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The only thing they DIDN'T do is rebrand to "PIX 11, Your NewsNation Station" or "NewsNation PIX 11 New York" YET.

Once and for all: Rey Rodriguez of Linear Drift is the Art Director for Nexstar. In fact, his LinkedIn shows his "employment" at Linear Drift ending in 2015 when he started at Nexstar. Technically speaking, none of the Nexstar packs are "Linear Drift" graphics.

I feel the exact opposite. Clearly, they couldn’t wait to dump the EWN name and apparently felt it would be good to ease in the branding. Those graphics aren’t long for this world, and neither is Enforcer.

CBS News has already been merged into the O&Os and vice versa; they are in the process of assimilating into each other.

I started a thread in the Speculatron; hope this is more convenient.

In something of a shocker, both The People’s Court and Judge Mathis are ending this season

Looks like Today is returning to some 2013 camera angles. The mixed utilization of this angle and the window is cool rather than one way for the entire broadcast. Overall though the studio needs to be redone. Can't believe it's going on 10 years since Today's reformatting! The set reversed course from an orange rebrand back to baby blue. IMO orange/gold hues with window frames, lamps, cityscape wallpaper and monitors looked better:

Which has nothing to do with interest rates. The position of weakness isn't the branding convention. It's being the 3rd or 4th player in very competitive markets and having a management scandal on top forcing them to take more risks on the format of the product, and also giving them 'less to lose' than incumbents who have more at risk if the experiment has unintended negative consequences. Incumbents with more to lose tend to iterate their way into change. And yes Pluto is a factor of the CBS decision making - they got something right with a service that was as 'cable like' in interface for people who are used to broadcast/cable, and giving them broadcast like libraries, vs being a splashy "everything is change" approach.

This is what they had to do before the C-SPAN model spread to state government coverage where stations not owned by one company had to pool as affiliate stations into mini-networks, so it's not so unusual in the least. The debates being limited to NN, that's one thing, as it's ultimately the state party that controls where they put their content, but it's public domain for government events, so NX did the proper thing in allowing other stations to carry it through the state. It would certainly be an ethics violation if it was exclusive to Real America's Voice or another one of those one-sided news sites and the Democratic response had to be done with Steve Bannon yelling at their every point. Let's not forget that State of the States and the State of the Unions started as perfunctory text reports, so none of the requirements of video (or even an opposition response) are required by any law.

Obviously, with TV stations. But online digital coverage, why not?

This isn’t the first time DFW stations used just “Texas”: WBAP: The Texas News (Pre KXAS) WFAA was “The Spirit of Texas” (not North Texas) - though not in the title of their newscasts KXAS: The Texas News Channel KDFW: News 4 Texas KXAS: Texas News 5 Now is’s 11’s turn to use Texas. But IMHO, streaming on the FAST systems (Pluto, Xumo, Roku, etc.) is probably why - pick up a few eyeballs outside of DFW for additional ad $$…

No one wants these RSNs. They’re an albatross that NBC, Sinclair, and WBD are stuck with and can’t get rid of.

You did! The more I think about it, there’s no way WB won’t offer a rerun package of both for at least next season, right?

https://katytrailweekly.com/what-has-happened-to-the-dallas-news-leader-p5241-182.htm Local TV news has been a decaying cash cow business for a few decades now. First 20 channels of cable, then 100, then the text internet, now the broadband everywhere video internet (which at least plays more toward the video strength of a local TV news product). I'd argue those market leaders were more distinctive over the years because of their consistency as a point of distinction. CBS was an also ran of local stations well before Dunn and Friend, aside from a brief renaissance under Swanson and what WCCO pulled off vs KARE as TEGNA messed up its cash cow via unappealing innovation. Of course innovation happens. But CBS isn't creating any meaningful proprietary technology here like Google did in 1999 or Chat GPT, or any real tech company. They're simply changing the window dressing of the presentation to adapt to additional storefronts of distribution - something any station can do rather quickly for the parts that might ultimately stick, and avoid for those that fall flat. In other words a free market test for others like TEGNA was post 2013.

Wasn’t NBC trying to sell off their RSNs a few years ago? They already sold their D.C. channel to Ted Leonsis, and the only reason why the rest weren’t sold off is because they couldn’t find a buyer. Besides, NBC is in the middle of budget cuts and they’re more interested in national sports contracts. I doubt they want to pour money into more RSNs.

