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Maybe someone can help me here but I fail to understand these broad doomsday statements. Saying that "NewsNation has lost a majority of its staff" is simply not true. There are about 150 people on staff at NewsNation. Have over 75 people quit? Sure they have lost a few key leaders, and I'm not downplaying that, but to say a majority of their staff is a gross exaggeration. And I still don't understand the "cut losses" concept. People on this board have been clamoring for it to be shut down since the day it launched. This product is a little over 6 months old! FOX News took 6 years before they became a ratings juggernaut. MSNBC took much longer. And both of those channels took far more start up cash than NewsNation did. As long as Nexstar sees long term potential, I believe they will give the channel time to find an audience. All it takes is one marquee program and they can build around that. O'Reilly was the cornerstone for Fox while Olbermann was the ticket for MSNBC. I do agree they need a better programming strategy. The all-things to all-people programming strategy is no longer viable. I would advise them to take a "heartland" approach. I hear a lot from friends in the middle of the country that news is too focused on NY and LA. Maybe being in Chicago then can build a news product for middle America. That certainly would distinguish them. Their ratings would probably be modest, given the population density. But it would give them a target audience for programming and ad sales. In any event, with a lot of people's jobs on the line I'm sure not rooting for a failure. I hope they are given time to find their voice.

It seems to me that Perry Sook is a rather slow or old fashioned kind of guy. Remember, up until the assimilation of Media General, they were against online streaming of local newscasts and subchannels on their stations. This whole having NewsNation as a cable channel you can only stream through your cable subscription instead of an OTT network you can watch for free on a service like Pluto TV is another example.

The seeds of WGN (America's) decline were planted long ago, and are mostly rooted in the changing times of cable television. The big draw of WGN to begin with was the Cubs/White Sox & Bulls telecasts. Then the sports world got too expensive, and these games began slowly slipping away. Also, WGN itself as a SuperStation was just happenstance, since it was another company that distributed the signal nationally, and SyndEx took some of the local flavor out of it. Flash forward to around 2008 and the privatization of Tribune by Sam Zell, that's when the deliberate destruction began. The "eye" logo and the antics of Randy Michaels coupled with a long and twisted trip into bankruptcy. Then came the "original programs" that came and went, and until Sincl....I mean Nexstar took over, WGN was a shell of its former self. I'm sure had Sinclair gotten WGN America, they would have done the same thing, but would have been a little less restrained about the slant than Nexstar was. It's just a boring time right now, given all we've been through over the past year or four.....

I just plain wonder if, regardless of approach, launching a news channel right now is a good idea. I'm starting to get the feeling that, after the last four years in general and the past year in particular, people are just completely and totally burned out on news. I know I am - I used to watch a lot of local and cable news up until the pandemic, and then made a conscious decision to stop watching. And I've long considered myself a hard core news junkie. The problem for Nexstar, of course, is that I don't think there was any other viable option. Sports is kind of in a weird spot right now, still mostly cable but on the verge of making a significant streaming push. Discovery kinda has the factual and unscripted stuff locked down. True Crime is saturated between HLN/Oxygen/ID and OTA options like Scripps' Court TV networks. And prestige scripting... forget about it, the streamers have that on lock down now. Additionally, this might have been the most newsworthy six months of our lifetimes, between the pandemic, the ongoing racial unrest, the election, the chaos after the election, 1/6, Biden taking office, and probably a ton of other things I can't think of. And they have utterly failed to capitalize. The audience is either unaware - unlikely because Nexstar's stations are pushing this relentlessly - or more likely, utterly disinterested in this offering. At minimum, something needs to change... and it might just be getting close to the time to cut losses.

Lauren Casey isn't using the temporary weather studio. She's been doing her forecasts this weekend from their outdoor deck in a winter coat.

Off topic from the mic but despite her speaking time only being about 10 seconds of that clip, Dari still managed to stumble over every other word.

