Kuttsywood's Couch: Content Survey Live: U.S.A: Pool 4, Night 4. Don't Expect Jim To Sing.

Fifteen cities down... one more to go... until the kick off of the post-season.

Welcome, one and all, to the final night of the main season for Content Survey Live U.S.A. Last night, Detroit's live stream failure saw it handed the first DQ in Content Survey Live history: making tonight even more important. On April 21, we kicked off in New York... Tonight, we are showing up in Miami for the end of a very special run.

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 a lunchtime boat trip from Bayside Marketplace, or perhaps investigating getting a ticket on Brightline to Orlando, 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 South Florida 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... MIAMI
The last time this season, for the ol' Tale of The Tape, lands on Miami. CBS's story post 1988 in Miami is one of sixes and fours: with CBS ending up in the 1988 South Florida broadcast shuffle with a stroke of poor luck: acquired a station in WCIX, couldn't get the deal approved in time for switch day in 1989, (needing a very short-term affiliation agreement), and then finding out... the transmitter was at the wrong end of South Florida for best reception to the majority of viewers (great pictures if you lived in Dade County, with decreasing reception once you got to Broward County in the north). That wrong end, would later come to bite hard in more ways than one. For starters, Hurricane Andrew knocked out their transmitter (near the epicentre of destruction, in Homestead) for two years, with a ad-hoc setup at the Dade/Broward county line put online within days. The rebuilt Homestead transmitter in 1994 hadn't been operating for very long... before it ended up part of a deal... which had it's dominoes fall first in Detroit to trigger events in numerous markets throughout the US, that led to a deal needing to be done in Philadelphia to prevent NBC ending up deep on the UHF band in the Delaware Valley (akin to what happened to CBS in Atlanta and Detroit when New World struck new partnerships with Fox).

This switch: one similar to what happened in Adelaide in Australia in 1987 (only difference between the two is simple, two transmitters 30 miles apart had to be synced to change a feed origin (WTVJ's signal being sent to Homestead, the soon to be WFOR's signal being sent to a transmitter on the Dade/Broward line) in Miami: while ADS and SAS shared a transmitter hall in Adelaide (effectively plugs changing sockets at two locations, studios at Strangeways Terrace and Gilberton, and the Mt Lofty transmitter).

Very early in the morning of September 10, 1995: the most complex of the post-New World/Fox affiliation switches happened.
-WCAU in Philly changing owners (from CBS to NBC).
-KYW changing status (NBC affiliate, to a CBS O&O).
-KCNC changing owners (from CBS to NBC).
-KUTV in Salt Lake City changing owners (for the second time in two years: only bought by NBC months before the trade was announced, from NBC to CBS (today, the station is owned by Sinclair).
And the most important one here concerning Miami:
WTVJ changed channels and transmitters from 4 (on the Dade/Broward line) to 6 (at Homestead).
WCIX (changing it's call letters to WFOR: much simpler than WTVJ having to paint a giant six at the rear of their former HQ in downtown Miami) changed channels and transmitters from 6 (at Homestead) to 4 (on the Dade/Broward line).

Digital television would eventually solve the Homestead problem both CBS and NBC played with like fire (with the introduction of a ATSC digital signal that ultimately led to WTVJ returning to the Miami-Dade/Broward line in the early 2000's, and the analogue site at Homestead closing with the US digital switchover in 2009).

But Miami's news is once again not a stable beast. In August 2025, the ABC affiliation for South Florida, went from long-term affiliate WPLG (who successfully fought off both 1988 and 1995's games of TV tag) to a digital subchannel of WSVN, with WPLG becoming a news-rich independent. The game suddenly changed: as everyone in the Miami market suddenly became WPLG's competition, not just 11pm bulletins on WTVJ and WFOR leading into late night franchises.

So, tonight, it's 11pm... WFOR's news is about to hit the air. Will it move to a tropical rhythm, and will it prove itself as competition to not just it's pool: but a post-season that is watching this hard, as the only position locked in... is the lucky loser.

We begin tonight with a decent helping of breaking news.

This breaking news, involves something very close to home for South Florida: Cuba, with a indictment of Cuba's leader, and a rare CIA visit to the country, while a Miami Beach hotel is getting sued over a incident with a child and a outsider in a swimming pool.