It does because once the Apollo-SG bailout officially dies, Tegna won't be able to find a sucker buyer for their group as a whole. They barely did when Apollo stepped in as a not-silent partner, enabling SG to "outbid" Byron Allen. But tbh, Byron dodged a bullet not getting Tegna. Being successful breeds complacency. Look at the ABC O&Os. They are poorly positioned for a digital environment and are in a bad position in the world of social media. "Channel 6 Action News" and "Channel 7 Eyewitness News" are successful despite their names being forever stuck in the 1970s, and their formats are not really any different from any other newscast in the country. WABC and WPVI's main draw is ... rusted dial syndrome? Because people like musical cues unchanged for nearly 28 years on both stations? Because they're the local ABC station? Because they like the main anchors? Because they still call themselves "channel 6" and "channel 7"? Because Disney treats the stations like a budget line item and appears to be wholly disinterested in running a TV network? That's all fine and good until you realize that less and less people are watching OTA news nowadays--especially in the lower parts of the 25-54 money demo and especially the 18-25 demo--because they opt for online sources. CBS and Gray are approaching fertile ground. If WSVN could remake themselves from being a sleepy NBC station to the king of sleaze and trash in a matter of months in 1988 and transformed the industry, there's no reason why it cannot happen again in the present day. And yes, this would have been unnoticed by the previous three stooges that ran CBS, Moonves, Friend and Dunn.

Soo is delusional and so is the Tegna board. It’ll be extended for a few months in a vain attempt to keep it alive but it’s already failed. Contrary to the occasional pieces of hopium published on some financial websites, the DOJ and FCC are literally sitting on their hands and refusing to weigh in or indicate they’ll ever do anything about it. Which is worse than actually voting the deal down. Apollo-SG didn’t close on the Tegna deal in 2022, nor will it ever close. All parties are now wasting their collective money and time and Tegna—itself too big to fail—will be left holding the bag on assets they won’t be able to sell the way they want to. Why is doing a branding convention implemented practically everywhere else on this planet a position of weakness? Because they aren’t using archaic brands like “Eyewitness News” or channel numbers or (with one current exception) call letters? They’re actively targeting an audience Nielsen has been struggling to adapt and measure properly—which is not that radical when you notice that Gray has done the same thing at WOIO, which has also been implemented at WANF (and they aren’t even using call letters or channel numbers in their branding). CBS’s future is both in streaming and OTA and they’re betting on it being successful on free providers like their in-house PlutoTV. In fact, CBS News Detroit is pushing their Pluto channel a lot since it came online.

SG didn't close in 2022 - they could have chosen to not make concessions like promising to not cut any journalism jobs for two years or pursue their lobbying efforts if they were scared by the financing environment. Instead they keep pressing. Whether they're being prudent is a whole other matter. https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/standard-general-asserts-tegna-deal-nears-finish-line The CBS O&O exercise is a grand experiment from a position of weakness and not much more.

That would be nice and hopefully they would come with a lot less political stuff.

FTV reports Kareen Wynter is the new weekend co-anchor with Rick Chambers. Courtney Friel will anchor on Thursday/Friday at 4 and 5pm when Pedro is off as he will be filling in on the weekend morning news until June. Station is still working to finalize weekend morning assignments, but Lauren Lyster is already confirmed as one piece of the weekend morning anchor puzzle. Sounds like someone might be coming in from out of market and they are waiting for their contract to run out....or could be a non-compete situation.

To be honest, I don't know any station group that did it. But CBS did so a time ago with their CBS Local brand. They actually did it for some places not O&O, for example they did CBS DC, even though WUSA is not O&O by them. Was it effective? I don't know. Maybe not, as the CBS affiliate that's not O&O would get more attention automatically as it's a station that can get more ad revenue, unless CBS Local did heavy promotion themselves, which I doubt they did back then.

They’ve been doing this for several years now. It is produced by KXAN and airs live on Nexstar stations statewide. In San Antonio, the address typically airs on Graham’s KSAT since that city doesn’t have a Nexstar station.

I was channel surfing on Pluto TV and stumbled upon CBS NEWS DFW when they were talking about Texas Governor Greg Abbott's State of the State address. And I literally had to search YouTube, because I thought maybe they were taking clips from a Nexstar station covering it, which was weird, but alright. But no. The Governor's SOTS was produced in partnership with Nexstar (KXAN). I have alot of mixed feelings. On one hand, I feel like it's good because of high production quality for the address, and a smooth transition to the Democratic response, etc. On another hand, I feel like it is weird to have a local media outlet produce a Government address, or anything like that matter. Yes, they allowed both sides of the aisle to address Texas, but at the same time I feel like there's a bit of a violation of journalistic ethics. But what I'm also wondering, has a State Government partnered with a local media outlet to do something like this?

Here's an update on Dominion vs FOX News.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CoqbDL4rDf0/?igshid=MDM4ZDc5MmU= Looks like WCBS was testing a revised background on its set earlier this week. Note the large blue curves on the left and right sides of the background on the TV screen in this video. Could we be close to a launch at WCBS? Edit: Took a screenshot from Instagram to zoom in on the background.

Obviously, the CBS News Local standard makes news division names simpler. So, this is easily one of the simplest local news division names yet

Maas civil trial begins. https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/former-tv-anchor-equal-pay-trial-against-kusi-tv-begins/509-b19f36b8-4d6f-41ce-9ae9-b72269c6a802

Meteorologist and former The Price Is Right announcer Rich Fields is no longer at WTSP. His bio disappeared from the station’s website and he edited his LinkedIn to reflect he left the station this month. He was also hosting a weekly podcast with Dave Wagner called Come On Down that shared his stories of being an announcer on The Price Is Right and how he got the job. I had a suspicion he left or was let go because he stopped doing the podcast before Thanksgiving. He shared that the station was building a podcast studio for him and he should have new podcasts in December but nothing new was produced. I admittedly don’t watch WTSP so I don’t know when he was last on-air.

What, is the NBC logo missing from the station's website?

Unlike the good old days, when they didn't care about money.

Independent based on what??? Where/why are you getting the impression that WDIV is in a bad place with NBC? People are leaving stations all over the country, in droves. Yes, some operations are getting hit harder than others, but this is a problem for the whole industry.

Why are stations like KTLA airing so many hours of news on in a single day? I understand that it is supposed to be cheaper than airing a regular hour or half hour TV show, but you are still paying people to sit there to read the news to viewers and have people behind the scenes editing and so forth. Plus, other stations are also airing news at similar times. How much are they stations actually saving and how much are advertisers actually paying each station, since many of the stations are showing the same thing - news at the same or similar times. Plus, with so many stations airing so many hours of news, especially in Los Angeles, how do you expect viewers to tune in if all the stations or most of the stations are airing news at the same time? At 5 and 6 pm, ch 2, 4, 5, 7, and 11 are showing news at the same time. There's basically nothing on TV to watch besides news. Ch 9 is showing funny you ask and family feud, while ch 13 is showing reruns. In my opinion, many viewers would just tune out or off and not watch at all, since many people can get their news online or later on in the evening.

Sunday Today being made from 1A. I wanted to know why NBC still insists on the virtual studio, not even compared when the same is done from a traditional studio.

Agree with everything you said. There's no hope left if or when Cavuto and Baier leave.

The last time I alluded to Fox News not being an actual news source (jokingly when their new newsroom debuted), I got screamed, cried and moaned out of the room. My opinion since hasn't changed; in fact, it's been amplified. You can have news and opinion shows co-exist on the same schedule and some (read: few) of its hosts and news stories over the years are great, knowledgeable and objective. But despite its billion-dollar flashy and style-over-substance look and feel, Fox's laughable slant and obvious and dangerous propaganda make it an untrustworthy joke and attack on true journalism to those aware of them, and a pathetic defense mechanism safe space to whose who aren't. So yeah, Fox News isn't as much a legit and credible news source as you think, and if you say it is... well, enjoy that R&R on that hill you died on. I'll also say this: I'll consider Fox actual news over OAN and Newsmax. Sweet Lord, they're pure godawful shit.

Seeing this, I wouldn’t expect new graphics on KYW any time soon.

This was pointed out on the Discord, the music is almost identical to the NewsNation package made by SAM (4:59 in the video below), possible expansion for local stations?

KYW hasn’t changed their graphics yet, but their newscasts are now officially called “CBS News Philadelphia.” This intro is from Wednesday, and was taken from their streaming feed. IMG_5800.MOV

KCNC in Denver is going a similar route, branding itself as CBS News Colorado. Though I'm surprised considering they don't do a great job covering Southern Colorado, the Western Slope or Northern Colorado. Calling KTVT CBS News Texas makes even less sense. CBS doesn't have enough resources to cover all of Texas. Should have stuck with CBS News DFW.

Turns out things aren't much better over at AT&T SportsNet https://awfulannouncing.com/wbd/att-sportsnet-rsns-reportedly-short-three-mlb-teams-on-rights-payments.html

I think those call signs explain the intended programming in Flagstaff and Yuma... And I think at this point with the WPGA-TV swap (which will likely give them WPGA-LD too, as that was hived off in the same "Marquee Broadcasting West" subsidiary for the purposes of the trade), we have to start thinking about what a Georgia Sports and Entertainment Network may look like...