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They absolutely will not pull Sade from the 11 pm unless she wants to stop doing the 11 pm, and I don’t see that happening for several years.

Traditionalism makes me want to say no but realistically the industry is going to have to evolve and adapt. This isn’t the worst idea.

The more I read Rich Lieberman, the more I'm convinced that he no longer has any sources. He is the equivalent of an elderly fanfic blogger but for local TV. Lieberman doesn't see the ratings; I do. For the first two weeks of this month, KPIX was virtually tied with KGO for #2 at 6pm. I think their format and anchor changes have had a lot more of an impact than the branding change. I think adding news at 7pm, moving national news to 6:30, and putting Juliette Goodrich on the 6 and 7pm were all good ideas that made KPIX at least somewhat more competitive again. I'm not always sold on their unconventional leads and enterprise story ideas, but I suppose they're at least trying something different. The most underperforming network O&O in that market though for sure is KNTV – literally hashmarks for their 11pm some nights. KTVU's Like It Or Not, a mindless show that costs no money to produce, regularly gets higher ratings at 11:30 than KNTV does for their 11pm news or the Tonight Show.

Until these groups finally realize that they need to get a local resident to file a detailed and proper complaint, they're going nowhere. There must be a local person behind it that's just an average viewer (not the ones long checked off to the spam box who think a woman meteorologist wearing pants is somehow a violation of community norms), not a whistleblower engineer who knows too much. This is why radio license appeals usually go nowhere, because the average listener finds the obvious voicetracking and 14 minute ad breaks to be tolerable as background noise, and even the worst produced syndicated radio show with obnoxious bias still 'sounds' better and is tightly edited to the millisecond better than any local afternoon show was circa 1992. The other thing is that local news still makes up a minority of the broadcast day. The old days where a license could be pulled because of things viewers easily noticed, like network programming being pulled for offending the GM's morals or their racial views are gone; they air the shows without any changes because they lose their affiliation if they don't and can't refuse shows outside breaking news. The network also controls the technical quality, so you're not seeing licenses revoked for poor on-air quality or using a Peacock stream for the on-air feed. The burden is extremely high to revoke a license and must involve all 168 hours a week of programming, not just news.

I predicted this testy responce from you but I went for it anyway, lol. To be fair, you are also dealing in fantasy line ups if you are theorizing quote: "Sandra could slot in at 4 or 5 or wherever they chose". Whenever moves and shifts are being discussed, it's natural to think about who could fit where . So aversion anchor line up sorting is unwarranted. I don't share this supposed "precious belief that long term co-anchors can't be broken up". I say move them to the weekdays because they are a strong well known team to replace Ritter, not simply because they have been together long. You have a valid point about age, BUT If that is a factor, why not just leave Sandra on weekends?

Then there is WSVN method. Re-runing the 11pm news at 4:30 am. Also not the worst idea. After all, most content between 4 & 6 am is a rehash of yesterday's news.

Interesting. I haven’t caught the weekend news in a few weeks. Sandra is great but would agree that adding another anchor for 1 hour is interesting but no unconventional.

The talent are beginning to complain now. Across YouTube, I've seen multiple videos where news reporters like Sophia Espinosa (WAND) and Clancy Burke (WKEF) are citing exhaustion from the early morning shift as a leading reason why they've left the industry. WABC's Derek Waller even left his self-professed dream job at the country's top rated station because of the shift. So what's an alternative to live news? WMAR's 4:30 AM newscast has no live anchors or reporters, just packages ran successively, with the reporters introducing them. The only live element was weather. The anchors and reporters came in live at 5AM. Someone informed me that this is common on Scripps stations. Putting aside that WMAR is a weak station, is this format a good alternative to live news at 4/4:30 AM?

WMAR is a perennial bottom-feeder and Scripps seems to be making cuts here and there. Not to mention WMAR's standing is so bad that they don't even bother with any Saturday newscasts. On the flip side, I've never heard of any mass budget cuts/layoffs with the ABC O&Os throughout it's history.

I suppose he explained this so people would see his point of view. In reality, he just looks like more of a moron than ever. Especially since he flat out admitted that he wanted nothing to do with The CW in the first place, and only let WADL affiliate with it because he was planning to sell. Then why the hell is he whining about WMYD taking the affiliation he specifically said he didn't want in the first place????? EDIT 11/27/2023: And he's got Jesse Jackson and the families of the original African-American investors to back him. Somehow.