Both had full stories and live crosses, while the voiced over product was well done to say the least, beginning with the arrest of Kodak Black for the second time in a week, a shooting victim tries to drive himself to hospital, while a fatal Coral Springs shooting is being investigated, a kidnapper faces a judge after a incident at Hard Rock Stadium (a robbery gone wrong), crime rates are actually down, I wonder why... Miami local elections set to shift from odd to even years from 2034... provided it passes a ballot measure, lawsuits coming from Spirit Airlines employees over their dismissal, pilot from a offshore plane crash finally speaks, a deputy ambush with a knife is prevented from being fatal thanks to a Kevlar vest, and a crossbow duck in Mass. makes headlines.

Sport, is pretty much focused on the Dolphins... no, not the one's about to play in the NRL's Magic Round at Suncorp Stadium, but the ones who play NFL at Hard Rock Stadium (who the NRL Dolphins nicked the "Fins Up" from), with the release of the NFL draw for 2026, as well as pre-season coverage, road games for MLB's Marlins and the U's baseball team at Florida State (our tip: the college game was better than the MLB one, by a country kilometre... I mean mile), along with a NHL wrap.

Mike Cugno, is a worthy successor to Jim Berry: now the lead anchor for the station (who is set to mark 30yrs at WFOR this year)... the only problem: he can't rap worth the damn, but still presents one hell of a sports product.

Nothing like the weather telling us when the wet season is kicking off... along with a lottery draw.

Overall, a good night from Miami: something we really needed after the Detroit DQ last night...

THE SCORES.
Two local stories.
Two live crosses.
Twelve voiced over pieces.
A good sports segment, especially on new NFL draw day.

The score tonight... 8.1/10, with a David Hill Number of 5.

The standings for this pool, are thus.

Fourth, after it's DQ last night: Detroit.
Third, Dallas: 7.69/10
Second, Philadelphia 7.7/10.
The winner of Pool 4: Miami, 8.1/10

The post season layout and results, follows our interstitial.

AMERICA, YOUR LATE NIGHT IS READY.

16. At The End Of The Late Show: How We Got Here (CBS 1993)

(Recommended Reading: Bill Carter’s The Late Shift.)

It’s fitting that we are going to commemorate the end of the CBS Late Show, by celebrating the moments on that road after the decision was made by David Letterman to jump from NBC to CBS after being passed for the Tonight Show in favour of Jay Leno when Johnny Carson retired in 1992.

We begin, with the CBS press conference in it’s entirety concerning the Letterman switch, from early 1993.

(A heads up: some of these clips, come from the collection of what possibly is the leading collector of David Letterman’s career highlights, other than Letterman himself: “The Donz” Don Giller)

Next, we have the affiliates meeting in mid Feburary 1993:

Followed by the CBS promotional drive once Late Night finished in June ’93.

And, finally: a highlight reel from ABC’s Nightline on the whole Letterman premiere and impacts on other players: (with both Chevy Chase and Arsenio Hall featured)

But, we can't leave here... without looking at night one.

And, finally: we have the most recent content you'll get in this entire series... Dave's final moment with his successor at the Ed Sullivan Theater in Stephen Colbert: literally, just hours ago: it's a shame they couldn't invite Bill Murray for the ceremonial tossing of the furniture off the Ed Sullivan Theater.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The Late Show (@colbertlateshow)

When we return for the post-season: expect many ways the US and Australia have somehow struck a chord concerning promotional campaigns.

First, let us congratulate the three winners of the David Hill Number this regular season: New York, Sacramento and Minneapolis: all scoring on their nights a David Hill Number of 7.

The post-season layout, is as follows.
Night 1: the Lucky Loser: Chicago, with a combined rank of 10.85.
Night 2: Second Place, Miami with a combined rank of 13.10
Night 3: Third Place, San Francisco with a combined rank of 13.
Night 4: The leader of the pool winners: Boston, with a combined rank of 13.65.

The greatest event in this format's history... so far: is complete. A journey from New York to Miami and everywhere in between, that is our main season, is finished.

The only thing left... is the last four nights... that decide once and for all... the inaugural American champion of Content Survey Live, who will go on to face Brisbane in a best of five series in September... for the big prize... the Content Survey Live World Championships.

Keep your eyes peeled to our socials... for the announcement of the date it kicks off.

And, may our lucky loser, Chicago... show their might, when the time comes.