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Best Triad TV News

DigitalSky

By DigitalSky
in The NC Triad

What is your favorite Triad news channel?  

48 members have voted

  1. 1. What is your favorite Triad news channel?

    • 2 - WFMY - CBS (Cable 9)
      11
    • 8 - WGHP - FOX (Cable 10)
      23
    • 12 - WXII - NBC (Cable 11)
      13
    • 45/48 - WXLV/WUPN - ABC/UPN (7/14)
      1

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  • 2 weeks later...

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cityboi Metropolitan Area

cityboi

Posted
Posted

Here is how I would rank it.

1) WGHP - FOX 8 (High Point)

2) WFMY - CBS News 2 (Greensboro)

3) WXII - NBS News Channel 12 (Winston-Salem)

4) WXLV/WUPN - ABC/UPN 45/48 (Winston-Salem)

I like the personalities at FOX 8. Its like you know them. FOX 8 also covers balanced news of all the Triad cities and not just High Point.

WFMY New 2 offers the 2nd best news coverage but they lost those personalities that you knew like Randy Jackson, Lee Kinard and the sports news anchor Mike Hogwood who has moved on to bigger things. The one problem I have with WFMY is that they change personalities too often. Just when you get confortable with them, they are gone. They get bad press from it because either tv anchors or reporters leave without notice or they are let go without an explaination. Reporters and anchors would leave 2 and 3 at a time. It gives people the impression that the station has internal problems and the people working there dont like whats going on. The only veteran anchor that left is Sandra Hughes who was the first African-American news report and anchor in Greensboro. Some say she is the one thats running the show around there. But they are doing a good job covering up any major internal problems they are having.

WXII News Channel 12 however has personalities that have been there for years. However the problem with WXII is that the news has a big focus on Winston-Salem and doesnt really appeal to the Greensboro and High Point viewing audience as much.

WXLV/WUPN has the local/national format which does not appeal to most Triad viewrs. The newcast which as at 10 on UPN and 11 on ABC has a local anchor covering local news for a small part of the newscast but the National News is covered by an anchor in the Baltimore area. The Majority of the newscast is national news. The weather girl is not even in the Winston-Salem studio but instead she covers Triad weather from the baltimore area. This newscast is really lacking on local news coverage and only shows a few key stories. You also wont hear local news coverage of robberies and things of that nature. They are more like news stories about some local woman with a new exercise program. The video qaulity is also poor. By the way, many of the personailties that left WFMY News 2 including big names like Randy Jackson (not the guy on American Idol) came to WXLV/WUPN so the fire must really be hot over at WFMY for them to leave a good thing.

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cityboi Metropolitan Area

cityboi

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I didnt know Channel 12 comes in that far monsoon. It must be a pretty strong signal. I knw my father told me years ago he could pick up Richmond's station when he was living in Rockingham County which is north of Guilford and I know there is one radio station in Greensboro that can be picked up in the Hampton Roads area in Virginia.

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Matthew Whistle-Stop

Matthew

Posted
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When I visit Winston-Salem, I usually watch channel 8 in the hotel room at night. They have a downtown "Winston-Salem Journal" newsroom at Fox 8 and do an excellent job covering what happens in Winston-Salem.

12 and 2 are tied in my opinion for second. They are boring to watch. Channel 12 does a better job covering Greensboro than Channel 2 does of covering Winston-Salem, from what I've seen. Channel 2 focuses too much on Greensboro news. I don't watch 45 or 48 and have no idea what their news is like. Channels 12 and 16 share a studio near the LJVM in Winston-Salem and are the same thing. The Nielson also agrees with me. Fox 8 dominates and 12 and 2 switch back and forth for second place. 12 usually wins 11pm and 2 wins one of the early evening spots. 8 wins everything else.

Channels 12, 26, 45 and radio stations 91.7 (translator), 98.1, 103.1 (translator), 104.1 and 104.9 (translator) are all located on mountain tops over-looking Winston-Salem. 105.7 WFMX has an application to build a new tower on a mountain overlooking Winston-Salem also. The mountains you see in some skyline photos of Winston-Salem help elevate the antennas to clear more land and reach greater distances.

Some Winston-Salem skyline photos and photos of Winston-Salem State University with these mountains in the background. I've seen and photographed them as far south as exit 97 (Welcome, NC) on US Highway 52 in Davidson County. Winston-Salem is the largest city in the state where you can take skyline photos with mountains in the background.

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/322...lotmountain.jpg

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/322...eastwinston.jpg

106.9 WMIT has by far the best signal of any broadcast outlet in the state.

Back years ago, the Winston-Salem Journal owned 106.9 The Light. It was the first FM radio station in the Southeast and was called 44.1 W41MM-FM and changed to 97.3 WMIT in 1948, when the modern FM band was adopted. It was licensed to Winston-Salem and was an expiriment by Gordon Gray and General Electric at building a station that would reach all of the Southeast, from Nashville to Richmond, Atlanta to Roanoke. They built the tower on Clingman's Peak next to Mount Mitchell and broadcast with 350,000 watts using multiple generators at the base of the 6,511 foot mountain. The only way to send the programing from the studio in Winston-Salem to the Mount Mitchell area, was by placing a broadcast STL atop the Reynolds American Tower, which was the tallest building in the Carolinas back then. The studios were also located in the old Winston-Salem skyscraper. In the 1950's Gordon Gray sold the station to a Charlotte group and the signal strength was lowered. They moved broadcasts to a replacement station atop the Saurtown Mountains over-looking Winston-Salem called 104.1 WSJS. WMIT was too expensive and required too much technical work to keep the multi-state radio station going. Storms and technical problems that took a long time to fix angered Winston-Salem residents who wanted a signal closer to home for local news during World War II, and by the late 1940's and early 50's people in the other cities along the 70,000 square mile listening area were starting to get new local FM signals of their own around that time and stopped listening to the Winston-Salem news and NBC radio broadcasts to enjoy local news and programing in their own cities. In 1958 Billy Graham bought it and relicensed it from Winston-Salem to Black Mountain as a religious station. He changed the frequency to 106.9 and he still owns it. 97.3 was still alloted to Winston-Salem and still had a huge grandfathered coverage area, but was moved and dropped to sign on 97.3 WKBC in North Wilkesboro.

