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From a news consumer perspective this is new paint slapped on the same old thing. The debut newscasts lead with live reports from ANF crews in South Carolina and Florida. If you go with a name like "Atlanta News First" I expect local news to be up front - or at least the local perspective. Why send local resources when you have CBS and presumably CNN crews to provide national coverage? If you're going to climb out of last place you can't expect fresh branding on the same product to accomplish anything.

I agree with this. Some light what ifs at the prospect of an affiliation change at WANF is fine, but no need for speculation about CBS in Seattle and Tampa, or even other Atlanta stations. Lord knows there's enough to dissect with CBS 46 Atlanta News First.

The Disney channels are back on Dish. That was a very short lived dispute by Dish standards.

I’m not a moderator or anything (and I would never pretend to be), but perhaps this discussion about an affiliation switch would be best for the speculatron? CBS hasn’t given an explicit indication of wanting to pull its affiliation in Atlanta, and until then, everybody’s basically taking guesses. Anyway, the ANF YouTube channel has been placing thumbnails with headlines on their videos. Even videos from before the launch have these thumbnails. Granted, this is an extremely minor detail, but I’ve never seen this style of thumbnail from too many local outlets (even O&Os). This is stuff I’ve usually seen from bigger outlets, like France 24 and DW, on their YouTube channels. Smart use of branding, if you ask me.

The thing with DMAs is that Nielsen has basically stopped publishing rankings every year. The FCC is looking for a replacement metric as of now.

I don't understand. DMAs still exist. It is how programming is sold, how broadcast coverage is defined, how ownership within a market is limited, etc.

Nexstar doesn't need to address anything regarding the affiliate list. The last part of your sentence is everything that one needs to know. Affiliates have contracts with the network and so if you were a CW affiliate yesterday, you are one today. Do not expect massive overnight changes to the affiliate lineup. I know many on this board have speculated wildly about stations that might become a CW O&O. But under normal circumstances that will not happen until the incumbent's affiliate agreement is up...if it happens at all. I can think of two exceptions. An ownership change could trigger "out clauses" in an affiliate contract. I'm thinking in particular the Chicago market, where Nexstar might see it worth the legal expense to claim the affiliation for WGN. But Nexstar doesn't need to "address" that publicly since it would up to the two parties to work it out. The other condition that could trigger an overnight switch is if a competing broadcast network objected to a competitor owning one of their affiliates. I see this as highly unlikely since nobody objected to CBS owning part of the CW. But even if this did come up, Nexstar has nothing to address publicly until NBC, ABC, or FOX expresses a desire to end its affiliation.

Good for him. He was one of the handful of people Fox laid off early in the pandemic.

And make CBS go where, WXIA, WSB? Obviously pure speciation but that's quite a thought. To be fair WSB isn't as appealing to be an affiliate for as it was say thirty years ago during the last major switch's

I hadn’t considered the interest rate hikes, so that’s a good point. That said, if CBS ever pulls the affiliation from WANF, would Gray accept it without pulling other CBS affiliations? Wouldn’t the resulting blowback from Gray end up being worse for CBS? I know this is all wildly off topic and speculative, and I apologize if I’m inadvertently derailing the thread. That’s the last thing I’ll ask relating to that scenario.

I’m not familiar with CBS’ mindset here, but would they be that desperate for an O&O in Atlanta? It would make sense if they wanted one, say, 7 years ago, when WGCL was a dumpster fire, but if ANF turns out to be somewhat successful, why bother? IIRC, NBC did what they did in Boston due to preemptions, wanting to dissociate from WHDH’s tabloid news, and the fact that they already had an established operation there (NECN). Those factors don’t really exist in Atlanta for CBS. Why waste money on a startup operation (that will likely bomb, given today’s media environment) when your affiliate is doing all the work for you?

To be fair, the station’s fate isn’t entirely in their own hands. How well ANF does will be influenced by how much the competition slips up (especially WSB/Apollo). That said, given that the station has been remarkably stable as of late, I’m optimistic that this goes beyond a name/set change. IMHO, they don’t have to end up in first place (or even second) to consider this a success. They simply have to be competitive. Gray’s short-term goals were to make investments into the station, hire solid journalists, and maintain stability. So far, it looks like they’ve done that. Even in the worst-case scenario, they are at least putting out a better and more accessible product today than they ever have before.

