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Perhaps CBS realizes that the majority of the news audience they have watch streaming instead of broadcast, and in turn are turning to their streaming anchors to be the new face of the division? Can we also hypothesize that DuBois and Dickerson together are probably still less expensive than O'Donnell salary-wise, and CBS is doing it on the cheap realizing no matter what, they are likely to stay in 3rd place?

The whole plan is weird. I'm not convinced it's going to last, and I'm not convinced that CBS management thinks this is going to last. Did Wendy McMahon take Neeraj's place, or is that still vacant? This anchor lineup feels like more of a placeholder idea until there's a clear idea of who's leading the news department. Whoever it is will probably want to put their footprint on it and redo the Evening News, just like what every other former head of the news department has wanted to do. Maurice is a smooth anchor, don't get me wrong, but is he a national name yet? Does he even have any body of reporting outside the tristate area? Dickerson's not awful, but he's never seemingly been super successful with any chair he's been given, and he's now basically been in them all (mornings, Face the Nation, streaming.)

I think TEGNA is doing this as part of a prospective buyout or merger. Why do I believe this? Two reasons: Meredith Corporation did the exact same thing in 2020. It eliminated creative services departments at its TV stations in favor of two marketing hubs. At that time, Meredith executives were eagerly planning to get out of the TV business, and they hoped cost cutting would appeal to a prospective buyer. Gray Television (now Gray Media) answered the call a year later. TEGNA wants out of the business while the getting is somewhat good. Under previous CEO Dave Lougee, TEGNA tried to merge with Standard General, but the FCC effectively blocked the merger. TEGNA management knows that the incoming Trump administration will likely deregulate broadcasting in whole or part, so they’re hoping 2025 is the year they can cash out and get their golden parachutes.

TEGNA owns a powerful and heritage station in my market. It will be painful to watch as this move will probably lead to production mistakes, going to black, unscripted camera swings and other discreps. The business is becoming all about the bottom line and less about what's on their screens.

Or... getting out before the holidays.

Cable cutting has reached peak.

It's so wild to me to see USA described as a "smaller" network when it was one of the pillars of cable for decades and it wasn't even a decade ago that they still had big hits like Mr. Robot, to say nothing of the Netflix-fueled resurgence of Suits.

After reading another TVNC op-ed about how 'news directors must lead the AI revolution'...it really feels like most of these soothsayers and execs just don't care. I've already seen a concrete company buy a bunch of smaller outfits and blatantly use AI voices and imagery for TV ads to sell their product in multiple markets and it looks jank and terrible; I'm sure they've plunged to 'only if desperate' status. Let's see what happens when AI has to dare tackle unique market quirks like KUSA's and KARE...it'll probably explode when it has to market around the WNEP talkback line.

I agree with Howard Beale that TEGNA wants out Soo Kim or Standard General A.K.A. Media General from the dead will not be the buyer. Why their hubs the marketing and making the cuts which I feel bad for those out of a job right near the holidays. I'm surprised that TEGNA didn't want to sell in that 2017-2020 I know they were into a buying spree in that time and it didn't work out for them.

I'm still confused as to how all this is going to work in practice. Are we going to see a CNN News Central-style show, with Maurice and John standing at opposite ends of the studio? Somehow I can't see them being sat next to each other at a desk, a la Dan Rather and Connie Chung. Also what about "Margaret Brennan regularly leading coverage from D.C."? Are we talking a glorified White House correspondent role here? Or will she be a de facto third anchor? No one seems to know how the broadcast will look - I suspect perhaps even CBS doesn't know. I think @C Block is right, this is essentially a stopgap until the new head of news comes in and changes things again.

Are we really getting bent out of shape over this? Come on guys. He died from being 83.

Many choose to keep their private business just that: private. They are under no obligation to make public disclosures. We should respect that.

Charles Scarborough was the last anchorperson on NYC TV to have been on the air in this market, at that position, prior to 1980. As far as on-air personnel in any station going back to the decade of the '70s, it looks like it'll be down to just Marvin Scott (WNEW-TV, WPIX) and Irv "Mr. G" Gikovsky (WCBS-TV, WPIX). Come Dec. 13, Kaity Tong (WABC-TV, WPIX) will be the city's longest-tenured news anchor (43 years and counting). Rosanna Scotto (WNYW) is next on the longevity list.