The Pax TV—i—ION metamorphosis is very interesting to look at in retrospect. You could argue that Pax TV was a diginet 25 years ahead of its time with a lineup heavy on reruns (albeit with a few new productions) and in which the affiliates all but carried the core schedule with no deviations whatsoever. Problem was, Pax TV was a money loser from the get-go, so much so that they turned to NBC for a capital investment that wound up with NBC suing Paxson a few years later for a redemption of their investment (and vice versa) with an NBCU board member succeeding Bud Paxson as chairman. Indeed, i had a programming deal with WBTV for a number of sitcom reruns but it clearly didn’t last long at all, as the lineup became nearly subsumed by infomercials near the end of the 2000s. Rebadging as ION and focusing on procedural reruns has given them an identity they never had prior, and it now adds a piece to the overall pie of genre channels that Scripps/Katz aims to offer.

WOIO seems to be in the ratings basement. Outside of CBS lead-ins, they are dead last. Overall, they are doing horribly. WJW is tops and WEWS is doing well and much better than before. WKYC keeps dropping as a lot of people are not responding to its current approach.

This I don’t know why Nexstar doesn’t have an app for Roku, etc where you can watch your local Nexstar station and the News Nation broadcast. CBS is doing it very well and they must make a profit to continue it.

NBC News Channel and WCNC are in completely separate buildings. They are neighbors, but the buildings are not connected except for a wiring conduit.

Man the more days go on without WLS saying anything is just creating so much backlash on all social platforms. Mostly hate/insults for Cheryl. Granted we REALLY don't know what has happened and it isn't any of our business however all of this reporting sure is fueling this firestorm. You'd think the station at least would issue a statement since there has been so much backlash to try and set the record straight instead all of the silence is fueling more gossip/truth.

Drew did a lengthy Facebook Live at 9pm tonight explaining the changes - Kellie McGlynn will be full-time. He will be available for fill-in and may be working on other weather/science projects. He goes on and on from there. But he did share the return of Kathy Craine later this week to the News at Noon. On-air schedule changes are being made to keep only one person in the weather center at a time for their safety.

A nice update, but I would prefer the 3 sided rectangle triangle mic flag for the logo to perfectly fit well instead of a condensed FOX5 into a cubed square.

Keep in mind that Dothan is market 170-something, so that alone plays a part on how much they can spend on an upgrade. I'm amazed at how far WDHN has come over the past several years, to the point it's finally added morning news and taking over the news for WDFX.

The Cordillera stations are not hubbed as well as Tallahassee and Waco. Norfolk has Richmond, KSTU, WSFL, WTVF, and KMTV. I think Indianapolis has the rest, including the Katz networks. Denver doesn't have a hub and MC is hubbed from Indianapolis. They were hubbed there when they were McGraw Hill. The Now and other news products come from Denver and Indianapolis distributes for that too.

I smell something similar to this happening this time around. I don't think its impossible for somebody at a Sinclair station to suffer what WPGH suffered.

Much of that was the end of the "News Central" experiment, which actually gutted some existing newsrooms before (like WPGH), but added newscasts to their other netlet stations with content from Baltimore. WLFL did shutter theirs around the same time....were they ever NewsCentral-ized?

At one time, ION was known for sitcom reruns. They once had a Mama's Family marathon that drew a huge audience. Of course, ION rose from the ashes of PAX, which was supposed to be a faith and family-oriented version of the broadcast networks.

Looks like Ukee and Jessica have individual setups in front of separate monitors. It doesn't look like either are in the main studio at all so we may finally see them getting a much needed new set.

It should be noted that the Scripps/Katz networks and ION are all genre channels: Newsy -> all-news, no frills Grit -> westerns Laff -> sitcoms Bounce -> African American-focused Court TV -> trial coverage and analysis Court TV Mystery -> reality crime ION -> procedurals/drama Doozy -> the “true reality” A&E library Defy -> the “true reality” History library The purchase of ION Media was for the OTA clearances (and with Inyo as a de facto shell for Scripps without the need for SSAs/JSAs). ION is destined to become the flagship Scripps/Katz brand, assuredly with more acquired rerun programming and less reliance on day-long marathons of the same shows, but the genre won’t change.

