Leaderboard

I don't get the pessimism on here about this. The soaps have run their course. We've all known that for the better part of two decades now. NBC's also not going to replace it with any other kind of conventional program like another tired talk show. NBC News Now is a really high quality product, and this is a great opportunity to get traditional TV audiences to sample it. Somebody's finally going to try a true midday national newscast. I also don't think this is that much of a competitor response to GMA3 – that show is garbage, whereas NBC News Now is actual news. It's not going to be pretty though when word gets back to the Days of Our Lives audience that their beloved show is moving to some far-flung internet outlet. I would not want to be answering phones at an NBC affiliate this fall, as that is a very small but pretty rabid fanbase. I remember whenever NBC would pre-empt DOOL for something else, such as the Olympics, the French Open or a news special report, a DOOL fan would call in and accuse *us,* not NBC, of pre-empting DOOL and would threaten to call NBC to get them to pull our affiliation. Lol.

And they’ve further modified the graphics, moving the logo, time, and temperature to the right side of the screen in a much more compact size.

Congratulations to WFMJ for finally realizing 1988 happened 34 years ago and it's time to have a 5pm newscast.

Keep your eyes on WCCO Sept. 5. (h/t @tw-804) IMG_0605.MOV

If it wasn't for Scripps trying to make their Must-Run Hour a thing (along with advertorials), a lot of their NBC affiliates would be in the same position. We're also losing RightThisMinute, so that's a lot of stations that already had an hour free going into summer. CBS Daytime is proud of their 36-year daytime #1 streak, so just for that I wouldn't count it out yet just based on that boast; it'll be considered when ABC blinks and moves General Hospital to Freeform or Hulu or cancels it and CBS just declares 'flawless victory' by attrition. The Talk would likely go over the soaps for a newshour More likely they want to hit that round number of 40 years, and then bring those shows to a dignified end with proper closures for both.

I can at least say they were open to criticize issues involving their management. Yes, these media shows definitely don't like to bite the hand that feeds them, but they did bring their bosses to account, and I will admit I've never been a fan of Brian Stelter (I can't stand self-promotion), but it's still downright uneasy to fire a media critic. Also, any kind of Sunday morning show now merely appeals to a circular audience of both Washington insiders and those looking to find (very rare) gotcha journalism. The ratings and their influence are declining as to a normal person, it just seems like a thing designed to fill with soundbites for two minutes on Sunday newscasts with something besides coverage of North Platte Alfalfa Days. When Tim Russert and David Brinkley died, their aggressive questions and call to power seemed to do the same thing.

You must’ve watched a different Brian Stelter than I’ve watched. For nearly its entire run under Stelter and Jeff Zucker, Reliable Sources was a PR machine for CNN disguised as a media analysis program. While they rightfully pointed out instances in which Fox News lacked journalistic ethics, I can’t remember the last time they seriously scrutinized their own network for blatant bias and lapses in judgement. Not to mention, in June the show only averaged 79k in the 25-54 demo. People should’ve seen this move coming from miles away. You mention Ted Turner, but even he mentioned that today’s CNN needed to tone down the opinion. Letting Stelter walk is a start.

Completely spitballing here, but I could see another relaunch of "American Gladiators" being a good fit for the new CW... as long as they do it much like the original, as if it were a straight-up sports competition, and not like the 2008 relaunch, that was packed full of reality show tropes.

If it wasn’t for WFMJ wanting to counterprogram WKBN at 5pm with Maury, then Oprah, then Ellen, WFMJ would’ve done it YEARS ago.

Jeffrey Toobin is out.

Amy Yensi from Spectrum News 1 (NY1) now an assignment reporter for Pix11. Just appeared on the weekend news on a report with Harlem Community.

FIST FIRST on TVNewsTalk... The TVNewsTalk On Your Side I-Team Investigators have obtained building plans that appear to show NBC is in the process of renovating and dividing Studio 3B (last major use was NBC Nightly News/Rock Center up until 2017). The plans show two similar looking studios (however, the plans are marked "Scenic Fabrication by others, shown as reference for coordination purposes only") named as "3B-1" and "3B-2". The plans appear to show a 360 degree track camera in each, possibly similar to what BBC News uses. Could these be for WNBC and WNJU once Telemundo moves to 30 Rock? DEVELOPING...

