Moving it to the Fall

FTVLive has been telling you about the fallout being experienced by Nexstar’s WCIA in Champaign, IL.

It happened over how the Nexstar station covered a police-involved shooting.

One officer was shot and killed, another wounded when they responded to a domestic disturbance call of a man beating a woman.

The WCIA report instead focused on the suspect (who was also killed). “WCIA talked to the cop killer’s family and used pictures of him with angel wings. The entire story talked about how great this cop killer was and that he was a great family man, etc,” said one person that saw the story on the station’s air, adding, “They never reported in the story that officers were called for a domestic disturbance because he was beating a woman or the fact he has two prior charges of domestic violence or the fact that he was a convicted felon and had a gun. None of it.”

Since then the station has lost a number of big advertisers, both the News Director and the GM have also been pushed out and are gone.

For years, WCIA has used the Summer months to do “Our Town” shows that focus on local communities and towns in the viewing area.

A number of towns in protest to the shooting story, have declined helping the station produce the “Our Town” newscasts.

In fact, there has been enough blowback, that station insiders say that the station is pausing the “Our Town” shows and moving them to the Fall.

It is the station’s hope that by Fall, this will have finally blown over and the towns will be back on board with working with WCIA.

Insiders say that advertisers are slowly coming back to WCIA after pulling their spots. The station is telling the ad buyers that those responsible for the coverage, the GM and ND are gone from the station.