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Okay I'm just gonna say it before this thread turns insane: I don't think we need to see what each and every station's network overlay bug looks like.

For the most part, most everyone you see on-screen on a newscast has been vaccinated because they didn't want to broadcast from home or be distant on the set any longer, and already had their celebrations of such in April and May; I know of nobody in eastern Wisconsin who has left their station outside of the regular old reasons and openly shared when their teams were all past the inoculation period. The hold-outs seem to be that side of broadcasting that think of it as a 'calling to God' and that they can somehow convert people reporting on a five-car accident or consumer reporting (the type that seem to pack a lot of 'news/talk' conservative radio station newsrooms), and think they're just that 'one big story' away from getting on Fox News or will personally oust Raymond Arroyo or Pat Robertson. Outside a few true exceptions where they cannot actually get the shot due to medical reasons, and along with the general public, they are few and far between, but can get the news on their side since they know the emotional tricks of doing so.

The fights over exemptions seem like most were bogus or cop-outs anyway. Unless you're Amish or something like that, the chance of a legitimate religious exemption is zero as no organized religious body has said no to vaccines (they have either encouraged or at most been neutral) - independent evangelical churches don't count there. As far as medical exemptions, they are only likely if someone is allergic to it or had a serious reaction in the past from a different vaccine, which applies to less than 1% of the population. That may be about 50 people, at the most, at all Gray operations combined. I know Tegna's mandate begins November 13 and Scripps has theirs on December 1. Meredith aligned them with Gray (which makes sense).

The Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband has begun debate on a bill (HR 4208, an amendment to Section 331 of the Communications Act called the ‘‘Section 331 Obligation 5 Clarification Act’’) that would, in principle, force Fox to adhere WWOR to commitments to offer at least 14 hours of New Jersey-focused local news programming per week (seven of which have to be scheduled between 6:00 p.m. and midnight ET), maintain a broadcast studio in Secaucus (WWOR has been run out of WNYW’s Fox Television Center facility in Manhattan since FTS sold the since-demolished 9 Broadcast Plaza facility to Hartz Mountain Industries in 2018), file local programming disclosures with the FCC (including how programming aims to satisfy the local content requirements), and consult with community leaders on the type of local programming should that would be featured. The bill is backed by four Democratic Congressmen representing New Jersey: it was introduced in the House by Reps. Bill Pascrell and Albo Sires, and in the Senate by Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez. (Menendez, in particular, has been the most fervent critic of FTS’ management of WWOR, particularly since its news department was shuttered nearly a decade ago in favor of the now-defunct Chasing News.) At least two Republican Congressmen seem to be making it about the bill targeting a Fox-owned station: Energy & Commerce Committee ranking member Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) claimed it was “another attempt by Democrats to disregard the First Amendment, this time telling broadcast stations what type of news programming to distribute,” and Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) claimed the bill was another Democratic effort to “counter news programming they simply don‘t like.” (The FCC has previously maintained local programming requirements for television stations, and Long made an apparent conflation of FTS with Fox News, despite the fact that the cable-based Fox News Channel offers conservative content by format, while Fox O&O newscasts largely are traditional local news operations, and ignored that the bill aims to enforce WWOR to offer New Jersey-based content it isn’t currently providing and hasn’t for some time and doesn’t dictate that the content hew to a particular political lean.)

I freaking knew it. The way that the network discontinued weeknight weather segments and dumped him off to the weekends was surely NOT what Albert signed up for a year ago. The minute they gave the weekday morning position to Gerard and not Albert, I figured Albert would not be long for NewsNation. The only thing that surprised me was that it came so soon, after only working one weekend (this past weekend). Hopefully this means he was able to secure another job somewhere. Best of luck to him, and hopefully the next place that hires him actually lets him stay in the position for which he was hired for more than one year.

They were shared to me privately, and no offense to anyone in particular, but there can be some loose lips around here, so no. I'm sure we'll see the final product soon enough, and no, I have to idea of the launch date(s).

About 280 unique entries in my collection of WLS opens, and this is one I've never seen before. The station had used, to my knowledge, little more than a flash of the logo over a wide shot of the set as an open until their WPVI-style 1992 revamp. This clip shows us something rather different. (12/27/78)

My favorite Ken moment

I don’t want NewsNation to fail either. In fact, a year ago I pointed out that people were calling for NN to shut down, but nobody was calling for Newsy to shudder even though their cable numbers were lower. Just because I make a joke about their crummy set doesn’t mean I’m bashing them. I actually think the idea behind Abrams’ show is great: a host that respects people with other opinions, instead of calling them stupid. The problem is that isn’t NewsNation’s original mission: to bring a straight news program on cable. Instead it’s now the same type of content people already get elsewhere, just less rabid. Another problem is that their primary medium is cable TV. My parents cancelled their cable, and I'm not paying $60/month for Youtube TV or Hulu Live, just for the channel to get pulled during an inevitable Nexstar retrans fight. Cable TV is a declining business. Why do you think Newsy is prioritizing streaming and over-the-air? It's good they post a bunch of their stuff on Youtube to make it more accessible, but unfortunately their cable channel is coming first, which isn't great for growth. As for their website, SimilarWeb, a website analytics company, says NewsNation's site gets over 1 million total visits a month. Some of Nexstar's stronger stations, like KHON, WHNT, and WREG, get around 2 million. However, those stations have been around for decades, and NN is only one year old, so that million is nothing to scoff at.

Add one more Gray personality to the list. Kerri Hayden - https://kgab.com/longtime-cheyenne-tv-anchor-fired-over-covid-19-vaccine-mandate/ And then, there is a veteran news anchor who was fired back in September due to COVID-19 protocols. You can read more about it at https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/09/09/michigan-tv-anchor-frank-turner-covid-19-protocols/8266073002/ Also, you may remember that KATV did a segment recently where the station returned to the 1970s and the two journalists wore Afro-like wigs. Well, the news director Nick Genty was fired, and news anchor Chris May and longtime station meteorologist Barry Brandt were both suspended. You can read more about this at https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/04/arkansas-tv-journalists-suspended-afro-wigs/.

And Albert Ramon has bailed from NN