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We don't need updates to say that they're still in the outgoing studio.

They replaced their plasma array backdrop with a seamless video wall.

If they were really smart they'd go hard on local college teams as well, especially as realignment is still shaking up the broadcast landscape there. It'd be a great opportunity for some of their markets that are only near pro teams, but have a big variety of local college sports. Des Moines has Iowa, ISU, UNI. Louisville is near three NFL teams, but has local college teams in the Cardinals and Wildcats, and USL/NWSL soccer.

- ok

Looking into the WLMA sale to Marquee. They are airing WTLW's existing programming on their old frequency after the old owner (American Christian Television) sold them the channel 4 facility and hung onto a low-powered station for their WTLW channel. They've entered into a time brokerage agreement that started on March 1st of this year and ends February 29th, 2024 that simulcasts WTLW on WLMA. No word on if this is a year-to-year agreement, or a 1-year opportunity for Marquee to forge their own path for WLMA.

Even back in the 90s, CBS This Morning aired Arnold's "Shame on You" segments to a national audience, complete with the unforgettable intro and jingle, that ranks up there with Marvin Zindler's "Slime in the Ice Machine!". CBS even produced several Shame On You hour-long collections of investigations across the country, including those done by Arnold Diaz. Arnold was a trailblazer in using his brash style and presentation to get things out of people when they screwed others out of things. He will be missed.

Quite a lot, actually. The History Channel barely covers history, and NewsNation barely covers the news.

It has been since I believe around the summer that the music was changed on the Local on the 8s to the jazzier themes. (I actually like them.) The squeeze bar seems redundant when you have the bar at the bottom with basically the same information. Yes it may have expanded capabilities but you have double information. At least it seems like that for the national feed. I have YouTubeTV . It shows current conditions for select cities with the radar at the bottom and cycles through tonight's forecast for those cities. I was hoping with them doing the retro8s hour and devoting a whole hour to it that they would maybe focus more on one of TWC's main identities and bring more frequent local on the 8s back. However, like me, more and more people are starting to cut the cord and are streaming. Getting the local weather on streaming isn't possible yet so I could see them phasing it out overall. In a couple of weeks (11/12) the current graphics and everything will be 10 years old. Yes, they have made tweaks but the overall package and icons will be 10 years old. They've aged well however a refresh would be great.

Last week, on Thursday I believe, TWC rolled out a new squeezeback local forecast that airs during programming. It currently takes place at the start of segments at :29, :39, and :59. It does not air at :09 (mid-segment) or at :19 and :49 (directly following the full screen Local on the 8s) 1) It seems to have all of the features of the full-screen Local on the 8s, aside from the text forecast with narration. But overall, the same weather information is all here, and it also has an hourly forecast, which the Local on the 8s lacks. 2) It's interesting that they didn't try to slap Local on the 8s branding on this new feature. This makes me think ownership no longer sees value in that brand and might try to phase it out, which leads me to... 3) We've already seen, since Allen Media Group took over in 2018, the Local on the 8s become reduced from "on the 8s of every hour" to a short 1-minute segment that airs only at :18 and :48. I could see this new squeezeback being the precursor to the total elimination of the full screen Local on the 8s segments. Also, within the past ~3 weeks, the Local on the 8s music that had been in place since November 2013 was finally ditched and replaced by what kinda seems like production music.

The CW air two seasons of WWE Smackdown in the late 2000s so there is a precedent (i.e.. airing pro wrestling). If NWA/CW can produce a good product, they shouldn't have too much a problem attracting an audience. How big of an audience is unknown.

Hey, remember when Jim Rosenfield supposedly did a tryout?

Fox’s lowest rated dayparts are when they play pretend news. Old angry white people watch it to be lectured to and indoctrinated, they don’t watch for the news or “news”.

The thing forgotten is that there's still a regular news division, it's just that the radio newscasts and the 24/7 headlines channel on SiriusXM are carrying that 'news' water, along with the short news briefs that now remind me how MTV used to have their 3-minute newscasts at 50 past the hour. So they still have a news operation, but it's been de emphasized so much (along with Fox Business, which just now seems to be FNC2), that only the most knowledgeable about the operation would be able to cite it at all these days. And even the radio news division is now built basically to tee up whatever is about to be talked about on conservative talk radio.

About time. That last thing was clunky.

WCBS reports tonight that NY news fixture Arnold Diaz has passed at 74 . Given that he also spent considerable time at WNYW and WPIX (although longest at WCBS) I put this in a separate thread. He retired from PIX ~1.5 years ago in 2022.

Skilling is giving us 4 more months y’all https://wgntv.com/news/chicago-news/tom-skilling-to-retire/?fbclid=IwAR0Sz_Q6MXsDU52-esAIRKww48TJqizInbQ6k7o3jv94IMMQJUcTX4kBH6I