They don’t look that far off from the “NOW” and CBS News streaming graphics, and they look to be using the new CBS font, so it seems plausible. They’re only 2ish weeks away from debuting that newscast, though I imagine they’ll be ironing out any kinks over that period

IMO thats the issue, more news. I'm not sure how high quality of a news product NBC News Daily will be if we use the Today Show and Nightly News as a barometer, not to mention MSNBC. Its probably going to be more of the same, COVID, Climate Change, Ukraine, Jan 6th/Trump, and Inflation, viral video, wash-rinse-repeat. Plus, I think the pessimism stems from the fact that daytime television is now beoming a vat of stale repetitive talkshows, and local news overload. As bad as soaps have become people still like the idea that a bit of traditional comfort viewing remained in daytime. If you think this is bad, WBBH NBC 2 in Ft Myers, FL barely has a daytime lineup outside of news. The only thing keeping them from a 7 PM newscast is Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!

About a two years ago I though CNN was hopeless and done for, then a few rays of light in the post Zucker era. Will CNN finally be great again? Don't want to get my hopes up because the 2024 election is right around the corner so CNN might go back to non stop Trump coverage mode. Never forget when Ted Koppel told Brian Stelter the reality of what CNN had become:

It’s honestly a matter of time before CBS moves both Bell serials to Paramount+ in favor of a CBS News Streaming-produced midday news hour.

DOOL airs at noon in several O&O markets. No word on what is going to happen.

Exactly the same at WNBC/New York except New York Live is 11:30 to 12. Question is for the NBC O&Os that currently broadcast DOOL at noon, will NBC News Daily be at noon, or would Access Daily switch to noon? If no switch will the new newscast be live everywhere? No promotions yet on NBC New York on what will happen.

Dan Mannarino adopted a baby girl named Olivia. https://www.instagram.com/p/ChcTpBwuj4t/

News 12 Long Island moved to Bethpage this week. I don't have access to the channel but one of the anchors posted this: There's also this mirrored vertical video tour of the studio where Samantha Augeri says this is a temporary studio, which makes me feel better because it definitely seems temporary or secondary from the little I've seen online.

I see your point and I understand what you mean now. I don’t know how many similar media critics there are out there, but perhaps it would’ve been better to re-tool Reliable Sources with a new face instead of junking the show entirely. In some ways, I suppose having zero independent media critics on staff at all carries its own set of negative and even dangerous implications, and a “just the headlines” strategy doesn’t have to include dumping media critics entirely.

KRCW (Portland) has been airing a few minor league games from the Hillsboro Hops (just outside of Portland) this year. The production values were very simple and the picture quality wasn't great. I only tuned in once and can't remember if they had a TV announcer or if it was just nat sound. I wonder how it was being produced. May have just been the feed that normally streams online? Doubt the TV broadcast was specially produced, but if it was I wonder if they outsourced it or had KOIN staff do it.

These videos mention WWE and the XFL as sports on UPN.

This evening's newscasts featured the anchors anchoring from the NEXT Weather desk. I wonder what updates they're making to the main anchor area.

I imagine NBC will try to angle for as many 7/7:30e starts as they’re able when SNL is new (as they do for the ND deal)

With NBC now having a regular Saturday night football package, I wonder how they'll pacify Lorne if we get a nine-overtime game like we got last year...along with the stations who may just have to do a speed-run five minute newscast. And for next year, will CBSSN get some Big Ten overflow action if CBS has to move onto the SEC at 3:30...or even someplace else like MTV based on ubiquitous carriage/other conflicts.

Inside Edition hasn't even be on WGCL for a year! It seems a little ludicrous to move something so soon. It is harder to have more news as an CBS affiliate with TPIR, LMAD (depending on where you are in the county for time), Y&R, B&B, AND The Talk. I'm all for canceling the latter though

NPR: Brian Stelter to depart CNN as it cancels 'Reliable Sources' media show https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118197553/brian-stelter-cnn-canceled-show

That’s old news, no? Frank stated it himself in January, and it was established when KTVU moved Mike Mibach to the evening/late news in April. He’s been “officially out” for a while now. I’m surprised TVSpy posted this as if it were a new development just because of a Facebook update.

Here he is dropping a tease about potentially pursuing sports rights (0:49):

This month marks 15 years at WABC for Jeff Smith. Bill mentioned it, as they showed a photo of Jeff with the award, before going to Jeff for the forecast during the 6pm newscast.

Might as well close it down. Does anyone even watch myNetwork?

I read that the current entertainment president is staying with The CW under new ownership. I don't know how long he would last after all of the programming changes. He is the same guy who kept renewing shows that had horrible ratings, yet had more streaming views and were shows he liked.

