If you didn't get tonight's title, we have the perfect visual aid.
Welcome to the second night, of the third pool for Content Survey Live: U.S.A.
Last night, Chicago blazed it's mark with a 7.8/10 (easily the biggest of the first nights so far). Tonight, we arrive in the only market in this entire experience... that operates on the Mountain timezone... Denver.
As we reach out to the world in 2026 and beyond (a teaser for the future perhaps), we are emphasizing your safety on the internet in the age of AI. And, that is why we believe the best choice for a VPN (where you can lock in US pricing for your trip to secure tickets for what some consider to be a folly: a aquarium... a mile high, or figuring out how much tickets to the Denver Broncos opener in September will cost, or just checking out pricing at Walmart/Target without leaving your house in Australia) is Surfshark VPN. A VPN can make your life a whole lot easier when organizing your next trip to Denver in general, (or Australia, if reading from the US: we'll leave the shrimp out to defrost while you come across the Pacific). Follow our link, and it helps deliver better content for you, and drives the challenge home.
And, now: onto the ground rules.
THE GROUND RULES
Our focus, in Content Survey Live will be monitoring multiple news services over a significant timespan (a benefit of technological change, now allowing us to watch American news bulletins here in Australia), using a slight modification of the same criteria we used in the “Great Local News Study” from Kuttsy's Pitch XI in August, 2019 and in Content Survey Live between 2020 and 2024.
-Locally sourced stories: that is stories reported by local journos. Really big local market stories with national impacts, also fit here. Voiced over local stories are counted separately.
-Live crosses: stuff that is used to embellish a story.
-Weather and traffic reports are not counted.
-Sport stories are counted for one point if it’s a voiced over piece: but… if you have a reporter on the scene reporting on the event, it counts for two points. This sports reporting scoring system is a modified version of the “Ray Robinson Number” from the 2024 special event, and the 2025 edition of Content Survey Live, which was utilized to examine overnight news, and will be counted up at the end of the regular season as a special secondary achievement going to the market who has the highest sports score.
This number, will be named… the David Hill Number: in commemoration of the role Hill played in revolutionizing sports coverage in Australia (as VP for sport for Nine in the mid eighties), the United Kingdom (launching UK cable powerhouse Sky Sports) and in the US (the founding father of Fox Sports, whose innovations reshaped NFL and other sport coverage for the better).
In addition, all scores in 2026 will be reported in a new format: a ranking out of 10: David Hill Number (e.g. 5.8/10 and a David Hill Number of 3) rather than separating these figures out.
THE TALE OF THE TAPE... DENVER.
The Mile High City, is a surprising city to look at, especially for how it ended up with a CBS O&O in the first place. As part of a transaction, that ultimately saw CBS's original station in Philadelphia move to NBC (a wrapup of the Group W transaction for CBS), to make up the value better: it was to be seen as a trade. NBC's O&O in Denver, ended up being traded to CBS (alongside a few other stations and some property on the Dade-Broward line (i.e. the Channel 4 frequency and transmitter so WCIX could become WFOR in Miami) just so CBS could move to the Group W station in Philly.
This CBS station, has also significant cable reach, to the point the brand CBS Colorado was adopted in recent years.
So, it's 10pm MT, and KCNC's late news is about to go on the air... while the ghosts of it's days as "Colorado's News Channel" (a title given to it by NBC, whilst a NBC O&O) is still breathing in the background.
A first, for Content Survey Live (wasn't expecting this genuinely): a surprise spring snowstorm, up in the Mile High City.
The snow coverage was pretty much winded through this bulletin like a giddy schoolchild.
Although, we had stories about issues with branches falling, and a May snow day on Loveland Pass, the bulletin was little on the barren side compared to most markets we've had this year. Highlights included live crosses/story combos concerning a weekend gokart crash in the suburbs (that killed a teenager) and a healing retreat proposal for Evergreen (as well as a solo live cross from outside the station concerning those branches)
AMERICA, YOUR SEASON LAUNCH IS READY.
10(0). Happy Centennial NBC: Come Home to NBC 1986-1987 versions.
It’s fitting that we mark the milestone of NBC’s centenary on the 26th of May, with a look back forty years, to NBC’s sixtieth anniversary, and incidentally: the fortieth birthday of the moment NBC finally shook off the forced marriage between a expensive trapezoid (one that ultimately cost NBC almost $1m in broadcast equipment for a PBS station in Nebraska, when introduced in 1976… only to find the PBS station came up with the same idea far cheaper and got it to air faster than NBC) and a 11-feathered peacock instigated by Fred Silverman in 1978.
The first designs for a peacock-only NBC logo happened in the 1950’s in the light of colour’s birth: the same eleven plumes as that of 1979, but significantly different. But, another project was in the works once the reaction to the “Proud N” was witnessed. A simplified peacock, losing five feathers, was set to be the next change, but was put on hold until the time was right. That time, was five years in, to Brandon Tartikoff’s run at the top of NBC: who did what was once seen as unattainable: becoming #1 in primetime for the 85/86 season (let alone the GE purchase of NBC finishing up)… just weeks before the big reveal.
So, here we are: May 12, 1986: NBC’s 60th anniversary spectacular… with a new peacock shining bright at the end.
A new peacock, meant a new direction for what had become America’s new #1 network: and that was sold with a promo that diverged heavily from the Let’s All Be There formula.
1987… saw a complete separation: and became the point that saw NBC outright be the leader… that everyone had to follow.
A interesting statistic about this promo: both Seven and Nine took pickings from it for inspiration in the late eighties: Seven using slices of the ‘87 campaign for what NBC content it had locked up (Family Ties/ALF/Golden Girls) in it’s early “Celebrate 88” promos, and Nine using some ideas from the ’87 NBC campaign… and reshot them itself for the first Shout! season launch of 1989.
Incidentally, tonight's surveyed station actually aired the NBC 60th anniversary special on that night in 1986.
Friday night, the fate of Atlanta is decided... will they have launched a streaming service on the new CBS O&O... or will it be for us, a look at the former CBS affiliate?
The time is ticking...
See you then.
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