Studio 31 Media Archive's video: WMDT 47 ABC News Hour Full 4 22 2022

Complete 5:30pm newscast from the Marquee Broadcasting-owned ABC affiliate serving the Delmarva Peninsula (based in Salisbury, Maryland). Recorded on Friday, April 22, 2022. WMDT has long played second fiddle in a market long-dominated by Draper Media's WBOC (in part because they were first to broadcast on the Peninsula and also because their ownership has easily poured more money into their station than WMDT's has. That said, WMDT has always been locally owned throughout its history and its main competition is also locally owned, so the Delmarva Peninsula is possibly the only market in the country where every commercial station is locally owned. It could be because of WBOC that WMDT schedules their newscast at 5:30pm as opposed to just a 6pm or starting at 5pm to get a head start on WBOC. I imagine DelmarvaLife on WBOC (pay for play crap) beats WMDT still. It could also be why WBOC's sister station, WRDE, slots their newscast at 5:30pm for an hour as well, likely to try and compete with WMDT, but as far as I know, WMDT still beats them. Their product is decent for what it is and they do try. I give them credit for always trying to lead with local news if possible whereas their main competitor can and has lead with national news on some of their shows (I get it - Salisbury isn't exactly far from the D.C. region so I can see the audience being interested in some of those stories). WMDT has suffered from a lot of turnover (they don't pay as well as Draper), but a lot of their talent does go on to bigger and better things, some right from WMDT. There isn't really a "senior on-air talent", everyone leaves after their two years is up unlike WBOC/WRDE. It was Marquee who took the station HD in 2014 (rather cheaply — they use a TriCaster for their switcher and that's also what generates their virtual sets), and this graphics package (originally designed by RenderOn back in 2008 for WPRI) has been in use since that time (there actually was a time they briefly used these graphics in SD on their old hard set before the new switcher was put in). That is the extent of the investment Marquee made. They have done nothing more since then. Music is "This Is The Place" from Stephen Arnold Music also being used since 2014. I don't know the name of the voiceover guy but the station has used him since 1997 (so much longer than some of their on-air talent has been alive, much less been with the station for). WRIC in Richmond used him for most of the 2000s and 2010s as well before ditching him for Paul Turner. This station is very weird about their usage of the ABC logo: the opens and franchise opens have a flat version of the 2013 logo, the bug and weather graphics are the 2013 logo, and almost all of their bumps use ABC's newest logo unveiled last year. Promos are a mix of both versions. It's interesting they took the time to change the logo in the bumps to break but couldn't bother with the opens, bug, or weather graphics. The inconsistency does bother me a little. It is very easy to see why Draper leads its market (doesn't hurt they have three of the five major networks either), but again, WMDT tries and they are not a terrible station by any means in terms of what they put out on-air. Again, a lot of good talent has come out of here and they've always had an uphill battle to climb against WBOC. Anchored by Jordan Kudisch and Mike Mahoney with weather from meteorologist Ulises Garcia, and sports anchored by Devin Martin. Includes reports from Rob Flaks (two, and while Rob himself is a great reporter who will definitely go on to something much bigger, his live interview at 22:12 was a hard watch, not because of him of course), Justin Finch (ABC News), Anissa Lopez, Sloane Haines ("Foodie Friday"), and Reena Roy (ABC News). Commercials are edited out, station promos are retained. Select sports highlights were blacked out due to copyright restrictions. ©2022 Marquee Broadcasting and WMDT-TV, no copyright infringement intended. For educational and historical purposes only. We do not profit off of this video. open, news open, news close, close, legal ID, station ID, ident, logo, sting, rejoin, tease, talent rejoin, talent sting, talent bump, talent open, promo, promotion, bump, bumper, sponsor bump