Content Survey Live: U.S.A Pool 3, Night 3: Which Station Izz It?

This post, is dedicated to Ted Turner, who passed away early Wednesday US time at the age of 87.
Thanks, for giving the world CNN, TBS, TNT, TCM, Cartoon Network, Captain Planet, the Goodwill Games... and all that legacy... started in Atlanta with WTBS's move to be a superstation via satellite fifty years ago.

You are going to be missed Ted.

Welcome to the third night, of the third pool for Content Survey Live: U.S.A. Last night, Denver showed up and snowed up with a 7.75/10, just narrowly missing out on pipping the Windy City on a snow day no less. Tonight, Atlanta goes through the content survey wringer... but as the title implies... "Which station is it": the current CBS O&O (which has a news service, but no streaming content), or it's predecessor (which has a news service but also has streaming content). You'll find out when we look at the tale of the tape.

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 The World of Coca Cola, or figuring out how much a ride on Arie Force 1, at Funspot Atlanta 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 Atlanta 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... ATLANTA.
Aah.. Atlanta: home to the worst Olympic mascot in history, being remembered as the pub quiz answer for being only one of two American cities ever to host the Summer Olympics... not named Los Angeles, the birthplace of Coke, New Coke, CNN, TNT and TBS just to name a few.

However, it's been going through significant news changes in the last year: beginning with the conversion of former CW affiliate WUPA 69 to a CBS O&O, back in August 2025 (with the Detroit method of news adapted to the Atlanta market), while the former CBS affiliate WANF, has become probably the most significant independent station in the US South on the count of it's news division (outside of course, WPLG in Miami, who dis-affiliated with ABC in early August 2025).

We've had many sleepless nights trying to choose who to cover here: hope for a CBS News Atlanta streaming service launch, use WANF's news instead... almost as many tosses and turns as Marty Bass had concerning his wig forty years ago.

But, it's 11pm. And.... WANF's news is about to go to air. It may well be the former CBS affiliate... but it's news service still pretty much resembles it's days with CBS...

Unlike Houston last week, WANF's live streaming is accessible without a VPN in Australia, with the additional feature of limited on-demand releases of news bulletins (a common feature with the Gray-owned station group, of which WANF (and KGMB/KHNL in Hawaii) are part).
 
We open tonight's news, with a live cross and story concerning a Coweta County teacher getting stung for indecent exposure, and a live cross and story on redevelopment plans for Stone Mountain.

We get voiced over pieces in tonight's news concerning a crash at a local grocery store, Fulton County jail incident needing a state response, Senator Rich McCormack holding a town hall... as a planned commencement speech at Morehouse gets some ire, Tributes continue to Ted Turner (after all, WANF's sister station is WPCH: the former WTCG, Ted's first major media property, and the birthplace of the TBS Superstation), while a special is planned for tomorrow night.

A fireside chat about downtown renewal, the State of DeKalb address all get hits, as well as a community service event: the St Jude Dream Home Giveaway.

One of the prizes for said giveaway: this wonderful golfcart.

A interesting note here: they are still using the "First Alert Weather" branding, albeit tweaked so CBS don't come running: the I is modified into a 1.

We now head into sport, with the opening of the new US Soccer HQ in Fayetteville, a preview for the 2026 Atlanta Dream lineup and helpings of NCAA softball.

We close with a plug for a local fundraiser, that isn't the St Jude giveaway.

Overall, a fairly solid night for a station that would have been better off encouraged into a trade for WUPA so CBS couldn't have forked out huge for news presence in a market like Atlanta (and only needed to set up the streaming capabilities).

THE SCORES:
Two full local stories.
Two live crosses.
Eight voiced over pieces.
A big sports day cemented by the Fayetteville opening for US Soccer.

The score tonight: 7.6/10 with a David Hill Number of 4.

This places Atlanta at the back of the pack, in a fairly close field this week, with Chicago tantalizingly close to grabbing the pool victory, only if Sacramento doesn't sock a dinger tomorrow night.

AMERICA, YOUR SEASON LAUNCH IS READY.

11. “Don’t Let Fox Weekend Pass You By”. 1987

At the same time Capital Cities leveraged to buy ABC, and General Electric acquired RCA (NBC’s owner) another deal occurred that would ultimately set the stage for the nineties… while triggering significant events in Australia later on down the road. That deal, was the acquisition of the Fox movie studio, followed by a string of high-profile independent stations owned by Metromedia by News Corporation (after divesting Metromedia’s most significant television asset: ABC affiliate WCVB in Boston).

This deal, led to Rupert Murdoch taking US citizenship, which triggered a divestment in Australia of News Corp’s Sydney and Melbourne television holdings connected to the Ten Network, followed by more divestments once the Herald and Weekly Times group was acquired in 1987 (Brisbane’s Daily Sun, Adelaide’s The News, and HSV-7 in Melbourne were all rapidly sold off)

But the nascent push for Fox began with a programming service rather than a true fourth network. Initially, it started with just two full nights of significant programming: weekends… hence the early term… Fox Weekend.

The programming service model, targeted the independent market: which could easily afford to program five days a week, and let Fox take care of the rest. However: just a year later… the first big seeds of the Fox of the 1990’s would awaken… all from just one station having no choice.

Well, that izz it from Atlanta. Tomorrow night, is our final go-around on the US west coast: Sacramento. Sacramento, here I come: especially as that city really hates Dwayne. But is Rock-hate going to be enough to un-chair Chicago and send the West Coast's last city standing... into the post-season?

See you then.

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