So, I stumbled across this article in The Desk, from the same day the cease-and-desist was sent to Scripps, in which Adell explains his side of the story on WADL sale/CW affiliation dispute:

WLS, Chicago; 10 p.m., 1979:

This came up in the Discord the other day and isn't even true. Sinclair executives have a base salary close to or equal to that of most of their peers, and even with stock grants are lower than others. Compensation in 2022 (Source: salary.com) Chris Ripley (President and CEO, Sinclair Broadcast Group): $9,632,015 total compensation, $1,379,700 base pay. (David Smith has an identical pay) Perry Sook (Chairman and CEO, Nexstar Broadcasting): $39,318,892 total compensation, $1,995,193 base pay. Hilton H. Howell Jr. (Executive Chairman and CEO, Gray Television): $7,922,375 total compensation, $1,350,000 base pay. Adam P. Symson (President and CEO, E.W. Scripps): $15,043,797 total compensation, $1,200,000 base pay. David T. Lougee (President and CEO, Tegna Inc.): $7,271,601 total compensation, $975,000 base pay. Any of these 5 could take a symbolic salary of $1 and live solely off their stock grants (which makes up the majority of the difference between base pay and total compensation) and all it would net the company is a little wiggle room for a handful of station's CapEx budget. The FCC is not going to revoke anyone's licenses because they canceled local news and replaced it with a regional newscast. That's insane. It would be a political nuclear bomb that would likely end up gutting the FCC of those and other powers. How long have New Jersey politicians been complaining about WWOR's news coming from New York City? Literally nothing has happened there and it's been going on for almost 15 years.

It would likely face the same fate as the petitions to revoke Fox Television Stations’ license for WTXF, it’s not gonna happen. In both instances, it would take either company being proven of engaging in something closer to RKO General levels of business misconduct to warrant the revocation of their broadcast licenses. The issues with Sinclair’s newsroom operations aren’t really fraud (as the filing states) as it is corporate incompetence. As noted in the filing, Sinclair’s newsroom cutbacks are mainly the result of its “ill-advised” purchase of Bally Sports, however Sinclair was already dealing with substantial debt predating that purchase, which its post-2011 purchases only contributed to. (Sinclair nearly went bankrupt itself only a few years before its buying spree began.) Side note: The ex-news director who filed the complaint, when citing stations affected by the news cuts (a list that included stations that dropped newscasts but still have an in-house or partially outsourced news operation), left out WPMI from the list; its morning and noon newscasts were canned in favor of the morning edition of The National Desk and a run of Family Feud this Spring. Then there’s one nugget I noticed towards the end: According to the Baltimore Sun, Smith was once arrested in August 1996, for “committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes.” First time I’ve heard about this.

KRON 1985 3D Promo KRON Newswatch 4 1977

WNDU NewsCenter 16 at 11:00 (November 26, 1990)

The station that uses Dimensional the best is CBS 5. I don't understand why the other O&O's don't use the full package like CBS 5 does.

I’m don’t work at a station, just a casual viewer. IMO, the graphics look sharp and are a massive improvement over what they replaced. My one criticism is that the L3s (especially the logo bug) take up a large chunk of the screen at all times, and a constant headline ticker isn’t really necessary most of the time. Otherwise, I’ve got no issues with them. However, the music is really, *really* repetitive and dull, and it’s already become stale imo. I was hoping there would be more cuts of “Dimensional”, but it’s a really limited music package.

Music I can somewhat understand but the graphics, seriously? I much prefer these to that tired 8 year old package!

Are there any actual CBS O&O folks here? Word around is the new image (graphics/music) has been a flop. Negative viewer reaction (especially with the music) in just the few months in use. WBBM's President/GM had been very vocal about her concerns about the whole package prior to rollout which are turning out to be true. WBBM has been continuing to use one music cut from the Enforcer package for the opens of the 5, 6, and 10 PM weekday opens since their changeover. I've noticed they've been phasing in more Enforcer cuts here and there, and again for the 10PM bumps. I have a feeling the graphics may stay but the new music may get dumped in the close future.

Is 13 using talent bumpers? I’d love to see those if so. They’d also be one of the few in the O&Os group still using them too.

I absolutely LOVE the new ABC 13 graphics! In my opinion I think they look better than ABC 7 Chicago. I love the red accents over the yellow accents. I do wish they did personalized openings for each newscast instead of the generic open. Also I’m a big fan of Talent montages…I know many stations are getting away from them.

I wouldn’t say so actually; if there are any bugs/glitches, better to sort them out on a Saturday morning than during the week when more people are watching.

WFLD-FOX 32 has reduced Good Day Chicago to five hours (5A-10A) and now airs Fox Weather First at 4A. Not sure what prompted the move.

I think that'll be the first time in their history that they'll be cutting anything from their newscast schedule.

Some of the stations I have worked for have pre-empted AM newscasts on some of those holidays.

Leading to six live hours of morning news from 5-11 a.m.

WABC never formally announces these things but Sandra Bookman is appearing with David in promos featuring the noon team.

EDIT: Waller is the latest reporter I've seen cite early start times as a reason for leaving the industry. But what is the alternative to live news at 4:30 in the morning? I've seen WMAR go without anchors and reporters for that half hour, just packages ran successively with reporters introducing them. The talent comes in live at 5am. Is this a viable alternative?