Content Survey Live: U.S.A: Pool 1: Night 2: Three Rivers... One Dream.

 Three rivers, one shot at Content Survey Live glory.

Welcome, to the second night of Content Survey Live: U.S.A. Tonight's survey, is all about America's steel city, Pittsburgh. Last night New York led the way, with a 7.75/10. Tonight, for Pittsburgh, home to this year's NFL Draft, it's showing up where it counts... and potentially scoring a upset that could turn this week topsy turvy.

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 Kennywood for a ride on Steel Curtain, or a ticket to see the Pittsburgh CLO put on a musical classic, 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 Pittsburgh (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... PITTSBURGH.
Yesterday, was all about New York, and the largest market in the country. Tonight, we come down into working class Pennsylvania. A city known for it's Steelers, it's Terrible Towels (rally towels for the Steelers), Pirates and Penguins, as well as a news market that runs like it's rivers: long and deep.

Tonight, KD Country is about to head for the hay.

It's 11pm, KDKA's late night news is about to hit the airwaves, to give you a wider picture... for a city whose steel shifts are legendary.



We have to give credit before this survey begins, to KDKA's streaming news lead-in to the 11pm news the "Nightly Sports Call": combining elements of it's historic sister radio station and on-air talkback. It's a product Nine should have looked toward before hocking off the former MRN talkback stations to the Laundy family of pub fame.

We open the bulletin with a piece on safety in the leadup to the NFL Draft (happening in Pittsburgh this weekend), along with alerts for sexual assault, road closures, surge pricing for parking meters and most critically, free public transport to the main draft hub, a strong weather forecast, a live cross to a prison in Fayette County, that led into a fairly decent story about a child abuse case, a sentencing for a 2022 triple shooting, a dog attack in Verona, a lawsuit after a Pirates fan got too much for what he bargained for with a employee, later found to have had a criminal record, a press conference for Bret Michaels (set to run concerts during the NFL Draft), a NFL-funded cookout in conjunction with Little Caesars, for veterans, and issues concerning the PSSA standardized tests:

Sounds familiar to Australians? A similar fault happened with NAPLAN last month... wonder if it's the same people developing the tech?

And, did we mention the NFL Draft?

Thankfully, the sport segment was surprisingly decent (with wraps of a Pirates thrashing (no wonder fans want to start fights in the concession stands!), a wrap of Penguins action, a off-season interview with the Steelers quarterback, and the potential for the son of Mario Lemieux (Penguins legend), Austin being on the home stretch towards qualifying for the US open in golf!)

Overall, a well shaped bulletin: navigated by KDKA royalty... in Ken Rice.

THE SCORES:

Two local stories,

One live cross (that led into one of those local stories),

Ten voiced over stories,

A sports segment that fit the marketplace, and showed there was more than a NFL Draft happening in town.

Tonight's score, is 7.7/10 and a David Hill Number of 5.

The overall standings this week sees New York now in the lead with 7.75/10, but just barely behind Pittsburgh on 7.7/10.

AMERICA, YOUR SEASON LAUNCH IS READY.

2. LOOKING GOOD: CBS, 1979-1980.

The success of “Still the One” resonated throughout the American industry. CBS suddenly took the challenge of selling it’s own fall schedule through a lengthy promotion package. The result: two years of “Looking Good”, beginning in the fall of 1979, and ending in 1981.

And, while we are here: we are looking good at some affiliate promos of the ’79-81 time period including a couple from KDKA itself: all preparing for the big revelation in the 1980 fall season: Why did the actors go on strike... wrong one: Who Shot JR? on Dallas.

10 Melbourne in Australia took a good look at the original 1979 CBS campaign, as the followup to the post-switch “On Top With 10” in 1981, it would go on deeper though with a newer CBS campaign... in 1982.

Tomorrow, we stay up late to light up the bay...

Our first of three sojourns to the US West Coast this season, is coming tomorrow night: as our eyes are on San Francisco, and the news of the Bay Area, as the sun sets in Queensland.

See you, tomorrow night.

A reminder of our socials:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kuttsywoods.couch

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/veritasonkw.bsky.social

Substack: https://veritasonkw.substack.com/