I've always thought he would make it to 50 years and then retire, even if it's semi-retirement. Anyways, this is, in my question, without a shadow of a doubt, THE greatest NYC local news anchor who's ever lived. In a town full of legends and icons, IMO because of the run he's had, Chuck stands alone. December 12th will be a sad day in NYC and in this country in the world of broadcasting as a result of his departure. I'll make sure I'll be watching.

Here is the article from their website including the NBC press release. He will continue to contribute to special projects and events. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/chuck-scarborough-semi-retirement-wnbc-new-york/6006471/

I have to wonder if Sinclair has been building up to this LONG before it was a reality. Newscasts have become more video & graphically oriented. Talent intros have been systematically eliminated. It just seemed like newscasts just appeared on the air like they came back from a break. You don't know if something is live or not....the list goes on and on. It doesn't take much to set up a camera shot somewhere, so these shows are becoming so mundane, someone with little to no experience could direct a show just by hot-punching the right buttons on a switcher.

After watching a newscast of WKEF, this anchorless format is just awful. The constant "New Tonight/New Deatils/Etc" titelcards & music between each story is annoying as hell... And listening to someone record the 30 second story in an echoed room is just tacky. 2 thumbs way down... At least Scrippscasts have 25% personality vs. 0%

There has been quite a few stories over time about tension between NBC News & MSNBC, and it goes both ways. NBC News doesn't just think MSNBC is hurting their reputation, MSNBC has problems with decisions by NBC News. This even sometimes extends on air. One public example I can think of: The NBC Trump town hall in 2020 that aired directly against the ABC Biden town hall. Whenever it was mentioned on MSNBC the point was made to say that the town hall was being produced by NBC News and not MSNBC. At the end of Joy Reid's show before the town hall began, they refused to mention the town hall at all and at the end of the show showed a graph promoting MSNBC's primetime lineup for the night with the town hall not included. After the town hall Rachel Maddow started her show reminding her viewers that the town hall was a production of NBC News and not MSNBC and how MSNBC is run separately. The Ronna McDaniel hiring by NBC is another example, multiple hosts didn't just attack NBC News for hiring her, but made it clear that while she would be appearing on NBC News, she would not be welcome on MSNBC. Ever since NBC News Now launched, most of the synergy between NBC News & MSNBC faded away. Yes they often will share reporters, but they each produce separate political news coverage, and even major non-political news coverage is produced separately. The primetime MSNBC shows utilize reporting from outlets like The New York Times, ABC News, Washington Post, etc. just as much as if not more than reporting from NBC News. The biggest changes for viewers will be the name of the network & studio they broadcast from. The main draw to the network is the primetime hosts. I don't think the network has to worry about losing viewers because they no longer have access to NBC News coverage. They can rely on outlets like Reuters, Associated Press, etc.. and form partnerships with other international broadcasters. They are already saying they could acquire a local station group, and they could at least partner with one. Lots of examples of synergies that will need to be changed, E! News & NBC's Access Hollywood share production staff & studio, Dateline produces episodes for Oxygen True Crime. But in my view nothing about the breakup is insurmountable

They did not say that. Lazarus said the new company could be a buyer of stations without specifying any station groups.

The problem with MSNBC is well before the opinion days when the affiliates were pitched on MSNBC helping to jumpstart their web efforts and giving them a solid place to highlight breaking news with affiliate coverage taking more precedence over sending network folks out, and a promise not to compete with them... A promise that crashed with TWA 800, Diana, and then was done with 9/11 (and Zucker and the network egos shooting down affiliate spotlighting because they HAD to be there). All the affiliate spotlights are but a memory, and for better or for worse a few platforms and Wordpress control local news websites. And for the most part they never promote MSNBC because that ship has sailed with NBCNews.com. Since then the affiliates have seen it both as competition and dragging down NBC News because of those broken promises; NBC News Now seems much more accommodating and proper to them and their needs, along with whatever disasterpiece of a national news website their owners foist upon them. I do think NBC News Now is the future for NBC News, while MSNBC will end up with some kind of shift away from NBC. CNBC I could finally see just becoming a dayside-only network or for that CNBC World merger to take place; maybe its future with properties like the MLB and NBA moving to in-house management of their teams will be having CNBC during the day, those games at night on cable providers, like back in the 80s when time-share made more sense. Outside the Reddit oddballs there has never been a need to cover the market after the bell, no matter what they've tried outside of Kramer. I'm curious about Oxygen though with the severing of their connection to the mothership and if they just become a licensed brand to throw true crime around or stay over-the-air. And with no mention of Universal KIds even as a Peacock vertical, it's done.