Kate Bilo posted on her Instagram story that they are making some changes to the studio. Now the weather room is behind the area where Don Bell does sports. The lightning in the studio looked very different. FullSizeRender.mov

Also I don’t think it’s fair to slander Elizabeth Vargas here without any proof to back up the claims made against her. She’s still a person after all. None of us would like if that happened with us.

That's okay. I will point it out for you. You claimed that Elizabeth Vargas got her job because of her race ("...[Simpson was] unfairly latinolized by the terrible Elizabeth Vargas") And you then claimed Tom Llamas got his job because of his race ("...you know that 'hermano' connection...") Has the thought crossed your mind that perhaps they got their jobs because they are both qualified and talented? I will grant you the benefit of the doubt and assume it was unintentional, but it is otherwise suggestive of either casual or overt racism.

I'm inclined to agree! David Muir has a personality that can shift from the "seriousness" and breaking news to the fluffy crap of GMA. George is more stiff. He's good at hard news, breaking coverage and politics. But yes, it does seem odd to have George come in to anchor coverage in the afternoon when David is there, then alternate weekends on This Week. I'm surprised they don't co-anchor coverage of events like Lester and Savannah do on NBC. Hypothetically, if they wanted to compromise George and David could do a dual head anchorship like Huntley/Brinkley. They could split duties like the early days of WNT where George would cover politics and international news and David covers the U.S. and the fluff. As you pointed out David brings in the numbers so I wouldn't mess with that.

I don’t think this would happen but it would be something if TL was headed to CBS and not NBC and he ends up anchoring the CBS Evening News.

Yeah, I feel like this was probably a contributing factor for Tom Llamas to leave, there's not really much growth if he was aiming to be leading anchor on the weekday line-up in the near future. On GMA, it seems like T.J Holmes will be primed to take over GMA at this point, especially since he was added to GMA3 and he and Robach seem to be the future of the franchise. In the evening, Muir will most likely be anchoring for another decade or two as long as the ratings are strong. I do wonder if NBC has offered Tom Llamas a role on Today, like on the third hour? Overall, do you guys think that ABC News will force David and George to do something together just to show the public that they're civil and friendly? Or will this just be one of those things that the network won't really speak about in public kinda like drunk Diane Sawyer from 2012.

George got a contract extension, pay raise and production company out of the deal. I'm sure he knew this was coming but complained about it as a negotiating tactic, knowing ABC wanted him to stay, and he seems to have made out pretty well.

Could see this tension from a mile away. At the time of the 2014 negotiation, GMA was the flagship brand gaining steam while WNT was falling behind. I’ve grown to really admire George on GMA but honestly he and David Muir are better suited for each other’s programs than their own. David to me seems to be playing the role of serious anchor but it’s hardly believable. Besides that point, George is just a better breaking news anchor than David seems to be. I don’t like this development but David is pulling 10M viewers a night, he can ask for whatever he wants. I personally can’t see him leading election or political coverage, that will be an easy switch to Lester imo.

Crazy! I was just tinking about Matt Gutman's previous suspension when I saw him reporting on the Tiger Woods crash. Lester is pretty solid as anchor of Nightly News, David Muir is pretty good too (ABC News however....). The only Evening News anchor I see could being unseated in the near future is Nora O'Donnell, not that CBS has anyone better at the moment.

Not surprising that the tensions have lingered, but I'll be damned if they keep finding ways to make it all work. And no one needs to reiterate their confusion over the "Chief Anchor" role, like the dead horse that is. It's really not complicated, and spelled out in this story.

Tagging off of this regarding GMA , but I thought GMA's super this morning of "Tiger Breaks His Silence" was a bit off key given how horrendously his legs were crushed. Any other cliche newsspeak lower would have been better.

They dwelled on Tiger Woods a little much last night. Why do we need a rehash of the guys last win at the Masters and how everybody felt about it that lasted almost as long as the original report? The other issue is revealing so much in the teaser they are literally repeating themselves word for word in the newscast. I’ve been watching some of the old ABC newscasts lately and this kind of sloppy stuff sticks out like a sore thumb.

I love the release on their website: "KTLA has a long history of firsts when it comes to technology..." Forget that CBSN, ABC O&O's, Gray, Scripps, etc have had Roku/Fire/AppleTV apps for a long time- Nexstar stations are leading the way like the Internet Explorer of SmartTV news that they are!

All CBS needs to do now is get Face the Nation, The Evening News, and their o&o stations in order. In addition to improving their on-air look, and either poaching big talent from other networks or developing strong in house talent.

WOIO has preempted CBS This Morning this morning and there really is no need to. Cleveland did not get the snow as expected. Once again, WOIO is a joke. Last week they did a complete story with anchor Tiffany Tucker, her narration showed an empty studio chair for 45 seconds. This place is a dismal television station in a market that likes CBS. Losers every time they are the air. We are going to start doing shots when they screw up. Big fun awaits. The engineers don't care. Life in a basement.

I recall a side-effect of the implementation of retransmission consent. The stations began running joint ads telling consumers to urge their cable companies to keep their channels on cable. This was at least a decade before Perry Sook starting directly shaking down cable companies for money. For whatever reason, WEWS which was on channel 9, got moved to 11, and WJW moved from 11 to 9. WOIO and WUAB traded spots as well on 6 and 13. Poor shielding was why 3, 5 and 8 were on 2, 11 and 9. 3 was WDLI, 5 was WVIZ, and 8 was WBNX. On the flip side, WOAC was added on channel 12 and several years later, WQHS was added to channel 7 (replacing QVC) and WAOH got a full time slot on channel 15 (after part time carriage on the access channel). These latter moves were part of must-carry, except for WAOH, which was low power. Years later, these were all changed after Time Warner took over the Adelphia systems in Cleveland, and the lineups were more standardized. Spectrum has really made things worse with their packages and poorer service than Time Warner had.

I still remember the days where we had to have a box because our city's build out had "A" and "B" lines which required an A/B switch and made recording from a VCR a guessing game (I went on a vacation hoping I recorded the ALF finale movie on ABC on the A side...only to come home to two hours of Saturday night CNBC on the B side). Despite that, we still had some split channels into the 90s until Charter bought our provider and implemented one-line service, then digital cable. And we didn't even get BET until 2012 locally. And in that time, we've lost channels because our city was classified as a Milwaukee market city, but Green Bay channels are also in our market, so as networks who don't care about decades-long relationships between viewer and stations, we lost the UPN/MyNet, CBS and Fox stations from Green Bay because of network greed. Thankfully streaming for most of them makes catching their news easy (except for Nexstar stations), but it's aggravating to pay so much a month for all this service and your provider doesn't want to deal with blackout hassles just to keep offering a Fox station from out-of-market, lest they lose Fox News next time because of bitterness on Rupert's end.

Remember the stations Comcast wanted to kick off their system and changed their mind? Well, some are still going away after all... Despite all of the options out there, there still seems to be no perfect TV option. Going way back into the dark ages of cable tv (for me) was the 40-channel Warner cable lineup that split CNBC with WKBN out of Youngstown and C-SPAN 2 with BET. That soon expanded to 70-ish channels with a new fiber optic platform, and to the temporary disgust of their customers, a cable box REQUIRED for any channel above basic. They soon relented, and moved the expanded basic back to unscrambled, and kept the higher tiers on the box. This was a good 15 years before the cable companies decided to "box" everything, and when they could do so, completely scrambled their content by going full-on digital. I've said it a million times. It is entirely possible to make the system a-la-carte. But no company wants to because they will lose the goldmine of fees they "must" charge the consumer for the privilege of being their only choice.

