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And the earth-shattering major announcement is... Alan Sealls will be WPMI NBC 15's chief meteorologist starting in January. https://mynbc15.com/news/local/alan-sealls-the-gulf-coasts-chief-meteorologist-joins-nbc-15-as-chief-meteorologist Surprised his non-compete was only for six months after leaving WKRG.

Oh my God.

WISC-TV in 1983.

And just like that, once Alan Sealls joins WPMI in 2020, the anchors at WPMI will become the most experienced anchor team in the market Mobile. (WEAR over in Pensacola's anchors are the most seasoned...and Bob Solarski is still kicking it 11 years after his "Tom McGee" incident!) It's been a very tumultuous year in the Mobile area.... Bob Grip started the year by stepping down from longtime home WALA. Flash forward to May, and the 50th year of Mel Showers turned into his last as he announced he was stepping down from WKRG. After Mel's "final" newscast (he filled in a few more times), then Alan slipped away when his contract negotiations broke down. Makes me wonder if this has been in the works for quite some time. Right before Alan's bombshell, WPMI and WJTC disappeared from AT&T along with the Sinclair sidecars. A month later, so did WKRG and WFNA along with the rest of Nexstar. Nexstar returned earlier in the fall and it was only a week or two ago that WPMI and WJTC returned. The day after, the "teaser" promos began airing (a coincidence?) Back to WPMI...they have been "short" ever since Kelly Jones left and went over to radio. She was brought over by their now-former GM who both used to work at KCTV in Kansas City. It's gotten even worse with the departures of Jake Dunne, who served as a semi-morning meteorologist (3 days a week & weekends) while Kelly Foster did double duty 2 days a week as anchor and morning met, and as morning/noon anchor when Jake was on the show. Jake left for Wichita and was soon replaced by Kyle Hanson from El Paso. Then Chief met Chris Dunn exited after 4 years "to spend more time with family." Methinks his contract was not renewed and getting Alan on board was kicked into high gear. Kelly Foster has been filling in evenings, and on weekends (or when no one else is available)....WEAR has been filling in with pre-taped forecasts with their weather people, and weather has even been read by the weekend anchors if it's a clear day that just requires the 7-day. So with all of this austerity, could this have all been the reason? Or was Nexstar simply that cheap and needed to pare six figures from their WKRG payroll? (It was rumored that Mel Showers was making that much after that many years...) Viewers were distraught when Alan left WKRG. Will he be able to single-handedly lure viewers over to the forever doormat WPMI? As long as Sinclair doesn't screw this up. 12 years ago, they were reeling (under Clear Channel) when they canned all 3 prime anchors (Kim Mcrea, Drexel Gilbert and Peter Albrecht)...the latter 2 used to work for WKRG, and they do, once again... And an interesting footnote... While Alan was going viral over this..... WPMI was going viral over THIS...

Apparently Ecuavisa's newscasts got some new graphics, and it looks pretty similar to the CBS O&O graphics.

This acquisition has closed, and there's an extra surprise: Lilly's taking over the CBS affiliation effective tomorrow. Well, they kind of had anyway, in July 2018. At that time, Lilly took over the cable slot — but not the programming operation — that had been home to TV2, which had been the islands' cable CBS affiliate since 2009. (News2 is still being produced...and airing on cable channel...4.) CBS USVI does air some news features, which as you might have guessed are produced in Erie.

And ATV-10 in Melbourne, Australia, although that version is no longer on YouTube. Only a follow-up promo is still online:

I seem to recall that this was the first Affiliate package CBS News offered to stations in the Dan Rather era... WJBK Detroit used it for Newscast bumps during their "2 is the One: NewsBreakers" era... Up I-75, WEYI Saginaw/Flint/Bay City also used this Affiliate package..

Here is KDKA using the new CBS O&O Weather graphics. I think they look a lot like the Weather Graphics Sinclair has.

Bumping this thread to say that KDKA now has these weather graphics on their newscasts. Just seen them during the 4pm news...

Another group of the Sinclair shells are back....the MPS Media stations. https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/att-re-adds-4-local-cw-nbc-affiliates-to-directv-att-tv-now/ That just leaves Second Generation of Iowa (KFXA), Waitt (KMEG), Tennessee Broadcasting (WNAB), Mercury Broadcasting (KMTW) and Roberts Broadcasting (KMTR). Interesting facts: The Waitt company that owns the KMEG license has no ties to the company that once owned it. One of their former stations, WFXL was once owned by the original Waitt who was acquired by Raycom, who divested it to Barrington when they merged with Liberty (since they owned WALB). Mercury Broadcasting was the founder of WJTC in Pensacola. They formed an LMA with Clear Channel who owned WPMI, then a FOX affiliate. They became a legal duopoly in 2000, and BOTH were shelled to Deerfield in 2012 with their sale by Newport Television since Sinclair already owned WEAR and WFGX. Back to Mercury, who Clear Channel recruited when Paramount wanted out of running KSCC (now KMTW) and ran them out of KSAS. The arrangement lasts into this day through Clear Channel, Newport, and now Sinclair.

The overall style is very similar to the well-known "Team to Watch" KNXT promos from a few years later. I wonder if they were produced by the same company that had switched clients in the meantime? (I remember reading that the KNXT promos were done by Collier Concepts.)

KOMO 'Live at 4' open 1984. Looks like the KTRK Live at Five opening animation, plus a special set - looks great in the wide shot

KNBC news promo, 1977:

November 1997, KSDK promotes its new look and set, graphics by Hothaus:

If your second theory is true, maybe a certain met with the initials JS is moving down the road?

Here is a short KYW news tease from December 1983 using an unknown theme.

WITI! 1983!

WLNS in 2001: