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It wasn’t a gesture. It was a Nazi salute. Let’s call it what it was.

WLFI set is from when they went HD under LIN, WTHI set when they built their new building in 2012 under LIN, and WFFT set from their HD days under Nexstar. Under Heartland, I think both THI and LFI did add some more people back and improved their reporting. I think if Heartland hadn’t sold, they would have gotten new sets or updated sets.

Snippets of the new set as the new duo was interviewed by Maurice's WCBS colleague Mary Calvi. I'm not seeing Deborah Norville on there as often these days. I'm really hoping the set lighting will look as dim on CBS's cameras because this looks great. I love the diverse landscapes in the background. It makes the broadcast seem more nationally oriented, and not just New York City/East Coast centric. It reminds me of Good Morning America's intro from the early Gibson/Sawyer era. In this era of washed out HD, dark lighting and warm colors look good.

Remember CNN+? They're gonna try it again. https://deadline.com/2025/01/cnn-layoffs-streaming-service-1236264641/ https://www.thewrap.com/cnn-layoffs-200-job-cuts-new-streaming-service/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cnn-layoffs-cuts-hundreds-jobs-major-restructuring-1236068690/ - - - Major schedule shake up confirmed: The Situation Room moves to 10am with Pamela Brown joining Wolf Blitzer (yes, already announced, I know) Jake Tapper's The Lead moves to 5-7pm Kasie Hunt jumps to afternoons with her new show The Arena at 4pm Hunt is succeeded as CNN This Morning host by Audie Cornish at its new time of 6am 5 Things moves from CNN Max to the network at 5am (of course) with Rahel Solomon taking over from Kate Bolduan nothing yet on Jim Acosta's move no confirmed start date for all moves https://deadline.com/2025/01/cnn-lineup-changes-1236265012/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/new-cnn-lineup-jake-tapper-wolf-blitzer-audie-cornish-1236116122/

CBS Mornings aired a tribute package for Nora, as today's her last day, (and coincidentally Nora's birthday according to Gayle). It seems like CBS is trying to be gracious as they ease her out. **Actual video now uploaded https://youtu.be/dFc9TUxZQPE?si=tpaqmHYTfgu5agHR Edit: Oprah also paid tribute to Nora on her last broadcast..

Please let it be true and they reverse it for all stations.

It absolutely was; the air quotes was me being facetious/poking fun of how the media isn’t really calling it what it is

CNN has picked up on the Allen story. It's nice to see the comments and reactions are extremely negative.

Griffin will shut down the tv stations before they ever sell.

Maurice’s Farewell

Considering the extreme weather that part of the country gets, I'm not surprised one bit.

They already did. Maurice, Kristine, Lonnie and Otis sat on the couch reminiscing about the 14 years they spent together between 5:20 and 5:30. Kristine mentioned Maurice and Lonnie will be on the CBS Evening news. Alice came on after to anchor the next half hour with Kristine on the 5pm news

Ratings-wise, WFLD is still in 4th or 5th, depending on the time of day, but their product is absolutely fine. There's not one bad station or tough watch in town. They've been more ambitious in terms of creating other sports & documentary content. WBBM has a strong evening team, even if the morning news feels like a steady stream of temporary patches. WGN is obviously strongest in the mornings, with solid teams at all slots. WMAQ is always solid enough, if not too memorable. Again, a strong evening team, but not a lot of quality depth on their weather, sports, and female anchor benches. As for Chicago's #1 News, a non-sweeps period has made Goudie's absence less noticeable, so far, while their only other obvious talent hole is Cheryl Burton, but that's nothing new.

I would rule out WMAQ. Haeberle and Randhawa have the investigative beat covered. WFLD is looking to produce more content and a weekly investigative program would be interesting. And as crazy as it sounds… NewsNation. I know Zouves is the designated investigative reporter, but she also anchors. Having a full-time person with as much experience as Goudie could be invaluable. In theory, he also could work for WGN splitting his time between the two.

Probably because his shows are barter and don't cost the station anything.

And of course it was because Dan O'Donnell threw another temper tantrum about 'free speech for me but not for thee'. These stations just have to stop listening to these cranks because the only thing they're good for these days is outrage. I didn't even know she had an Instagram account, so this was her personal one, not anything connected with the station. Godawful situation that should have been a quiet suspension at the very most, and our X-obsessed man is a private citizen with no government power. She should not have been fired, and these news orgs are turning 'balanced views journalism', meant to deal with little things like football lights at the high school stadium and road expansions through neighborhoods, into a punchline.

Sadly we have too many defending what he did, calling it what it wasn't including Elise Stefanik. The press needs to find its morals and call it out.

LIN hasn't even existed in a fucking decade! Heartland must've been cheapasses too.

Those complaints can go right to the circular file after whatever perfunctory acknowledgement they wish to provide. There are a plethora of stations that don’t run news operations. There is nothing that states if your station had one that it must continue in perpetuity, regardless of economic factors. The realities of the ad economy are harsh. Viewers have more choices, the revenue pie gets split more ways, and something’s gonna give. Does it suck for some viewers? Yep. For the hard-working people laid off? Double yep. That is always true with any cutbacks in any industry. But life is rough. If there is some bottomless-pocketed investor out where, and who meets the unrealistic standards people put forth, who is it? Who is going to pump that kind of money into let’s just say the Allen portfolio? What would be their actual return on investment? Much like the contraction of the print news industry, it’s a disconcerting change to people who lived a long time with a different reality. But that world? It’s gone.

My, how things have changed. In 2021 and early 2022, Byron Allen was thought of by some as the next great corporate CEO in broadcasting. I once worked for a GM who ran any show of Allen’s he could get his hands on. I’d wager $0.25 that’s not the case any longer.

Honestly, that's probably the direction things are heading.

Please don't speak this into existence.

Perhaps if something dramatic happens? KFVS might try for it too, but it has poor coverage in the eastern part of the market. Still, for one of the few independents left in the business (I wonder if someone like Nexstar has tried to buy WPSD but either was rejected or seen as unable to complete a deal??), that would be a huge coup de grace.

The Fox affiliate in Rochester, MN is valued at $495,000. I know the market is small, but that's not much money. I presume a good chunk of that is tied up in being the local home of the Vikings.

The latest SNL depiction of MSNBC was unfortunately accurate. Their panel of host lined up like "The Avengers" , over obsessive coverage of Trump...to the line "we're Not going to give air time to every crazy Trump statement" despite doing it anyway.

Recall that Ken Rosato and Lori Stokes anchored the 4:30 am, 5:00 am, 6:00am, mid-morning news updates, and noon broadcasts until Lisa Colagrossi died from a brain aneurysm that her family attributed to her grueling hours, and Ken and Lori in turn demanded (appropriately) a reduction in work.

It is absolutely not federal law to break into programming for severe weather. What about stations without newsrooms? Come on. Stations have an obligation to work in the best interests of the public, but honestly an automated severe weather crawl is probably enough to honor the bare minimum. I am not saying it’s right.

My question though: isn't it federal law to break into programming for life-threatening severe weather? So isn't Allen "technically" breaking the law because they aren't providing life-saving information?? I just can't see TWC providing live coverage, especially if they struggle bad enough with who they have for national coverage?? I'm just curious if there are lawsuits just waiting to happen??

You keep saying this same thing. Let me ask you: TO WHOM? You're looking for a white knight that may not exist. And forcing a sale doesn't necessarily help matters, because you may go from one bad operator to another. Be careful of what you wish for. A better case scenario would be for viewers in the affected areas to file a formal complaint at the FCC, saying that AMG isn't operating in the public interest. If enough force is behind that, then something might happen.

Just in the Hawaii case alone which otherwise only has Nexstar and Gray as viable news operations, this feels like it should be a license-forfeiting offense; there is no serious reason there should be weather forecast from 4,500 miles away nearer to another coast and a quarter of a day away. It's already questionable enough when TWC absolutely refuses to forecast the western mainland well to begin with unless it's in severe danger.

Anywhere. Good luck anywhere. We have all been there with a new reporter or met doesn't know local dialect and pronunciations of a city or county and encounters a good learning opportunity on the fly. For Allen stations- yes, Hawaii, but I also think of the Wisconsin markets that use a ton of Oneida, Potawatomi language in community names. For some mild entertainment, got to YouTube and search "How to pronounce town names in (insert any state here)"

If this goes through, good luck to the TWC mets trying to get some of the fancier town names in Hawaii (KITV/ABC), wonder how much time on air on that network, they devote to giving weather outside of the main 48 states & D.C.