There's one thing that glares significantly over this sale, beyond this totally cringe-inducing passage from COO Tom Carter: @sanewsguyasked this on Discord this morning... where's Perry? Arguably the biggest day in the history of the company—and less than two weeks after his tenure as CEO was extended by four years—and he was nowhere to be seen. I can't imagine the CEO of one of the country's largest pure-play television chains going AWOL the day of their highest-profile transaction, let alone a CEO so totally tied in with the company that he's almost universally known as Uncle Perry.

I also don't see them pushing it on their own stations with active newsrooms. Nexstar O&O, oops Mission's WPIX has several newscasts a day including at 6:30 pm and 10-11 pm.. NewsNation provides no value.

They won't push NewsNation on the affiliates. Why? Because that's not the best use of NewsNation. As I've said a few times on the Discord, the best use for NewsNation to Nexstar is to dump existing affiliations on their owned stations in favor of reformatting NewsNation programming to run OTA. With NBC and ABC moving entertainment programming to their streaming services, it's just a matter of time until companies like Nexstar question why they're paying Comcast, Paramount, and Disney big $$$ for basically a bunch of national news programming and a big nightly ad for Disney+/Peacock/Paramount+, when Nexstar already produces national news programming. "Ohhhhh! But..." you say. Tell me, would anyone actually notice if Nexstar replaced the latest flop that CBS has on in the morning with Mornings in America? The CW fits into that plan by providing general entertainment on their duopoly stations, .2s, or by selling the affiliation off and collecting money from other stations in the market.

I'd be shocked if anything NewsNation ended up on the CW. Maybe a NN-branded magazine show for the weekend, at most.

Forcing any NewsNation product onto the CW is a non-starter and would implode the affiliate base.

I guess it depends on the specifics of the new programming. I’m not sure affiliates are going to want to air NewsNation, for example, given that they may soon be home to both Chris Cuomo and Bill O’Reilly. If Nexstar is just planning on putting out cheap older-skewing programs and leftovers from Paramount/Warner, I guess it wouldn’t be as big a deal (especially since it’s just 2 hours per night).

Thing is, it was a success…a financial one. A post in the NewsNation thread explained that they’ve saved lots of money by cutting syndicated programming and replacing it with its own, cheaper to produce programming. From Nexstar’s last Annual Report: Don’t get me wrong, nobody’s watching NewsNation, but that’s secondary to the fact that they’re making more money on the network by virtue of 1) paying less for the programming and 2) owning the ad inventory. I don’t like it one bit from a programming standpoint, but I’d expect the same thing for The CW under Nexstar. You mean that you wouldn’t want to see a Guy Fieri special replace the Arrowverse on your station? Blasphemy! /s Seriously though, you can add Hearst to that mix too.

If I’m at Scripps, Sinclair and Gray, I’m taking a good look at exercising whatever sale-related clauses exist in my CW affiliate contracts.

The internet is having a field day with the revelation that the average CW (broadcast) viewer is 58 years old. https://deadline.com/2022/08/cw-average-viewer-age-58-nexstar-1235092697/

The big question here is if Nexstar maintains the CW+ infrastructure and continues to offer it as a sub/cable network, or begins to wind it down, along with overall caution for the largest affiliate bases like Sinclair and Gray. It's still worth it for now to offer syndicated product that would otherwise go unseen in a market, more than the 18 hours of CW programming.

It seems that is not what Nexstar plans. I'm guessing he wants to use the off network shows on their own stations, limiting viewership and buzz. Good luck. A few things mentioned in the investors conference are a bit concerning. They mentioned the production agreement with Paramount Global and WBD is for a year, and after that will be considered. They mentioned that they plan on moving away from mostly scripted programming. They seem to be following post divestiture Fox's approach with a few scripted shows and several cheap uninteresting unscripted game shows and more. I'm not sure that will bring more eyeballs to the CW. It may backfire. I know it's a turn off for myself and I watch several CW shows. They also positioned the transition from WGN America to NewsNation as a success. Huh? It's not watched by many and I doubt Chris Cuomo is enough to change that (or any other rehab projects they decide to program). In five years, I can see Nexstar in a lot of hurt if none of this is as successful as Sook believes.

The CW’s saving grace these past few years was their Netflix deals and global syndication

The other difference is that UPN and WB existed in an era where smartphones and OTT streaming services didn't exist.

Since they were nice and credited us: NewscastStudio has confirmed the split is for WNBC/WNJU.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise, as that set design seen elsewhere, while obviously attractive enough and totally serviceable, is over 5 years old.

OK! WKYC Studios rebranding got off to a bad start but 2 years later, things improve.