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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

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.

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.

I'm surprised the 9/11 families haven't made a press release on LIV Golf signing with FOX as they were vocal when The CW signed onto LIV Golf. I know the higher ups at The CW did say they knowledge them and left it at that which I'm sure FOX Sports would say the same thing if they were ever asked. I don't know if the ratings will be better on FOX than on The CW.

GOD that 11 logo is so bad.

WABC, with Inauguration coverage running long, decided to air Eyewitness News from 7-8 tonight bumping Jeopardy! & Wheel of Fortune to overnight.

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.

How much further can these corporations strip local news down to its bare bones? From the rise of MMJing, to GMs overseeing multiple stations, to Scripps getting rid of anchors and pre-recording newscasts, to Allen getting rid of meteorologists, to Sinclair outright shutting down newsrooms to air The National Desk, what next? It's a miracle that any college graduate wants to enter this profession.

Went back to check it looks like that started today, last week they were using the EN desk. Maybe they are preparing the set for life after the EN, and that involves the new desk? Also just thought this could just be for the coverage of the Inauguration.

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.

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.

This had been one of my fears whenever everyone was rooting for Allen to buy Tegna. I could tell from the programming that they put out that they were cheap as hell and would run everything on a shoestring budget. I was hoping that I would be wrong but look at what's happening now. I don't mean to sound pessimistic or be a "I-told-you-so" but what's happening at these stations is truly pathetic. How do you expect to be able to serve a market effectively if you're not actually based there? Allen is unfit to hold any broadcast license. This makes me sick to my stomach.

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)"

Something Nexstar would probably consider doing as a workaround to having actual duopolies in some markets.

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.

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

Obviously broadcasting is not his thing, either he doesn’t wanna go big budget or he’s a shoestring media owner. Instead of getting investors to buy big networks how about you reinvest in what you currently have. If he wanted to go into broadcasting maybe buy a few tv stations, every broadcast group started small he grew really fast and obviously wasn’t ready for it. Some will say we’re being hard on him because he’s black, when the truth is he’s just not a good broadcaster and that’s okay. I tell ya this I do not want to be a television station owner it seems stressful. If I did own a television station maybe a few stations I wouldn’t want to be a major owner. Because there be more shoestring budgets and it would be less stressful and profitable they’re are many station owners who own only a few stations and there profitable and they can do virtually whatever they want. I’d have general manager at all stations, and probably no news programming at all unless the network demanded it. My dream would be to own a Telemundo station, maybe give that a news department.

Longtime play-by-play voice of the Milwaukee Brewers & the PBP voice in the Major League movies, Bob Uecker has passed away at the age of 90.

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.

Wasn't she always friends with Trump? As for the rest of the folks at Fox5, I noticed last week that Natasha and Bianca were going after LA mayor Bass after the Post reported that she had rejected the help from NYC firefighters. The Post article was updated to say that she denied that happened (maybe even before it was discussed on the broadcast), but I doubt that was ever reported on the air.

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.

It'll be interesting to see what the Republican-controlled FCC has to say about it...

That's one way to sit out a non-compete while still working and not having to move, considering the WBNS/WKYC common ownership.

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.

Looks like WABC will be starting to move into the new Disney space at 7 Hudson Square pretty soon.

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

2.2 isn’t even TBD anymore, it’s a full-power KUNP simulcast, filling in coverage gaps in areas that can’t receive the LPTV translator on virtual channel 47. (TBD’s been moved to KUNP-DT4.)

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.

All the petty arguments on the forum need to be let behind in 2024 and start fresh in 2025 by focusing only on WABC in this thread and respecting decisions to air less news on certain holidays. Have a nice New Year everyone.

Can you guys take this conversation or whatever it is offline? Thanks. It is way off topic.

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

Granted, in smaller markets the 11:00 p.m. newscast is typically a regurgitation of what aired at 4:00 p.m, so it might as well be pre-recorded. But in a market as large as Detroit, where I'm sure there's news happening at night, what is to be gained from pre recording newscasts? Are they saving costs, because I'm sure the anchors are still in the building anyway for a full 8-hour shift? If news breaks won't they just keep having to add pre-recorded VOs? And what time is the newscast being recorded? I assume they do it as late as possible to avoid anything new breaking before airtime? In that case, they might as well just go live.

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?