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It always never fails to see certain people in this fandom bleat the age old cry that mOaR lOcAl nEwS is what the marketplace needs. Sure, let's divvy up a shrinking pie of TV viewers even further while overstretching existing personnel to do more work for less pay and merely rehashing the same content with the same McStation graphics and same unimaginative cuts from another generic Stephen Arnold music package. YAWN. Here's a news flash: if either big three network pulls out of programming the 10pm hour, that's nothing but a devastingly dire outlook for the entire industry. It means that local television is in trouble and in an unsustainable path to insolvency unless you implement the Scrippscast model (or even the Rogers CityNews model) across-the-board or utilize AI to do everything for less. But then again, it's not the first time the TV fandom has been so utterly detached from reality.

Not so much that people feel that the answer to all television's problems is more news; I'm sure there are people who would like less of it. And all this news does work a strain on a station's news staff, as well as their thinking they should be paid more since they're working longer hours. However, that seems to be management's first impulse when a time slot opens up (Gray, for one, would be happy if its stations junked all syndicated programs and devoted the non-network slots to local news and/or public affairs). And frankly, I don't know where or when it ends. And that's why I think that if NBC gives back 10/9 you'll see its affiliates take the easy way out and move their news from 11/10 to 10/9...where a bunch will get clobbered by established Fox stations' newscasts. But stations can control the costs and are not at the mercy of a syndicator. There is one plus to this, and if you live in the Central or Mountain time zones you've known about it for decades. It's that the 10 PM news is the showpiece newscast, as opposed to the 6 PM one in the Eastern and Pacific time zones. People do like to get the weather at least before they turn in, which they can do an hour sooner than they would on the two coasts. That has been one of the appeals of 10 PM newscasts on Fox stations in the Eastern and Pacific time zones, and there's one Fox station in the Central time zone (Birmingham) that has no problem pulling 60 shares at 9 PM. I'm not any more crazy about more news than any of the rest of you but I know that's every station manager's automatic solution.

When Tribune acquired them they were a #5 CW affiliate and they switched to CBS, so it's allowed to stand with no issue. Most of the Big Four combos were allowed when the Fox affiliate had a sudden bad month against the WB because the FCC uses Nielsen market rank at the time of proposal to determine if a non-failed station waiver merger could go further or not; remember the attempted WTVJ sale to Post-Newsweek that didn't go through because Uni and Telemundo ranked higher than them before it died due to inaction.

It's even weirder for WTVJ because it's own sister station, Telemundo O&O WSCV, was ranked higher then the NBC station. Also, it was 2002 when Tribune acquired WTTV from Sinclair, so Channel 4 was still a WB affiliate.

Wow! Didn’t see this one coming: KPRC/Houston is canceling its 10a newscast after less than a year. The Drew Barrymore Show, which has been airing at 3a on Nexstar’s KIAH, takes over the KPRC 10a slot as soon as the Olympics end in 2-ish weeks. https://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2024/07/kprc-2-replaces-10am-news-with-drew.html?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1jyb61wnrmGLopO8_mw9g9zM_nnKc9uVcjIlj7866SHhG8KU_xCoNBsuc_aem_4uxUJF846hSOEl9FEtULQg

Scripps needs new graphics altogether. This flat blue plainness is completely uninspiring compared to their old graphics package (minus the ad box on the left of the L3)

Let's save some time here- Most markets have an established newscast in that timeslot that would likely beat the NBC affiliate's fledgling entry. WGN>WMAQ, KTLA>KNBC, WITI>WTMJ, WVUE>WDSU, the list goes on. Is it set in stone anywhere that it has to be a newscast in the timeslot, or could smaller markets opt to run a true crime/Dateline syndication? Does a larger owner like Gray produce more InvestigateTV pieces for their affiliates to differentiate their newscasts in that timeslot?

Kansas City wouldn't be the only place where the NBC affiliate would have tough sledding against an established Fox station's newscast at 10/9. In my neck of the woods WXII would find it rough going against WGHP; in Atlanta WAGA would crucify WXIA, which can't beat WAGA anytime it seems like; Birmimgham: WBRC would easily beat WVTM, what with its shares consistently hovering around 60; Tampa: WFLA does well against WTVT but that's on an equal footing like 5 and 6 PM; WTVT has an established 10 PM newscast. And I don't feel confident about some of the o&o cities: WNBC would go in as an underdog against WNYW, just as WRC would against WTTG. New York and Washington are two cities where the Fox (formerly Metromedia) stations have had 10 PM newscasts for decades. In short, this is risky business because if the NBC stations do get the time back they are going to start 10 PM newscasts and the odds are not good in a number of markets.

I don't think they do either

Sure seems like a cluster. It’s hard to understanding the decisions CBS is making.

Saw that WKRG has picked up Judith Sheindlin's latest venture Judy Justice, and they will be airing it at 3pm weekdays, pushing their hour of Big Bang Theory repeats likely over to their CW station WFNA once and for all. WPMI has been airing Judge Judy repeats at 3pm for the past several years. Are those continuing, and I wonder if WPMI is keeping them if so?

Noticed that DC News Now happens to now have an undelayed live stream, joining the small number of Nexstar stations that has one: https://www.dcnewsnow.com/dc-news-now-live-stream/

They are doing what KTVT is doing. Retaining the logo as a secondary icon, while making CBS News New York their main news brand.

Effective Monday July 29, KDFW is moving Judge Judy to 3pm in favor of a new 4pm newscast. They are also launching a 6:30pm newscast that same day, moving TMZ to 11:30pm.