Eh. Lets see the ratings in a year. I dont doubt the new investment and money being spent is nice. But how many times has a station (including this one) gotten excited and said “its a new day!” “This time its gonna work”! Stations have time and time again rebranded, promising to focus on news that “matters” etc and it flops.

The CW does need to address what the list of affiliates will look like going forward, especially if the network is going on more of the Nexstar or staying as is as of right now.

The fact that now I have heard about NewsNation (actually) preempting regular programming for Hurricane coverage shows how little the channel has been impacting viewership. I wonder how the ratings were for that day.

Very likely we will see programming powered by NewsNation, I can totally see crime documentaries and other news magazine specials (in the vein of how TMZ has been doing primetime specials on Fox) being part of the lineup. Kinda sad but not shocked that Mark Pedowitz is gone. He did a lot of good for The CW and kept the network's relevancy. It will certainly be interesting to see where Nextstar will take The CW, would love to see some sort of original programing continue.

That would've been one hell of a twist, though.

Here's a thought: If the news branding is "Atlanta News First", why not have the station's overall branding be "ANF"? I mean, no one refers to CNN as "Cable News Network" these days...

We should point out that it isn't THAT Dennis Miller, the former comedian and SNL alum turned conservative commentator.

I thought that Gray renewed with CBS last year and that included WGCL/WANF? I read it somewhere on a media website I could be wrong on that. I think they should use different branding when they don't have news hours which I know is few for WANF has now being with Gray.

Dish is the worse when it comes with getting deals done I wouldn't ever go with them for that reason as I don't think they try to get deals done in my opinion. Disney doesn't need Dish as Dish needs Disney more why it didn't last that long as I thought they would get a deal done. Dish doesn't like sports fans either.

WGCL/WANF switches from CBS to NBC if that happens? Yes, I know that is pure speculation, but it's what WRAL did, and Gray doesn't have too much to lose now they ditched the CBS branding.

The Rams-49ers Monday Night Football game will air tomorrow on KABC and KGO, two of the stations that are part of this.

To be fair, Nexstar recently agreed to an affiliation agreement with CBS that removed the affiliation from WJMN. I wouldn't expect this to be some kind of New World-esque mass re-alignment. Gray has clearly prepped for the possibility of losing CBS on WANF and only on WANF. Just because it might work in Atlanta right now doesn't mean they are prepared to do it elsewhere... at this time. Nobody expected CBS to re-launch news in Detroit, either. Once they have that spun up, they have a formula for doing it elsewhere. There's cost involved with building out a news operation, yes, but it's nothing like it was 10-20 years ago, which is definitely a driving factor in CBS choosing to re-launch news in Detroit. You no longer need a fleet of $250,000 a pop ENG trucks and $20,000 ENG cameras. You don't need a huge studio facility, especially considering what CBS is doing in Detroit with the whole "Neighborhood News" concept. WBXI didn't re-enter the CBS fold until 2019 though, so they haven't had a whole lot of time to use that as leverage.

Cheap Charlie strikes again

The Cox side owns 19% and it uses "Cox Media Name" just in name only, and privately equity is what's is. Wall Street players looking at profits and the younger Cox generation of the family didn't see any interest in media. WSB-TV hasn't ship wreck yet!

WSB is owned by a New York private equity firm (to call it a "hometown company" is extremely generous bordering on Truthiness, Cox Media ceased being "an Atlanta company" when the Cox family sold out due the Theranos scandal), which doesn't care about investing into it and ultimately wants to sell it to the highest bidder. Private equity is the worst type of ownership because they want to make back their money, everything else be damned. The only thing WSB has going for it is Rusted Dial Syndrome.

