Sinclair Broadcast Group’s NewsON free streaming service said it added Capitol Broadcasting’s new streaming channel WRAL News Plus to NewsON’s channel lineup.

“We're excited to bring WRAL’s award-winning local news content to NewsON's growing platform,” WRAL VP and general manager Joel Davis said. “As the trusted news source for the Raleigh-Durham area, we're always looking for ways to expand our reach and connect with more viewers. This partnership with NewsON helps us expand the reach of our trusted, local news content to viewers in both North Carolina and across the country.”

WRAL news content is also available on the VUit and Local Now streaming news platforms.

“WRAL has been a local TV digital pioneer since the dawn of the web, with a succession of innovations and successes, and we are pleased to see them join our stable of great stations,” NewsON general manager Ron Stitt said. “Now, NewsON’s multiplatform user base will have access to local news content from the Raleigh-Durham market through WRAL News Plus.” 

NewsON offers live and on-demand local newscasts, FAST channels, and news clips from over twenty ownership groups, providing viewers instant access to local news content from 256 local TV stations covering 91% of the US population.   

“As the streaming landscape continues to evolve, we need to help ensure that watching WRAL News is as frictionless as possible,” Capitol Broadcasting VP of transformation Jon Accarrino said. “Making our news product available in more places, like NewsON, helps to increase its accessibility and meets the viewer on the platform of their choice.” ■ 

Syncbak is adding 18 stations to its VUit out of market local news streaming service after reaching agreement with six broadcast groups.

The stations give VUit news and special events from five additional markets: Chicago, Raleigh, North Carolina; Fort Myers, Florida; Norfolk, Virginia; and Salisbury, Maryland.

The stations are owned by Weigel Broadcasting (WCIU, WBND, WDJT and WYTU); Capitol Broadcasting (WRAL, WRAZ and WILM); Lockwood Broadcast Group (WSKY, WCAV, WDFX, WPGX and WTNZ); Marquee Broadcasting (WMDT, WNKY and WSWG); Fort Myers Broadcasting (WINK) and Sunbeam Television (WDHD and WSVN).

VUit lets viewers nationwide stream news from stations in out of town market. They can catch up new from their hometowns, watch high school sporting event or check out the weather where their friends or family live.

VUit now streams content from about 250 stations with coverage in nearly 80% of the top markets.

“These new deals are the latest example underscoring VUit’s position as the leading streaming destination for local news and cultural content that has appeal on a national scale,” Syncbak CEO Jack Perry said. “The value we offer to stations in scaling their streaming audience and digital revenue is unparalleled. As we continue to expand, we remain laser-focused on our bigger mission and vision: helping every station and station group thrive in the streaming landscape.”

VUit has stations from Gray Television (an early investor in the service), Cox Media Group, Hearst Television, Heritage Broadcasting, Morgan Murphy Media, News-Press and Gazette Co. and independent stations WFMZ Philadelphia and KTSF San Francisco. ■

Broadcasting+Cable has been checking in with various broadcasters about their expectations for this year’s NAB Show, scheduled for April 23-27 in Las Vegas. Senior content producer, finance Mike Farrell recently spoke with Joel Davis, VP and general manager of Capitol Broadcasting’s WRAL and WRAZ in Raleigh, North Carolina. An edited transcript follows. 

B+C: What are your plans for attending the show this year? Is this bigger or about the same size as you have done in the past?

Joel Davis: We are taking about six people from the company and the No. 1 thing is to reconnect with business partners and friends we haven’t seen in two years because of COVID restrictions. The reconnection part of this year is huge. We’re a relatively small broadcasting company, so we really thrive on the interaction we get with others in the industry, and it's just been way too long since we’ve been able to do that. This is about the same size [of people] as we’ve sent before. But we’ve got a little backlog on things we hope to accomplish since we haven't been able to be there for a while. 

B+C: Others have pointed to the vibe around the NAB Show, how it’s different than some other shows because of the opportunity to bump into people on the show floor and strike long-term relationships. Do you agree?

JD: I think there is a sense of human connection that we’ve all been missing in this industry, and the collaboration that comes even when you’ve got different people from different companies preparing notes on how things are done. It’s one thing to do a demo over Zoom, it’s another thing to see things in actuality. The rate that the industry is changing. Look at just what’s happened here in the past couple of years — the move with the 24/7 streaming channel. We purchased another broadcast station in town and have turned it into WRAL Sports Plus. We’re looking at the best technology to run that efficiently and own local sports content in a way that hasn’t been possible before. We’re really approaching this as a streaming channel that just happens to be broadcast TV and cable as well. 

