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Agreed! Has Ernie been on every station in the market now? Only exception I can think of is WNBC.

Actually, there’s another reason; from Variety: Meaning that there’s a risk that WGA writers working for syndicated shows may cost themselves (and their fellow crew members) their existing jobs if the shows can’t fulfill their contracts. It’s important that the writers get a fair deal, but there are other crew members working with them that are being impacted by the strike. That fear of losing their jobs is expressed by several staffers of struck talk shows also interviewed anonymously in the cited Variety article: Making things more complicated: If it’s not cited in the current agreement, forcing shows to continue their production hiatuses when they may not be required to risks creating a wedge between the WGA members and their colleagues on their struck shows since said colleagues have to resume work at some point. (Several daytime shows resumed production during the 2007-08 WGA strike, though The Ellen DeGeneres Show—which had a larger writing staff due to its monologue and comedy segments—received the most heat from striking writers for its resumption.) There are people stuck in the middle with no way out, other than take jobs outside of the industry. By the time the studios and writers do reach a deal (which at this rate, might not happen before the end of the year, don’t quote me on that, since the studios are just waiting out the writers basically rather than submit a satisfactory deal), the syndication business may not be the same. (Fox Television Stations programming EVP Frank Cicha said in the article, “More repeats would just be a quicker death march for syndication. […] It’s a critical time, and if there’s not a way to do original programming, then you can see the end of national syndication.”) That means, we may see stations glutting their lineups with even more news.

I'm a few days late to this but I'm not surprised at all; WBUP/WBKP fits relatively well with MMM's Wisconsin duo of WISC and WKBT. Can't wait to see MMM give these stations the overhauls they BADLY need. Also I don't want to speculate too much here but I wonder if MMM goes after the Rockfleet stations next; WJFW kinda fills in a hole in north-central Wisconsin created by WISC to the south, WKBT to the west and now WBUP/WBKP to the north.

I believe KSLA changed to the GrayONE package today.

My understanding is that the Mission “owned” stations are not included. Nexstar has more work to do before claiming “mission accomplished.”

22 Years Ago today: First Regis & Kelly after 9/11. @MD TVI had no idea Al Roker was still on Live at 5 as late as 2000.

That’s true. That was a missed opportunity. They should’ve had Kaity interview him, at the very least to see them together again!

Nope. The current mornings at 10 music isn’t part of the larger redesign.

This article puts things in a more complete context, especially for those of us (like me) who have no idea how this stuff works. Thanks for sharing it.

Or they can run Jeopardy at a better time for the business, given the results of the show have a direct impact on the games that week.

Now Jennifer Hudson is putting the brakes on her talk show... Bill Maher has a lot of egg on his face right now.

I partially agree with you here, but if I’m Drew Barrymore, I don’t need CBS or my lackluster talk show. It boggles my mind that she didn’t either tell the company to screw off or continue the show while abiding by WGA strike rules (or while paying staff out of pocket herself, if possible). From the sound of things, the most recently taped episodes were likely using scabs; Drew Barrymore knows better about this stuff. A public spat w/ Paramount/CBS would’ve been nasty, but it’s surely better than throwing your career away for a generic talk show.

I'd say she bowed to the pressure of Paramount Global to keep the show on the air in the first place in business as usual mode rather than the strikes. The problem here was PG forcing the show back into production without writers and a limited guest pool (pretty much Broadway and unscripted, along with PGs deal of the day hucksters, the exact same as The View minus politicos). This is all on them and she's the front liner to take the blame while Bob Bakish would prefer she come back (and hired the goons to take away WGA buttons from audience members) and gets none of it. ETA - The Talk will also stay dark. My point stands; CBS's executives and Bob expected the talent to take the brunt and it was clear they would give with pressure because it should not be an exec's choice to force them to come back.

Drew Barrymore bowed to pressure, and is pausing production of her talk show until the strike ends.

That would be absurd. Disney is not just going to sell ABC without ESPN. Because a big chunk of ABC’s ratings are tied to ESPN and the sports department runs as one joint unit, it would be impossible to sell to Allen in this sense without causing a mass disruption of the sports media market. The most ideal situation for ABC and ESPN would be Hearst teaming with Berkshire Hathaway (just like the latter funded Capital Cities’ purchase of ABC long ago) to buy the networks and perhaps National Geographic which could be collapsed into the A&E Networks structure. I would however consider Freeform instead of FX though - since FX is still in form a Fox network at heart airing Fox repeats, even if they are no longer a News Corporation Fox entity. All that Hearst can then do is turn its ABC affiliates into O&Os along with WBAL in Baltimore (which Hearst has owned from day one in 1948), and sell most of the rest of its stations to Scripps. It’s not that Byron Allen isn’t capable of pulling off a big acquisition, but to me him acquiring a significant share of Gray and playing a key cog in further investing into the Atlanta media scene where the likes of Tyler Perry and Steve Harvey have had a sizable presence (and Allen already has links to CBS via TWC and NBC dating back to his days with Real People) would make more sense. Atlanta is already home to TWC as well and has been since day one.

It’s too bad that because of Worldwide Pants you can’t have old Tom Snyder repeats from back in the day with the iconic David Sanborn theme music. It’s also too bad that because he couldn’t keep his drawers zipped some years ago, we can’t have repeats of Charlie Rose and his own iconic theme and presentation as well. It’s even too bad it’s not anywhere close to the 2024 presidential sweepstakes - if it were, CBS could have had extended presidential coverage in the presentation of the old CBS News Nightwatch. At this point, anything is better than continuously rerunning James Corden. I’d even go with a reboot of Crimetime After Primetime at this point just to kill time until the damn strikes end! Except I think it’s baloney. Antenna TV should just suck it up and make a deal with NBC to air Carson repeats as they originally aired - complete with the Ed McMahon intros and Carson’s monologues. Especially since a lot of their affiliates are NBC affiliates themselves on the primary end. And for Letterman? Nexstar has Rewind TV now and they could use that to air vintage Letterman from the NBC era, maybe even the CBS era without modifications. Gen X and even elder millennial parents should have the opportunity to show their kids what comedy was like in their days. It’s not like they’re trying to rip off NBC as if the trademarks are so sacrosanct (Bud Melman/Calvert DeForest has been a bag of bones for several years now - like NBC is worried about Nexstar profiting off of airing old Letterman repeats as they were intended?).

My brain cannot comprehend that Ernie is 80. He looks fantastic.

I wonder where Dagmar Midcap over at KNSD has been. She hasn't been on air in over a month and they've literally had every weather personality at the station filling in. This week and last week it's been Sheena Parveen from mornings.

New studio and graphics for France 2's news programs, including 20h and 13h. Set is smaller then their last one, which was huge, but is a nice successor and the graphics are just as elegant.

If you're not an ABC affiliate who was supposed to carry the local Monday Night Football game in syndication you're not a happy camper today after it was announced the entire season will be simulcast on ABC. I don't expect this is 'temporary because of the writers strike' either and will become permanent. (makes way for the Wheel and Jeopardy watchers and agrees that there's no need for a 7:30 pregame show either).

CBS to air back-to-back reruns of Comics Unleashed after The Late Show with Stephen Colbert starting tonight. This is because of two reasons: 1. The current Hollywood labor disputes (in other words, the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes). 2. The cancellation of the Late Late Show and the inability to make its scheduled successor due to the disputes.

https://espnpressroom.com/us/press-releases/2023/09/itat-mnf/ Odd that a new "musical anthem" for MNF is starting in Week 2, but there was a nugget of info confirming the refreshed MNF look is just for Monday Night, since the other NFL shows have kept the neon green accents.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, ABC sticking with MNF simulcasts for the remainder of the NFL season

Frank Field, longtime WNBC (and WCBS and finally WWOR) has passed away at age 100: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/pioneering-former-wnbc-meteorologist-dr-frank-field-dies-at-100/4471040/