The networks aren't going away they're going to reinvent themselves. That what the local management thinks, and most executives are stuck in their own enclave. CBS has added value to WGNX/GCL/ANF- but over the last 20+ years the ownership and management have placed their own stamp on station. This station needs stability and here hoping Gray does the station well. Just insert that CBS eye into the logo and let see if still beats WXIA come after November Sweeps. Competition slips up? Has WSB lost it ratings share? NO! It still #1 and still commands a 50% audience, because "Cox" doesn't officially own the station. WSB going to do what WSB does and that to stay on top!

Who’d buy them? Nexstar is grossly over the cap that, even if they tried to play the Mission route, it wouldn’t exactly work like they would want it to. The charade of selling WPIX to Scripps was set up in a way that Mission could buy them, this OTOH would be grossly flagrant and highly visible (as opposed to Mission shadow buying a station for Nexstar to create a duop in the middle of nowhere in market #179). Plus this is no longer an environment receptive to M&As as the Federal Reserve keeps hiking the prime interest rate. If anything, CBS can use KSTW and WTOG to force Apollo to sell them KIRO and Tegna to sell them WTSP.

I've been a Dish subscriber for many years but I think I'm about done. IMO Dish is playing with fire here and getting a lot of customers that otherwise may have just stayed customers out of momentum to explore streaming services.

You all do realize CBS has owned WUPA since 1994, right? If they wanted to move the affiliation, they would’ve done so a while ago. A lot of major market CBS affiliates are in 3rd or 4th place, you don’t see CBS trying to move affiliations there, do you? Also, Gray owns other CBS affiliates, I don’t thing CBS is looking to piss off Gray. What NBC did in Boston is completely different, as they did not own a station there prior.

I agree. I’ve never liked stations that use their “news brand” as an overall station brand (looking at you WFTS) I'm also not really sold on the name “Atlanta news first” - to me it seems too much like their failed clear news branding from 20 years ago.

Callsign change will go in effect on Monday (10/3). Glad to see a rare Friday launch. But not all that thrilled that the new brand is its overall brand. My pet peeve has always been stations using "News" in their brand during non-news time periods. Using the calls WANF (at least verbally) would've been appropriate.

Looks like they covered up the studio view from the newsroom with this.

Just seen an ad for the Big Bang Theory, they will be known as Atlanta News First even outside of News Welcome to ANF!

Yeah I’m not in the discord because of well you know like you do you have any evidence?

We're not gonna rehash this in another station's thread. Romero is now at KNBC. KTLA is in the past.

It's too early to speculate whether these new shows come back next year. This is only just their first week numbers. The only reason why Drew's show is up is because Nielsen is counting the ratings two separate half hours together. This is similar to what they do with Family Feud ratings since that show is aired multiple times a day.

It's not. I would know. I've only been actively watching WLS for more than 20 years.

Toler's analysis and advice to couples seemed really deep and powerful in constrast to the more surface level common sense advice from Faith Jenkins and Star Jones. The program still retains the graphics and futuristic court set look it adopted since moving to Tyler Perry studios. Didn't like the look at first but it's grown on me. The previous set however, looked warmer and less washed out by lighting. Atlanta is a natural fit for the show, so much so that I had always assumed it was filmed there and not in LA.

I thought the first two judges on Divorce Court were good. I will admit that I thought Judge Faith would have lasted longer.

I liked Judge Lynn the best. I liked the Divorce Court of the 2000s and early 2010's when it was more emotional and serious compared to the later seasons where it's now more humorous. I miss the old bailiff Joe as well.

I see Gray's taking a "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" approach to their advertising. It worked for Sega in the 90s, but I'm not sure if it's the right way to promote local news. In video games it's not bad, but I feel like with news, people generally expect something more professional.

Yeah it wouldn’t be worth it. Might as well air a live newscast at 10 ET if they’re gonna go that route.

mre29 is right. One word describes Nexstar’s big three via Tribune...HERITAGE. And I agree w/ TheRolyPoly, said big three (and others?) should keep their non-network brands and not have “CW” or whatever it will become overpower them.

SuitSnob is that you??

Some sad news on this Wednesday evening. Just saw this on the CBS Evening News Bill Plante Former CBS News White House correspondent has passed away at the age of 84. Bill Plante Dies: Longtime CBS News White House Correspondent Was 84 – Deadline