Prime time was when WNDU became Wood TV on Adelphia cable now Comcast from 8PM to 11PM in the 90's but there was no syndex it wasn't blacked out. Had WNDU & WSBT out of South Bend, WSYM Fox47 from Lansing, WWOR in NYC was taken off on New Year's Eve in 1994, WGN everyone in the midwest had WGN Superstation. I was surprised that Adelphia cable didn't have WKBD out of Detroit which was Michigan's superstation in the 80's & 90's Cablevision had it on channel 10 I think in 93 or 94 they may have gotten rid of it. I think I remember Time Warner Cable was in a dispute with Hearst for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2012 and took some out of market TV stations which whoever owned the TV station went to court to try and make TWC not to air the channels the courts never ruled when a deal was reached with TWC & Hearst. TWC took the out of market TV stations off and the owners dropped the lawsuit. I believe that Pay TV should get out of market TV when a dispute happens with the local ABC where I live isn't a problem as there is 2 ABC's so if one goes dark you can watch either WOTV or WZZM, NBC, CBS or Fox should get one from South Bend or Lansing since those are the 2 closes markets for Charter Spectrum & Comcast.

That's not monopolistic practices. And since the FCC approves the majority of the sales involving sidecars, they seem to be OK with it. You want the government to make changes to suit what you want to see happen. That's not going to happen. The government doesn't have that power. Face it, the station groups are only going to get bigger and thus have more leverage over the providers. It's reality. And I'm saying that as someone who thinks the UHF discount should be eliminated and companies shouldn't be able to use sharing agreements/sidecars as loopholes to get around ownership limits. But it's reality and we have to deal with it.

The groups should still be at an impasse. Trying to watch this game, they wouldn't have been missing much.

The station groups are all for-profit companies. Assuming they're not engaging in monopolistic practices, there is no reason for the government to step in and create unnecessary rules to lower those profits. It is a free marketplace the broadcasters can charge what the providers will pay for the stations. The providers haven't done enough to keep retransmission fees low. The government shouldn't do it for them. If they try that, broadcasters would probably sue and would probably have a strong case

All addressed by the STELA act; local stations have blackout rights to overlay O&O's, no matter what, and you have to go through a process that includes actual U.S. mail in order to convince your local station (even a MyNetworkTV affiliate) to watch an OOM station such as WWOR or WABC, and you have to show literal proof, including pictures, documentation and video to show 'yeah, I can't get this station at all by antenna, I can't get cable which offers it, and I'm out of range of a streamer to get this station'...and maybe they'll approve your request, but that's also a crapshoot.

Cox and AT&T have reached a new agreement, and the CMG stations are back on AT&T's platforms. https://www.whio.com/news/local/whio-tv-is-back-attdirectv-ahead-big-game/CDRWXSP74BCJNNDMPY2FHC66AE/

Wheel/Jeopardy are on WCNC, not WSOC. And the order is reversed on WLOS vis a vis WCNC.

Such a class act. We shall overcome, Ukee. Blessed be my friend.

CBS could buy any of the other stations in Cleveland. Nexstar wouldn't give up WJW and neither would Scripps with WEWS. Maybe Tegna might surrender WKYC. Then there's WBNX. Not to mention WVPX and WDLI. The last thing WOIO needs though is another affiliate switch. It was a rough go the first time in 1994. Not sure they would want to repeat it again.

Not to mention, thing that'd draw CBS to buy stations is the Cleveland Browns, which have only just come out of a long slump. Cleveland sports teams have never done particularly well for the most part. Only the Caveliers have really bucked the trend.

WKRC?

In the memory and tribute to Bob Kudzma. RIP Bob and Godspeed.