The president of NBC Sports says that sports programming on the spun-off cable networks will continue

So? It's just a place card while they figure out the actual name. It won't be called Spinco Media. They could also license events to the new USA, which others have done. I would assume there are some longterm licensing agreements across the board. We got a year for them to figure this all otu.

For MSNBC, it might be that their opinion shows are hurting the brand of both the NBC network news and the affiliates' local news operations by association while no longer bringing in enough ratings to justify it. I'm just guessing, but I do recall reading years ago that FOX affiliates have complained about viewers confusing them with FOX News Channel, so it isn't a farfetched idea. I'm less sure what the strategy is with USA and CNBC. USA seems to just be a dumping ground now for the sporting events that used to air on NBCSN, so maybe they think they can just move all that content to Peacock and viewers will get used to it. There isn't an obvious replacement for CNBC and unlike the others, it's an international brand.

It's doubly bizarre as USA Network is launching in Canada on New Year's Day as part of their various cable network shuffles, but it's just Discovery with an anonymized coat of paint.

It's escapism dreck that makes a lot of money and isn't ending soon, and Andy Cohen's made them a lot of it. I can't blame them for keeping that at least in-house, and I suspect if E! still had the Kardashians that network wouldn't have been spun-off later.

You know they all know these complications, right? They didn’t come into something like this without thinking through the complexities even if not every detail is laid out just yet.

KLKN isn’t even an option for some in Western parts of the market and I doubt they will try to expand their coverage area to capture a smaller, rural audience. Gray is the big winner here as they control the only other options. Tri-cities based Local 4 (NBC) will likely pick up most of the viewers. They’ve picked up some former NTV on-air personalities in the past and likely would have again if Gray weren’t cutting so much. Lincoln based 1011(CBS) will pick up the rest.

I'm just curious.... Grya's KTVK/KPHO in Phoenix... Even though its Ind/CBS networking, couldn't they technically combine resources some more than they already do?? For example, they have SEVEN meteorologists... Do they really need 7 meteorologist for Arizona?? It just seems that they are overstaffed overall and could see some cuts there eventually.

It's inevitable that it happens at all of these station groups. It makes sense... your stations all look the same, they essentially have similar brands that were all developed by the same agencies/consultants. When I was at Hearst, you could see this starting to happen with their cookie-cutter promos being swapped between markets and this was over a decade ago. So many TEGNA stations have similar brands at their core... you could easily build a single campaign, have local news photogs shoot your talent and b-roll and have some editor in Iowa stitch them all together and upload to Dropbox. I know everyone here loves the idea of local identities, but that concept is dead. You can get your black and gold graphics package... that's about it. Woof. It sounds like it's going to be all remote. I saw a few former colleagues already posting on LinkedIn looking for their next gig. Some really talented people too, which makes you wonder who they're going to keep around...

Classy move Tegna, even better to leave the task to your OUTGOING COO. Hopefully this will be a temporary move like it was with Meredith before they got sucked into Gray. They literally had to rebuild all of their marketing teams after Meredith tried hubbing them. For promos and image campaigns, well, that's one thing. But hubbing local commercial production is a mistake as the task is taken out of the community where this knowledge is useful, and done in some random place (any idea where the hub will be?) I"ve heard rumblings of something like this going down at Sinclair, but that's still to be determined.

TEGNA putting the for sale sign up their going to be sold in the next year or 2 in my opinion. This smells what Meredith did when they made these types of cuts when Gray came and bought them.

If you have sporting content in your hands + are willing to share with the world, be careful out there because one of the most followed accounts in the archival community, Dave Volsky of DV's back door channel got terminated this past week, according to fellow archivist "Bart Simpson". I agree with one of the posters that channels like Volsky put a spotlight not only on how far the game has come, but the forgotten or underrated players not often mentioned in the sport discussion. You'd think they would create a museum where they could show highlights or full games in theaters for attendees, Pro Football Hall of Fame aside. (hell, something similar should be built for pop culture or news, but I digress) Hell his channel has even made it thru the press at times. Example: https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/lions-fan-who-attended-tragic-1971-chuck-hughes-game-left-shaken-by-bills-damar-hamlin-incident https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2yrvPZ9Mmu_jEdVGGqYNKA/community?lb=Ugkx_d6PfJmWUe7wuWkpdRUlkh5CQBYHvDbZ