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ezcheese Hamlet

ezcheese

Posted
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I didnt know Channel 12 comes in that far monsoon. It must be a pretty strong signal. I knw my father told me years ago he could pick up Richmond's station when he was living in Rockingham County which is north of Guilford and I know there is one radio station in Greensboro that can be picked up in the Hampton Roads area in Virginia.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I pick up rock92 pretty well here in Charlotte. Too bad Grensboro can't trade it for the ride. I was so pleased to discover 95.7 when I moved here. :D

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  • 8 months later...
Roadgeek Hamlet

Roadgeek

Posted
Posted

It's hard for me to say what my favorite is. I rarely watch wxii, but usually watch wfmy or wghp. WFMY has lost a lot of it's luster it used to have 10 years ago. They had a special in 1999 on their 50th birthday. Unfortunately I didn't record it, but I did record Lee Kinard's going away special. I'd say my favorite would be wfmy. It has a lot of history.

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jb4563 Whistle-Stop

jb4563

Posted
Posted

WFMY has really gone down hill from their quality. It seems to all trace back to when they changed the "2" to its current form. :)

*Lee Kinard left shortly before that. I've heard a lot of criticism about what type of news anchor he was, but he was great on the Good Morning Show.

*The Good Morning Show went really downhill after Lee Kinard and Tracy left. It used to be a quality, unique morning show. They ditched the living room set. Its more like any other morning show now.

*Mike Hogewood, Randy Jackson, Leonard Simpson and people that had been there for years left.

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Roadgeek Hamlet

Roadgeek

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I have a channel 2 question. I noticed that right after Lee Kinard left, they changed formats and their emblem from a weird 2 to a normal 2. Do you think that the wfmy people took advantage of Lee's leaving to mold the station into what they wanted? I'm probably wrong.

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StevenRocks City

StevenRocks

Posted
Posted

I have a channel 2 question. I noticed that right after Lee Kinard left, they changed formats and their emblem from a weird 2 to a normal 2. Do you think that the wfmy people took advantage of Lee's leaving to mold the station into what they wanted? I'm probably wrong.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It wa the end of an era. A good time to start fresh. Just wish what they went with was just a little fresher.

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Jerseyman4 Burg

Jerseyman4

Posted
Posted

Some WFMY personal memory id like to contribute

Around 1995, they[TWC-Southern Pines] dropped WFMY on the local channel lineup for a worthless local access channel (ch 3) and to make room for WRAZ WB 50 (now Fox 50). I had no problem of getting a WB station but to drop WFMY for the local access channel (as reported from the Pilot newspaper) is ridiculous! Many people in town got angry and upset WFMY was not on the lineup anymore. Whats strange about TWC-SP is that WECT is still on the lineup and from what i know, people only care about watching that channel for beach weather.

After TWC dropped WFMY, all i had to do to get it on my tv was to get a tiny piece of tinfoil and i could get WFMY clearer than any Raleigh station. This would also hold true for WGHP as well. Though, this is not in the Triad Market, WBTW too!

Lee Kinard, Sandra Hughes, Mike Hodgewood and Randy Jackson to me were the best news lineup, probably ever. I miss the original 1990s Good Morning Show, the music tones and the info scroll that was continious at the bottom.

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  • 2 months later...
jasoniman24 Whistle-Stop

jasoniman24

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Posted

WFMY has really gone down hill from their quality. It seems to all trace back to when they changed the "2" to its current form. :)

*Lee Kinard left shortly before that. I've heard a lot of criticism about what type of news anchor he was, but he was great on the Good Morning Show.

*The Good Morning Show went really downhill after Lee Kinard and Tracy left. It used to be a quality, unique morning show. They ditched the living room set. Its more like any other morning show now.

*Mike Hogewood, Randy Jackson, Leonard Simpson and people that had been there for years left.

I agree, WFMY is nothing like it was even 5 years ago. The Good Morning Show was much better too. Rosemary Plybon is OK, but Jay Rickerts seems corny, and laughs at things that aren't funny, and whines if the temperature drops below 70 degrees. Sandra Hughes, and Ed Matthews are the only personalities that have been there a long time, it seems like they have a high turnover. I will give WFMY the benefit of a doubt though, they do have good investigative reporting, and the Restaurant Report Card. But as far as my favorite TV news, I think WGHP is the best. It seems like Fox 8 is closer to the community, and seems to have the best personalities, and better coverage of the entire Triad. It also seems to do a good job of promoting what each Triad city has to offer. Speaking of Randy Jackson, you can still listen to Randy Jackson's local forcast on 101.1 WZTK, so it's like he never really left.

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