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The WMUR update aside, Hearst's package is one that has aged incredibly gracefully over the years.

This is dumb. I’m sorry I don’t have a more original thought contribution, but it’s so dumb that I can’t even begin to comprehend it. These people actually think they can live and die on retrans fees. For all of Tegna’s intelligence-insulting gimmicks, Sinclair’s extreme political bias, and Gray’s cheap/outdated visual aesthetic, those companies can at least understand one thing: they know where their audience is and where to grow it. Nexstar looks to be run by people who are too stubborn to understand that, to the point that they’re even killing off the damn web streams. It’s been said before, and it’s worth repeating: big market company, small market mentality.

I don’t know if any other market has someone like a Jim Gardner. I know other cities have people who’ve anchored for a long time, but I’m not sure they’ve had the same cultural impact/relevance that Jim has in Philly. I mean, the dude had people tailgating in the parking lot for this. Nobody deserves it more, though. Happy retirement, Jim.

The sad thing is, Media General and Tribune had really good streaming platforms through their use of Livestream (now owned by Vimeo) and Media General even had many of their stations on the NewsOn service. Nexstar has stripped much of this away with a very web-centric strategy, making their streams confined to websites and phones, and not easily translating to OTT. Fast forward to now, and the major broadcasters have pretty much put their stations news products on air 24/7 with their existing newscasts, re-airings, and other exclusive content that seamlessly works into its own virtual channel. It allows for new and targeted revenue streams that can reach viewers down to the ZIP code. And Nexstar is taking what they have and making it less valuable, all in the name of shaking down every Cable customer and cable company to squeeze every penny out of what should be a free service to the local viewer.

WFLA will be very angry, as they literally run themselves on streaming coverage and online specials, especially during hurricane season.

Christ Almighty. Once again, Perry out-of-touchness running wild. I hope the rivals eat them alive for this decision

I like it, it's plain but it's clean. Though, if you're going to brand your newscasts "CBS News Bay Area," wouldn't it be more logical to brand as "CBS Bay Area"? Just my 2 cents.

Not true! When the 4p and 10p launched they announced the times in that show only. Anyway, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal, Jim's last show got a 79 share in Philly and 540,000 OTA viewers. The Eagles Super Bowl when they won got an 81. https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2022/12/22/jim-gardners-historic-action-news-swan-song.html

Rob Stafford anchors final newscast

It has kind of a Gray feel to the package in some ways.

Yes, MUR needs to have something that's distinct from the main Hearst look used on WCVB so there isn't viewer confusion. Has been that way for 20+ years now.

Here is last night's Gardner retrospective:

I realized that after I posted, of course. Thanks for reminding me of something I felt trauma from hearing (no offense to those in the actual videos).

How in the world do they think this will work in markets like LA and Chicago? Like they could probably get away with this in Minot - but in their large markets this has disaster written all over it. Perry seems to think that the cable bundle is the way of the future - not even Sinclair is that delusional.

ABC 20/20 report from 1982 about the competitiveness of local news - mainly focusing on KSTP

CW Bay Area was dropped when KPIX dropped CBS 5 / CBS 5 Eyewitness News in 2013 in favor for call letters. they are branded as KBCW and KBCW 44 cable 12. With their heavy jingle imaging “44 cable 12” promos that air throughout the day https://youtu.be/GSTLBPVjnHE

They already have CW Bay Area, so it would only make sense (and speaking of, is the "Cable 12" appendage from the pre-UPN days really needed now? In a major tech hub where most don't have cable?).

KNTV never was able to settle on a number (3/11). WVIT is 30. It’s a bit different with KPIX 5.

That part! NBC was ahead of its time look at NBC Bay Area, and NBC Connecticut. They have been doing well without the channel reference. Boston and San Diego had a short lived branding until it decided to bring back the channel numbers.

That right there is the fastest way the networks are going to pull their affiliations off of Nexstar. NBC is a big one. Nexstar had better behave or they're going to get what's coming to them and quick. Then again, what would this world like had Meredith gotten their way with Media General and Sinclair absorbing Tribune?

For markets dominated by Nexstar where others have been bought out by them, this is seriously bad news, especially in emergency situations; you can be sure mets will be pissed off they can't say 'stream us live' during a tornado warning (or have to whip up a jerry-rigged FB Live stream to do so). And this is a direct Exhibit A about why net neutrality should definitely apply to broadcasters. You're better off buying P+ or Peacock and streaming a local CBS or NBC affiliate that way so you don't have to bother with these fights NX wants to pick with everyone, and you hope that an ABC livestream will be part of Disney+ premium soon. And if WGN thought things were bad when they took the 9 off of now-News Nation, this is coal in the stocking to their stubborn snowbird audience, but Perry won't care.