We’ve got sports contracts with the local major soccer team, the Durham Bulls baseball team, we’ve broadcast all of those events. But this is the kind of sports channel that can get down to broadcasting the Youth Soccer Game of the Week. We need tools to be able to do that in a really cost-effective way. There’s a lot of stuff that’s new in the market in the past two years that we just haven’t had a chance to get our hands on. So, we’re interested to see some of the tools that are out there that will help with some of the new products we have since the last NAB.

B+C: What are your feelings about the new structure of the show, around the three pillars of Create, Connect and Capitalize? Does that make it easier to do some of the things you’re talking about?

JD: It does. In a practical sense, you kind of know where to go now. One of the things that’s always a little bit daunting with the show is that it’s massive. Having it a little bit compartmentalized into three major categories, helps to frame your mind around what is there and where to go to get it.

B+C: You mentioned streaming. Are there any other technologies that you’re interested in exploring at the show? 

JD: There are a number of things we’re interested in. ATSC is the future for all of us, so, looking at what companies have put together that make it easier for us to implement the advantages of [ATSC 3.0] is important. We are looking at things that help us be more efficient in what we do, like our archives project, where we’re able to look at what we’ve put together over all these years and how we can best maximize its use in the future. We want tech to exist to be able to efficiently identify and access all the great stuff that sits in our building now, but is just collecting dust unfortunately at the moment.   

B+C: A lot of trade shows are geared toward the bigger companies in particular industries, and sometimes smaller firms can get lost in the shuffle. That doesn’t seem to be the case at NAB. Do you agree?

JD: We’re one of the smallest broadcasting companies out there, and where other broadcasting companies have gone wide, we’ve gone deep. We own local news, weather and sports in the community where we live and work. We’ve come out of every NAB with a purchase list just like other companies do. We may purchase different things, we may be looking at different things strategically, but I get as much benefit out of going to NAB with Capitol Broadcasting as I did when I was a general manager with Scripps, perhaps even more so. If I see something that is really cool, I’ll call up the president of our company and have him come take a look at it, and we may have a purchase by the time we leave Las Vegas. ■ 

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) said Xperi Corp.’s Ashruf El-Dinary and Capitol Broadcasting’s Peter Sockett are the recipients of the 2022 Engineering Achievement Awards. They will be presented at the NAB Show in Las Vegas (April 23-27).

NAB president and CEO Curtis LeGeyt will present the awards during a panel titled “Hollywood’s ‘Binge Times' OTT Battle and NAB Engineering Awards” on Sunday, April 24 at 3 p.m. PT.

El-Dinary is senior VP of digital platforms at Xperi, where he currently leads efforts toward “new broadcast applications, upgrades to emergency alerting and deployment of digital radio solutions internationally,” NAB said in a release. 

He has 20 years of experience and previously worked at The John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He also taught courses at JHU's Whiting School of Engineering.

Sockett is the director of engineering and operations at Capitol Broadcasting Co. (CBC) television stations. He is also on the board of the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) and is the chair of the ATSC 3.0 Advanced Emergency Alerting Implementation team. He has earned three Emmy Awards, Broadcasting+Cable's Technology Leadership Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television Digital News Association. Sockett is also coinventor of a patent for geolocation. ■

The growth in Raleigh-Durham is undeniable. The market, which includes Fayetteville, North Carolina, shifted from Nielsen’s No. 27 DMA to No. 24 from 2020 to 2021, with people drawn to the well-established research base, a growing tech sector, favorable temperatures and attributes of cosmopolitan living without some of the downsides. 

One fairly recent arrival is Rob Elmore, WTVD president and general manager. Elmore was the station’s news director for close to 17 years, then was news director at KABC Los Angeles before shifting back to Raleigh-Durham to run WTVD, known as ABC11, last year. 

“What I love is how dynamic, how evolving the area is,” he said. “It’s getting younger, it’s getting more into tech, it’s become a financial hub. It’s one of the fastest-growing markets in the country.”

ABC owns WTVD. Capitol Broadcasting holds NBC-Fox duo WRAL-WRAZ. Nexstar Media Group has CBS station WNCN. Sinclair Broadcast Group owns The CW affiliate WLFL. Univision Communications has WUVC and NBCUniversal acquired Telemundo station WRTD from ZGS in 2018. 

