CBS News and Stations

CBS News and Stations debuts a multi-part investigation called Anything For Love: Inside the Romance Scam Epidemic Sunday, April 21. Airing across CBS News and station programs, Anything For Love runs through Sunday, April 28. The year-long investigation hears from victims, families, dating app executives and government officials across seven states: California, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas

CBS News and Stations is making moves to better unify CBS News, its owned stations and CBS Media Ventures, and better cover breaking news, as Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of CBS News and Stations and CBS Media Ventures, shared at a town hall meeting today. One initiative involves building a larger coverage footprint across the country, which the company refers to as a national movement of community journalism. CBS said the following cities will get new multimedia journalists, and perhaps become what the company calls a “news hub”: Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Des Moines; Kansas City; Nashville; New Orleans; Raleigh, N.C.; San Antonio; St. Louis; Phoenix; Las Vegas; Houston; and Tampa.

CBS News and Stations is launching a weather unit that it hopes will enhance coverage of critical weather stories at both its owned stations and CBS News. Wendy Fisher will head CBS Weather Network as VP of weather strategy. She starts April 22 and comes from ABC News. The KPIX San Francisco team will help shape coverage. Pictured: KPIX San Francisco chief meterologist Paul Heggen delivers a forecast on the station’s virtual reality set.

Top news and content executives from CBS News and Stations, Cox Media Group, NBCUniversal Local and CBC News share creative alternatives to the newscast for presenting topical content in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere conference at the NAB Show on April 14. Register here.

Christa Robinson and Lance Frank will take on expanded roles for CBS‘ division built around CBS News, local stations and syndicated programming, all put under the aegis of executive Wendy McMahon in August of last year. Frank, who has been with CBS News since 2011, has been elevated to EVP, communications for CBS News & Stations and CBS Media Ventures, a new position. Robinson, an industry veteran who has led communications for CNN Worldwide and Tribune Media, will continue as EVP, leading CBS News and Stations with an expanded role in the stations business.

Layoffs have hit the ad sales ranks in the CBS owned-and-operated TV station portfolio as a long-term restructuring effort takes effect. Tuesday’s cuts come after new ad sales staffers were hired over the past three months. The exact number of employees affected could not be determined, but sources say the net number of departures across recent hires and other staffers is about 17 people, one in each of the markets where the 28 CBS-owned stations are based. A number of ad sales positions also remain open. The layoffs are confined to the ad sales divisions of the stations and are part of a year-long restructuring, the sources say.

Tracy Wholf becomes senior producer of climate, while CBS News producer Chris Spinder is promoted to climate producer. Also, the group today premieres Warming Signs, a week-long climate docuseries on the fastest-warming community on Earth, with an hour-long special to air the weekend of Dec. 9.

Streaming executives from Gray Television, Bitcentral, CBS News & Stations, LTN and Fox Television Stations will share the critical insights they’ve gleaned from consumers of their streaming news channels and how they’re using that — and emerging technology — to guide their fast-evolving programming strategies in a panel at TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum conference in New York on Dec. 12. Register here.

The data journalism veteran will oversee a team of data journalists, working closely across CBS News and Stations and with CBS’s next-generation storytelling arm, the CBS Local News Innovation Lab.

CBS News and Stations will launch a new unit to examine misinformation and so-called “deepfakes,” or false videos that can often be generated via artificial intelligence. The new unit, CBS News Confirmed, will be led by Claudia Milne, CBS News and Stations SVP and head of standards and practices, along with Ross Dagan, EVP and head of news operations and transformation for CBS News and Stations.

Adrienne Roark spells out plans for a data journalism team, hiring a head of weather strategy and a head of climate coverage.

The new appointments for Adrienne Roark, Jennifer Mitchell Joel Goldberg, Laurie Orlando and Alison Pepper are part of President-CEO Wendy McMahon’s plan to take advantage of “cross-portfolio opportunities and new ways of working together that will power future growth, editorial and operational excellence, and industry leadership in innovation and collaboration.”

Now available on the streaming service are local and national channels from CBS News and Stations, CBS Sports Golazo Network and CBS Media Ventures’ ‘Inside Edition’ and Dabl network.

CBS picks the veteran WDIV Detroit journalist to oversee operations of its Florida duopoly beginning Aug. 14.

CBS owned stations have begun laying off creative services staff as part of a restructuring around its design team across all of its stations.

Executives from Telemundo, Scripps News, CBS News and Stations, Gray Television and SciLine shared the collaborations they’re undertaking and the places they’re taking news content beyond the conventional newscast in a panel at last week’s Programming Everywhere event at the NAB Show.

Original reporting includes individual stories produced by the local news departments and their executive producers of community impact at CBS stations in 14 markets.

Sinclair’s local news OTT streaming service NewsON has signed a licensing deal with CBS News and Stations and its owned-and-operated stations. As part of the deal, NewsON will add 13 CBS local stations to its platform. The new stations include the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco markets. NewsON will offer live newscasts, CBS News Local FAST channels, and short form story clips from each of the stations, including the upcoming Detroit channel when it launches.

Award-winning journalists David Schechter and Ash-har Quraishi to report for CBS-Owned Stations as well as CBS Television Network affiliates across the country.

He joins from Disney/ABC to oversee day-to-day and long-term strategic vision for the programming, production, editorial and operational functions at CBS News and Stations’ 13 local streaming channels.

Wendy McMahon, president and co-head of CBS News and Stations, says while audiences trust local news, “they are largely unsatisfied with the product,” and reconnecting with viewers’ priorities is an industry-wide problem.

CBS News and the network’s owned stations get a major streaming overhaul with a new name, the CBS News Streaming Network, dramatically expanded OTT programming and the launch of a new local streaming channel in Miami.

Wendy McMahon, president and co-head of ViacomCBS’s CBS News and Stations unit, has sent a letter to Nielsen objecting to the audience measurement firm’s plan to include broadband-only homes in its local ratings. The complaint adds to a chorus of criticism for Nielsen, which is already under fire for undercounting viewers and under pressure from an industry that is accelerating the search for alternatives to Nielsen, which has long dominated the ratings business.

Wendy McMahon, president, co-head of CBS News and Stations at ViacomCBS, announced that the CBS station group will be hiring to fill a number of newly created positions as executive producers impacting communities (EPIC).

The company veteran is moving from KOVR-KMAX Sacramento, Calif., to oversee WBZ and WSBK starting Oct. 25.

He has spent the past 18 years with Hearst Television, most recently as president and general manager of WDSU, the NBC affiliate in New Orleans, since February 2007.

The global news veteran is tapped to oversee the reimagining of the company’s newly combined network, digital and local stations’ news operations.

CBS has named Claudia Milne the senior vice president of standards and practices at CBS News and Stations. In her new role, Milne will help determine CBS News’ editorial standards and ensure they are being maintained across CBS News, stations and digital platforms.

With a consolidation of CBS’s News and Stations divisions already underway, the network has now also finished its long external probe into various allegations of racist and abusive behavior at local outlets — and change is coming to the City of Angels and the Windy City ASAP and more, promise execs.