Three things going on here: 1. These retransmission fees are indeed causing people to cut the cord. I was like the proverbial frog in slow boiling water. We went from $80, to $110, to $130 and I kept toying with the idea of cutting the cable with each increase. But when it hit almost $170 with all the other fees at the end of the bill, including retransmission fees, that's when I had enough. I think $30 was added on top of the cable bill for retransmission fees and for sports fees. No thanks. (Medium package only plus 100 gig internet, no phone, no bells and whistles, only one cable box, no DVR. Now I only pay 40 bucks for the internet.) 2. Cable companies should design their tuner boxes like satellite companies were doing before. Keep the local stations in your lineup so it is seamless, but have that signal come in through an over-the-air antenna instead of through the cable box to give people the opportunity to avoid those fees. If TV stations balk, then just pull them off the system. I don't think anybody will miss them at this point. 3. My cable company, before they sold out to another cable company, was actively pushing you to drop tv. They wanted you only as an Internet customer and they wanted you to stream. If you wanted cable, they wanted you to go through YouTube TV. Internet they say generates 80% of their profits, with very little effort spent on service calls and that sort of thing compared to TV which generates only 20% profit, but gives them all sorts of grief administratively.

That's bad news for all of the users who love Fox 8 in Cleveland. Apparently, Nexstar thinks that NewsNation and The CW are bigger priorities than digital.

Even in the 1980s there was minimal difference between the two brands. Look at Bill Bonds at WXYZ with Action News, and it was basically all centered around Bill Bonds and his on-air presence. Ditto with Irv Weinstein at WKBW; they used the EWN name but it wasn't anywhere close to the Al Primo EWN. The brands were never uniformly applied and mean different things to different people. @HulkieD has brought up how CapCities slowly (even if unintentionally) morphed WABC into... if not a Xerox of WPVI, then obviously a station with WPVI's Action News in its' blood. It still used the EWN name, but it wasn't the EWN pre-1986. WOIO's usage of Action News is mostly associated with the "last-place, last-chance news" uber-populist format that Bill Applegate---the same person who presided over WABC's late-80s changes---put in, almost out of desperation by Raycom, having admitted to overpaying for WOIO/WUAB when they bought out Malrite. It is a tainted brand in the market. EWN means nothing in Cleveland and hasn't meant anything since WEWS gave it up in 1990, and even then, NewsChannel 5 meant nothing when they gave it up a few years ago, aside from people likely confusing WEWS with WPTV on social media. If WOIO used EWN, it would feel tacked on and meaningless. (Yes, channel 3, then KYW-TV, originated EWN from 1959 to 1965 but it predated Al Primo or even Westinghouse's full treatment of the brand. Because of the passage of time, few are alive to actually remember when it debuted in Cleveland.) It actually says a lot that none of the stations in Cleveland have a so-called "brand" for their newscasts: 3 News, News 5, Fox 8 News and 19 News. But does it matter? I'm from Cleveland and I can tell the four news operations apart fairly easily.

Jim’s final newscast in full. What a legend.

This is what a forward-looking news organization looks, sounds, and feels like. I'm sure there will be people upset that the "Westinghouse channel numbers" and "iconic" other cruft disappears, but these stations existed before that stuff came around, and will exist after. Most of these stations never had a firm "logo" for their first 20 years of existence and they did just fine, without "confusing" anyone. Most of these logos have outlived several generations of logos at major brands. I'm still not sure why it's seen as important for a local television station in Baltimore or Pittsburgh or wherever to keep the same logo forever, while major companies like United Airlines or Hyatt Hotels get to update theirs just about every decade. TV has this bad history of treating viewers like they are absolute idiots. "Oh, we can't change anything because someone out there might get 'confused'." If someone told me RJ Fletcher's speech in UHF about the "pea-brained yokels" watching TV in his market was based on real worlds said by a real TV station GM, I would not be that surprised. There's nothing wrong with a little nostalgia, but it can't get in the way of progress. When a station branded as "TV 7" in 1954, that's because that's where it was. On TV. On Channel 7. That was it. The first signs this branding didn't work in the modern era came in the late 90's when every "ABC 7" and "NBC 4" was fighting for a relevant web domains. Then came Social Media. If I go on Twitter right now and search for "ABC 7" this is what comes up: Talk about "Confusing viewers" when the first one offers no way of identifying which station it is, and looks identical to the rest of the ABC7s there. No, most viewers do not know offhand how to differentiate between the different Circle 7s out there. There is no confusing where these CBS stations are located. I don't buy into these stations "losing" any "local flavor" with this branding, because locality is baked into the heart of it. You can be any one of a bunch of "CBS 2s" out there, but there's "only one" CBS News Chicago.

She said “KSBY News Bay Area”

Hell, I had pegged Evrod for the weekday slot. I'm sure J.C. is a swell fella, but screams small market. He came from El Paso, and was only anchoring Sunday mornings. Evrod comes with a solid reputation, with major market anchoring experience. Doesn't quite add up, to me.

It appears Nexstar is taking two steps backward in their "digital first" mandate. Live streams of their newscasts are apparently coming to an end next month. They will be delayed at least 2 hours. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2022/12/21/nexstar-to-end-live-stream-newscasts The endless quest for retransmission money appears to be the reason. If they keep this stuff up, they'll end up like Bally Sports, and price themselves out of existence when the pay TV providers kick them to the curb and the networks begin pulling their affiliations.