Spectrum is the major pay TV operator, and has Spectrum News 1 North Carolina. 

WRAL and WTVD have had some epic battles in local news. In September, WTVD had a 4.5 household rating at 6 a.m., and a 2.1 in viewers 25-54. The WRAL-WRAZ simulcast did a 4.4 and a 2.1 in those slots. At 5 p.m., WRAL won the close household and viewers 25-54 races, WTVD just behind, and at 6, WRAL won both by more comfortable margins. Late news was a toss-up. WRAL posted a 3.9 in households, ahead of WTVD’s 3.8 and WNCN’s 1.0. In the demo, WTVD scored a 1.5, just ahead of WRAL’s 1.4. WNCN posted a 0.3. 

WRAL-WRAZ simulcasts local news from 4:30 to 7 a.m., and again at noon and 4 p.m. Capitol Broadcasting is the rare independent, locally based station owner. “It’s very helpful,” said Joel Davis, WRAL-WRAZ VP and general manager, who added that the stations are not for sale. “We don’t have to worry about our stock price. We can keep an eye on our goals long-term and we’re much more community focused.”

WTVD has significantly closed the ratings gap in Raleigh-Durham. As part of the ABC-owned group, the station deploys a data journalism team and race and culture reporter to dig deep on stories and provide a unique perspective. “ABC11 has done a terrific job during the pandemic of overserving the audience and better reflecting the audience, and reflecting what people really care about,” Elmore said. 

News director Bervette Carree said lessons learned during the pandemic, in terms of conveying an impactful message in a careful, meaningful way, have carried over to other stories. “The strategy to storytelling in regards to COVID, we use that same strategy to approach other stories and to create high-impact storytelling,” she said, summing up the strategy as “content that has context.”

All weekday ABC11 newscasts now originate from a street-level studio in downtown Raleigh, on Fayetteville Street. Elmore described the area as “where everything happens. It places us in the heart of the market.”

Capitol Broadcasting bought a low-power station in the market, and is converting the religious station to local sports channel WNGT. Capitol also owns the Durham Bulls, and will show those games on the new station. “We are all in on local and the local ownership allows us to do that,” said Davis. 

WNCN has been making its own strides. John Lewis was named general manager in April 2020, coming from Greenville. He said consistency has helped WNCN move ahead, following frequent updates to the brand and logo. “CBS 17 — Local News That Matters resonates extremely well,” he said. “We’re finding that consistency and seeing the growth we have from that, long-term, slow, steady upticks, it’s fun.”

Ed Trauschke runs the news department at WNCN. Lewis believes WNCN offers more local content in its newscasts than some of the competition. “You may not see a national story in our newscast,” he said. “You may see an entire newscast of local stories.”

Univision-owned WUVC airs local news, and Telemundo-owned WRGT does not. WUVC has 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts, and a newsmag in those slots on weekends. WUVC’s Contigo brand (With You) offers guidance on topics such as water safety. WUVC has a content-sharing arrangement with WTVD, and the pair produces a joint segment weekly. 

Hispanic Community Makes Gains

The demand for Spanish-language media is growing. Eddy Elguezabal, president and general manager, Univision Atlanta, Philadelphia and Raleigh, said the market’s Hispanic community saw major gains in the census, climbing from 10% to 13%. “The reality is, this market is growing tremendously,” he said. “There’s an amazing opportunity for our stations and our advertisers.”

All the stations are hustling to get ahead. WRAL-WRAZ has seven people in its meteorology department. WRAL added a 7 p.m. news last year. KGW Portland anchor Dan Haggerty comes on board at WRAL-WRAZ this month. He and GM Davis previously worked together in San Diego. “I found him to be one of the smartest, most curious journalists I’ve worked with,” said Davis. 

Don Schwenneker was named WTVD chief meteorologist in late May, after Chris Hohmann retired. Around the same time, Kweilyn Murphy arrived from WDSU New Orleans to take Schwenneker’s spot in the morning news. Elmore described a “positive impact” amidst the talent moves. 

WTVD delivered 450 meals, and about as many handmade cards from children, to healthcare workers. “That’s our secret sauce — community connection,” said Elmore. 

The market is home to the so-called Research Triangle, comprising Duke, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State. Residents believe Raleigh-Durham will continue to grow thanks to a diverse portfolio of businesses. On the tech side, Apple plans to invest over $1 billion on a new campus and engineering hub. 

