve Brown’s interview with Mayor Byron Brown, who lost the primary and plans a write-in campaign in the November election.
People are also reading…
Ewing’s interview started tough, with her asking Walton, “Why are you qualified to be mayor of Buffalo?” and included questions about recent disclosures about Walton’s past.
If any of Walton’s supporters thought the interview was too tough, they should realize it also was an opportunity for her to deflect the criticisms. She was impressive doing just that and even raised some things before she was asked about them.
Steve Brown’s interview with Brown also included some tough questions, including whether the mayor was afraid the campaign “will be divisive” and whether his repeated use of the word “fear” in his announcement of the write-in campaign was an attempt to make people “afraid” of Walton.
The reporter allowed the mayor to make the claim that Walton planned to defund the police after Ewing said Walton preferred to say she plans to “reallocate” funds.
With a 9 p.m. start, the WGRZ newscast didn’t include any sports coverage, which is understandable since games are usually in progress at that time.
That left room for a humorous closing story in which “Most Buffalo” host Kate Welshofer interviewed a man from Mexico driving 2,000 miles to Buffalo to participate in the upcoming chicken wing festival. The piece ended with Welshofer putting on a chicken wing hat to the delight of the man. It is smart of WGRZ to get Welshofer involved in as many newscasts as it can.
The premiere of the new 10 p.m. newscast on WUTV, a Sinclair station, was slick. It did a good job disguising the fact that Michael Benny is anchoring from the Sinclair station in Syracuse, Scott Hetsko is doing the weather from the Sinclair station in Rochester and Mike Catalana and Dan Fetes are doing brief sports reports from the Rochester station, too.
Benny is a strong anchor with a commanding voice and a dramatic tone. Some might say too dramatic. Hetsko is a little too animated for my taste. I wish he would calm down. The sports reports from Catalana and Fetes were just a conversation between the two of them about the Buffalo Sabres after Don Granato was officially named coach and the Buffalo Bills apparent plans to build a new stadium in Orchard Park.
WUTV was big on tossing around the word “exclusive,” including claiming it was the first to report on the stadium plans – which was odd since it was its first newscast – and the first to get Sen. Chuck Schumer to proclaim the Bills could get funds to build it.
The newscast oddly started with a national story about the condominium tragedy in Florida on a night that anything about Buffalo would have been preferable.
The two WUTV reporters based in Buffalo, Olivia Dance and Kevin Jolly, provided the main stories relevant to Western New Yorkers on opening night.
Dance interviewed Walton. The interview was softer than Ewing’s interview and Walton used it to her advantage. She called herself a “warm, caring, kind, compassionate person” and predicted “I think love will win” in November. She vowed “to stay on the high road.”
WUTV’s newscast then turned to fear, with Jolly reporting on gun violence in Buffalo, with the reporter ending his story by saying a resident told him “if he talks to me on camera or police today, he could be dead tomorrow.”
It wasn’t the only fear story, with later ones on the fentanyl crisis at the southern border and how bail reform may have led to more crime.
Benny asked if Buffalo could learn something from Rochester’s experience with bail reform. Since a retired police chief said it led to more crime and a criminal justice reform worker said it didn’t, I think the answer is no.
Then came a story that was sure to raise the fears of those worried that Sinclair’s newscast will be political.
The newscast spent a few minutes on former President Trump, who was in the news because the Trump Organization and Allen H. Weisselberg, the chief financial executive, were indicted by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
The indictments were more newsworthy than being told the former president had decided whether to run again in 2024 without revealing his decision as the graphic “Mr. Trump’s Comeback Begins” appeared because he has been doing rallies and visited the southern border.
WUTV had time for a long piece by Greg Floyd, billed as a Buffalo-Albany correspondent, that explained why the State Thruway isn’t toll-free despite the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s pronouncement in 1982 that it eventually would be free. After the piece was over, I was thankful I got paid to watch it. I wanted my time back.
WUTV is facing a tough challenge competing against WIVB-TV’s highly-rated 10 p.m. newscast carried on sister station WNLO-TV.
The WNLO 10 p.m. newscast Thursday anchored by Don Postles was focused on local stories in the first half and featured more weather hits than WUTV's newscast. The half hour starting at 10:30 p.m. was devoted to national news, with it ending with a light feature interview that almost lasted five minutes with Dax Shepard and Monica Padham about their popular "Armchair Expert" podcast moving to Spotify. The newscast ended at 10:56 p.m., giving the station four more minutes to sell commercials or carry promos.
That lengthy filler piece and the early end time illustrated why there really isn’t a need for one hourlong newscast. And Western New York now has two.
After looking at WUTV’s opening night, I don’t think WNLO has much to fear, especially if WUTV keeps carrying fear stories.
