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Helicopters are great tools, but they’re not cheap. A helicopter can cost a station up to two million dollars A YEAR. Most stations contract with one of the few big vendors to lease the helicopter, camera and microwave equipment, pilots and, in some cases, the chopper reporter. A lease usually includes a standard number of use ‘em or lose ‘em hours per month (which might not be as many as you might think), and then an added fee per hour over the included bundle. That over the top use could be around $700 an hour or more. Want a back-up bird while the chopper is in for maintenance? Want pilot coverage on weekends or for days longer than pilots are legally allowed to fly? Those are extra. The expense is why some stations end chopper use or sell sponsorships. Also remember, when winds reach a certain level, or weather deteriorates, choppers don’t fly. They’re not airborne Hummers. They’re flying Toyotas. in mid-sized markets like those in Oklahoma, the helicopter might be an important tool during severe weather season, but they are money suckers the rest of the year. If a station can’t draw a straight line between the annual expense and a multi-million dollar revenue advantage, a helicopter is a hard sell. If a new owner has added millions of dollars to leveraged debt to buy a station, the sell is even harder.

WAKA from June of 1986 using the generic "NEWS/WEATHER/SPORTS" open used by many smaller market stations at the time:

They should customize the colors though to suit the station and match the logos and the community.

Yes both KWTV and KOTV have their own helicopters and they will share the copters when either one is down for maintenance and during severe weather coverage.

I saw a picture of their studio and underneath every confidence monitor there’s a large piece of paper making sure the talent remember it’s Air Comfort Solutions Chopper 4.

Seems like the KLAS grounding was a one-off. I think everyone was bracing for groundings at WFLA and WAVY that never came to pass. I think if someone were to make a list of markets that have at least one helicopter, you'll see a dropoff at about market 40 or so. Vegas is right on that cusp. Jacksonville probably only has two stations with choppers because both stations are owned by (for now) spendier companies. Norfolk has WAVY. You can probably justify having a chopper in Albuquerque because of the geographic size of the market, in the same way you can justify having a chopper in OKC because of weather. In markets below 50 or so, they're virtually nonexistent. I can't think of a sub-50 market that currently has one outside of WBOC, which is truly the outlier of outliers. Pre-recession, it was a different story. Much rarer, but a number of markets had them. Fort Myers, Lexington, Dayton, Des Moines, Jackson and South Bend come to mind. I'm sure I'm missing more. Those days are over. There's just not enough news or revenue to justify the enormous cost. In markets like LA, there still is. TL;DR, you're not going to see KTLA lose its chopper anytime soon.

Given the prominence of the helicopter in severe weather coverage AND the sponsorship, that sponsorship probably offsets the cost quite a bit. I've watched tornado coverage on KFOR numerous times and they say "Bob Moore Chopper 4" like every 3 minutes. You NEVER hear a sponsorship uttered that many times on television newscasts.

Houston's KTRK has restored the giant neon 13 signage on the tower behind their studios. https://abc13.com/5710623/

The question is what the law says in that particular jurisdiction. Is audio recording treated the same way as video recording and neither is permitted? Or did the judge just go rogue and decide that he has special rules? They reference other stations and in those states or jurisdictions there may not be bans on audio and video recordings. I kind of wonder how the judge figured out she was recording. If it’s the latter explanation I would imagine your odds of appealing and overturning are better. That sounds quite extreme though. If on the other hand he told her to knock it off and she kept going then she’d get what was coming to her though. In this case it appears both audio and video are not permitted. I think this is one of those things that depends on the state. Here in Michigan for example both are just fine and we get the whole show. At the federal level neither is allowed if I’m not mistaken and that single handedly keeps sketch artists employed.

BTW, KTUL brought back the Ranger 8 name recently, just not as a helicopter.

That I'm aware of they did use Ranger 8 helicopter for a few severe weather coverage towards the end of the usage of the helicopter.

Smaller market stations don't have the money to go in-house. That said, Gray should hire them to do that package (in colors that suit the stations) company-wide.

Either that or have KOZL do a 7pm newscast and shift MNT to 8-10pm that I'm sure would solve that problem

I was looking at both KOZL's and KRBK's schedules and you are correct about KRBK being weeknights only. As for KOZL they replay KRBK's 6:30pm newscast every weeknight at 9

Is KOLR STILL doing the 9pm news for KOZL even though they litterally compete against KRBK's own efforts at 9pm?

Not neccesaily, both KWTV and KOTV have their own chopper but they will often times collaborate especially on a big severe weather day (Prime example would be May 20th of this year where litterally the entire storm chasing staff of KOTV including Osage SkyNews 6) came to my side of the state to cover what was supposed to be a big severe weather event but (fortunately) never materialized

These WGN promos look like they were produced 1993-1995, when WGN became a WB affiliate in 1995.

Isn't their chopper shared with KWTV or am I incorrect?

KOTV would like a word with you

WABC's weekend Eyewitness News in 1987 with John Marler and Rolonda Watts.

