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FCC order is here (it boggles the mind that some websites paywall documents that can be found in two minutes) It feels like the FCC is doing a case of malicious compliance by allowing the sale under these conditions. And I love it.

From paragraph 54: 15% of 168 hours means Nexstar cannot supply more than 25 hours and 20 minutes of programming per week. The CW primetime takes up 15 hours total per week, meaning they cannot program any more than 10 hours of sports per week or any NewsNation simulcasts. Mission got a greenlight to purchase a boat anchor for $75 million.

It's going to be stuck in appeal purgatory for quite awhile (and of course...2025 and a certain result can toss it completely), but the FTC has now voted to nullify all non-competes.

Hearst-lite.

Even though this was kind of an "emergency" rebranding, that was a purposeful little nod to the site's history. That, and the fact that the media we talk about is growing beyond "TV" in the traditional sense. I think there's something wonky going on with the caching (we're behind Cloudflare now, something else I've wanted to do for a while) that is causing this, I'm going to look into it further.

The cost is one part of it - but the other elephant in the room is staffing the endless newscasts most stations are doing. Recruiting producers was a challenge before the pandemic hit four years ago, and the brain drain there has only gotten worse. The Scrippscast model doesn't solve the retention problem - but it is one way to function in an environment where there aren't enough people willing to do the job. (and hopefully, lighten the load and reduce the misery for the ones stations have left)