“A lot of big companies are making a big bet on the area,” Elmore said, “and we love being in the middle of all that and reflecting that.”

The market’s growth is likely to continue. Marking a year at WTVD next month, News director Carree is from the market. It looks different from how it looked when she was growing up. “I’m just amazed at the growth,” she said. “I never had to use a GPS to get around, but I do need to do that now.”

Capitol Broadcasting said it signed a new deal to get local TV measurement from Comscore after a period in which it got its ratings data from Nielsen alone.

“Comscore has been a reliable partner for us over the past years, but we tried to make a go just using a singular service recently. However, given the rapid shifts in consumer behavior during the pandemic, and the other service declining 47% in its A25-54 set meter homes year over year in our market, we felt Comscore’s huge footprint was critical to our business,” said Joel Davis, VP and general manager of Capitol Broadcasting. “With Comscore, we know 50% of homes in the market are being directly measured, making us confident the information is accurate and that we can move forward and harness the intelligence to gain an advantage in the market.”

(Comscore CEO Bill Livek will be a keynote speaker at the TV Measurement and Data Summit on June 9. Register for free.)

Capitol took a break from Comscore in 2020. Capitol renewed its local TV ratings deal with Nielsen in Nov. 2018. 

Also Read: Nielsen Says COVID-19 Has Disrupted Local Rating Panels

The new agreement with Comscore covers Capitol’s stations WRAL-TV and WRAZ-TV in Raleigh, N.C.

Also Read: Comscore First Quarter Loss Grows to $36.4 Million

“We are excited and proud to welcome back Capitol Broadcasting to our roster of 1,000+ stations that rely on our stable, predictive and representative television currency information to drive their revenue and profit,” said Steve Walsh, executive VP, local markets at Comscore. “With the industry challenging the standard error of small panel-based measurement, it’s never been more important to have stable and reliable solutions.”

Three Capitol Broadcasting stations have gone dark on Dish in a retrans dispute the blame for which each is laying at the other's feet.

In a press release, Dish said that Capitol had ignored its request for an extension and left its customers in the dark.

The stations at issue are NBC affiliate WRAL-TV and Fox affiliate WRAZ-TV, both Raleigh-Durham, and independent WILM-TV Wilmington.

Also Read: Verizon Warns Viewers Hearst Signals Could Come Down

“We don't understand why Capitol Broadcasting has chosen to put our customers in the middle of these negotiations,” said Melisa Boddie, programming VP for Dish. “We offered an extension to keep these stations up for customers while negotiations continued, but Capitol never responded. Instead, they ignored our offer and forced a blackout of three North Carolina TV stations.”

She said Dish remains open to working on a fair, long-term deal.

Capitol saw it quite differently, as WRAL pointed out on its website.

"WRAL and FOX 50 [WRAZ] have fallen victim to the same fate as hundreds of other local TV stations across the country, removed by Dish after they refuse to reach a fair agreement to carry our stations," it said in an "important message" on its website (https://www.wral.com/wral-DISH-FOX50-keep-my-local-stations/16921951/.

"Welcome to the modern-day David vs. Goliath," Capitol said. "We are one of the few small, locally owned broadcasters left in the country. As the broadcasting business changes, we're fighting for our livelihood and our ability to bring you the exceptional news and programming you expect."

Capitol concedes the issue is the price for its signals. "We are choosing to not be bullied into essentially giving away our programming to a company that resells it so they can make millions," it said. "We do not think it is right."

As to Capitol never responding to a Dish offer, the company said Wednesday (Dec. 30) that was not the case, adding this to the WGAL web site story on the issue: "That is simply not true. A negotiation requires both parties to participate fully, and, at this point, Capitol has not yet received a return proposal from DISH to our last proposal that was submitted before this dispute began."

Three North Carolina TV stations that went dark to Dish Network subscribers on Dec. 22 returned to customers Tuesday after the parties apparently reached a new retransmission consent agreement.

Capitol Broadcasting’ s WRAL (CBS) and WRAZ (Fox) in Raleigh, N.C. and WILM (CBS) in Wilmington, N.C., went dark to Dish subscribers on Dec. 22, primarily over affiliate fees. 

According to reports, the stations returned to Dish customers at 9 p.m. on Jan. 6.

In a brief statement on its website on Jan. 7, the stations said they had reached a “mutually acceptable agreement” with Dish.