Which that remains unchanged even now with KFOR's partnership with Air Comfort Solutions and it was the same amount of time that Mike Morgan mentioned "Air Comfort Solutions Chopper 4" as it was with "Bob Moore Chopper 4" Ironically enough KFOR formed a partnership with the Bob Moore Auto Group for Chopper 4 when KFOR was owned by Local TV and they may have done so out of fear that KFOR would face the same demise that KDVR faced with SkyFox after KDVR was sold to Local TV (albeit KDVR's and KFOR's cases are 2 very different cases and are also two very different situations)

Boone County is probably more lieniant on those types of cases than what Benton County is.

In the town in Arkansas I grew up in (just a few counties over), one of the low-powered TV stations there actually has a program whose sole purpose is televising court proceedings. They even make that local TV show available on YouTube. So maybe some counties are more uptight than others. I feel so bad for the reporter. Given the market KNWA is in, she's probably early in her career. I hope everything works out well for her, and I have a feeling that everything will work out well for her. Maybe she can get that overturned and expunged from her legal record. She wasn't recording for broadcast--just for notetaking. I have a very hard time imagining that ever happening in the county in Arkansas I grew up in.

That would probably depend on the judge in this case because see if this is a Freedom of the Press issue then the Judge in this instance went a bit too far within his powers. If the Judge told the Reporter to knock it off more than once and she didn't do then yeah I could see why the Judge would do that. Whatever the case may be, I would appeal the contempt charge if I were in the reporter's shoes.

Yeah I thought it was kinda funny myself!

For my 400th video upload, I present a fully updated and restored montage of TEGNA’s crown jewel WXIA-TV:

They changed over the social handles to the new name so those did go along. The yourphx.com site is probably going to go away once all the important and mandated stuff is on the new one. Worth noting here that as part of ATSC 3.0 work the KASW mux is planned as the high power 3.0 test site complete with three DTS facilities. The KNXV mux would air KASW's main programming and Grit sub and the other subchannels are placed with other stations. (This would also see the ATSC 3.0 mirrors of some of the stations on KFPH-CD be moved over to KASW.) A few other KASW notes... MMJ Adam Waltz, who hosted the 30 Second Download and Phoenix Rising halftime show, is now a reporter for KNXV as well and his bio has been added. (Not a bad way to return to news reporting: his last news gig was at the NPG TV operation in St. Joseph, MO!) He says he'll still be doing the 30-Second Downloads "for the time being". MMJ Chloe Mar also made the move to reporting at ABC15. Their other on-camera personality, Hailey Frances (who also was KASW's "Content Manager"), is not listed and hasn't mentioned anything about ABC15 on her Twitter, so I'm unsure what she's up to. Given the lack of social media postings on a regular basis from the CW61 Arizona accounts... They removed that one post that they had that was a sports show live feed from WOOD, so it had to have been unintentional. The yourphx.com site now shows Anita Helt as the general manager of KASW. She is KNXV's GM and also the only person on that site with an @abc15.com address. Scripps's next priorities, outside of general integration, should be renewing the Phoenix Rising deal and getting local news on 61. Those are big ratings and promotional drivers to the station.

Some judges are leaniant on the recorded notetaking other judges not so much and the Benton County Judge apparently has an issue with that.

I agree, the whole thing seems bizarre to me. The reporter maintains she did that previously in other courts and nothing was wrong. I think the judge should've been more understanding of that and left it at a warning. I hope she appeals that and maybe gets the ruling vacated by a higher court.

I didn't know that just using audio recording for a reporter's note taking is considered to be a Contempt of Court charge. What's going to be so bad for that reporter is that now she now has a criminal record for that contempt charge which means it's going to be difficult to land a future job anywhere (it's obtainable but now it's going to be difficult) This is something to look out for when I take my News Reporting course for my Mass Communication degree.

Same here. They did a great job! Some still do graphics in-house. I know Lilly Broadcasting is working on a refresh to their existing package. That should debut in early 2020.

So this confirms it was in-house. This is really refreshing to see. I wish more stations would design packages in-house these days.

Here is the article on their website about their logic and reasoning behind the package https://www.wave3.com/2019/11/22/who-are-artists-behind-wave-news-new-look/?fbclid=IwAR2SadbFPU10dANNocPjyjXwvHHvCvxI1z1mruysGRbD_xASv962jJccPH4

Sounds like a recipe for something exactly like this to happen. That said, this story is a pleasant break from the rest of the news. Especially this week.

So I'm trying to find if this was mentioned someplace, but I can't see anything so I'll post here... A while back, there was a discussion about how WISH had dropped the 24-hour news moniker... Well it now looks like WOOD is now dropping it as well... While watching the news today I noticed the reporters are now signing off as "Reporter Name, News 8" instead of "Reporter Name, 24-hour News 8". Now granted their LL Bean jackets still show 24-hour News 8, but I do believe that the 24-hour news moniker is now gone... I am sad

WGN, Chicago; halftime edition featuring new graphics but still the old set (albeit with a temporary blue backdrop instead of the skyline), 1993:

WFLA from 1992:

Some shocking news from the KOLR10 studios. A van drove through their security gate and starting speaking some weird unintelligible stuff. They were arrested. Damaged some vehicles and a satellite dish at the station. Literally just saw this and thought it was important enough to share. (The story only takes up the first 1:45 or so of this video.) Hopefully they get the help they need.

Sadly Gregg has passed away. (from discord) https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/11/longtime-abc27-sportscaster-gregg-mace-dead.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=pennlive_sf