Did TEGNA drop the design hub too? Also, do you have an example of the ads? I think this will bite them in the ass, honestly.

There though it mostly involved stations with no infrastructure whatsoever in the News Central format, and at least even in the TND era they still use mostly local folks on downtime to deliver forecasts and general breaking weather news. That I have no issue with because they still have that staff for the most part deliver breaking weather, even in the KTUL and WNWO situations. Just having everything come from TWC...say if you're watching on WAOW, are you going to have to deal with severe weather non-applicable to you from WKOW because master control doesn't know the distance between Beloit and Wausau? How do you know local landmarks and street names? And how on earth do you have viewers submit videos and photos now, because they have to go through TWC's national system rather than the known local system? There are a lot of dangerous unknowns in hubbing weather nationally even in a well-planned transition over a couple of years, and it's worse in this ad hoc setup where now you have bitter ex-staff either on a new station or just starting their own efforts online.

The FCC has renewed WTXF's license, swatting down Media and Democracy Project's challenge with ease: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-25-57A1.txt The upside is that the settlement in the Smartmatic case can't be considered because it doesn't rise to the level of a criminal conviction, and even if it did, lying on cable news isn't severe enough to affect broadcast license ownership as per the 1st Amendment. (The FCC refused to due MAD's homework in combing over the WTXF archives for objectionable material.)

Assuming it's actually revoked under a Republican-controlled FCC.

Kinda figured that Imagicomm would ultimately decide to cash out after a few years. Outside of INSP and a production company that makes direct-to-video films, them owning TV stations didn't really make much sense other than just holding assets for a company in Cox/Apollo that was looking to dump stuff in order to make its own portfolio more attractive to potential would-be suitors. With ownership rules expected to be loosened (if not outright repealed), nothing should be considered off the table as to who buys who. There may be a trade or two along the way (I'll discuss the rest over in the Speculatron).

I always believed it was like the 'minority owner' racket in the 2010s where a distant woman or other racial group were suddenly 'running' stations stripped to do-nothing subchannel farms in the middle of the Great Plains until Gray and Nexstar could buy them back under a GOP FCC. INSP was so hands-off I was shocked and pretty much ran the stations status quo, so it feels like Imagicomm was actually Legacy 2.0.

Yes, they were friends with Trump. I noted in the LA fires thread that former GDNY anchor Jen Lahmers what's doing the same with her co-host on GDLA. The vitriol against bass seems to be coming from all angles.

Methinks Nexstar wants that shot that way so it shows off all of their branding in one shot. But the "only one person in the studio" could ring true as well.

So basically, she was perfect for that show.

WAGA's Alex Whittler announced on IG that she was promoted to host of Good Day ATL replacing Sharon Lawson who left last year "for her own well being". Im never up that early so not sure if GD ATL has a separate team for 4:30-7AM. But quite the load as she will also continue anchoring the hour long noon newscast. Originally she anchored just the noon.

They occasionally produce specials on key topics a handful of times a year and they always air as a special edition of the 5:30pm broadcast.

They teased the 6 o'clock news coming up, at the end.

The only thing that video created was fear, uncertainty and doubt and it felt oddly personal to the GM as he probably has the same spiel for WYOU but they can just sub CBS/P+ in there. You don't tell an audience you could lose your affiliation without warning. They're lucky this was on a New Year's Eve broadcast barely anybody watched and that WNEP eats their lunch and dinner. If this was 16 the Talkback line would no longer know peace.

Imagine 9/11 being your first day at your new newsroom as a journalist!!!! What a story to tell. RIP Mr. Brown

Congratulations to him! I knew he would be ending up at WPVI eventually, especially after seeing that he had left WTVD recently.

Thank god nobody put you in charge of say product safety or getting potholes fixed.

Did not realize that they vote in markets other than their own. But you're right, it seems like almost everyone gets one. Still, seems kind of ironic that someone who never officially got the anchor position won the award. That seems like a major step down. I wonder what he did to get the boot and have to settle for something like that?

September 12th, 1994 is also the same day that its former sister station in Kansas City (WDAF-TV) switched to Fox.