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It was reported here a couple months ago WCAU's studios at the Comcast Technology Center suffered water damage with the sett having to be demolished. Today at 11AM they debuted a new set in the repaired studio: Watching the replay of the newscast on Peacock, there's a lot of elements that remind me of the NBC Sports RSN set. Like the set it replaces, a seamless 4K screen features as the backdrop behind the news desk. Weather is done in front an almost equally large touch screen. Not sure yet if there is a full weather set. We'll see. Update: so they can change the set colors on the fly. Also there's tons of standup pods around the studio. Finally my question about the weather center was answered. The one from the previous set actually survived and is behind the frosted glass the weather screen is mounted on. You can make it out when they pan in on the screen and you can also catch it in the timelapse.

I'm just going to throw this out there..... With the current state of our government and it's concentration of the financially elite (and the maxed-out state of our current TV ownership situation with their regulatory and financial limitations) Billionaires tied to the FCC could go after TV stations and groups to start pushing out state-controlled propaganda, or through "favorable" companies despite any past indiscretions? It's a potential disaster that could very well happen at this rate. Once they weaken the FCC or bow to their demands, it's all over folks.

Instead, they'll live off of syndicated crap game shows or garbage programming. Hey, someone has to push the trash talkers and court shows on the unwashed masses. (Also, are there actually twelve episodes of Family Feud every day?) Scripted programming is not in the past; it just often ends up on streaming services because the broadcast networks generally only want shows that have the broadest appeal. Sports and reality shows succeed at that, partly because they're focused on physical ability (sports), competition (most reality shows on the networks), or relationship drama (the farmer wants a wife? Good for him, but absolutely none of my business). On the scripted side, these means a lot of procedurals, both police/crime-solving (CSI, NCIS, the entire Dick Wolf multiverse) and medical (The Pitt, Doc, House, etc.). The more intellectually-stimulating scripted shows wouldn't have a chance of being picked up by the broadcast networks, and cable channels are not grabbing as many of them as they used to as they themselves are dumbing their content down to widen their appeal. (Why do you think BBC America shows Law & Order repeats?)

We're getting closer to the days when the local affiliate is no longer necessary for network television. Case in point, my local CBS and CW stations are not on YouTube TV at the moment (but still on the air otherwise). YTTV just pops up a network feed that fills in the local slots with CBS News programming and PSAs, and on the CW, their eastern feed. Given the garbage that passes off as network television these days, I'd prefer a hyper-local station that doesn't have to pre-empt things for whatever crap sports or garbage programming is being sent to the affiliates to run.

Except this is a Scripps station. Nexstar owns WOOD-TV + WOTV + WXSP.

And why are we bumping threads from a year-and-a-half ago?

First Coast News uses Good Morning Jacksonville despite the NBC station being their lead product which simulcasts on ABC. WABC calls its 10am newscast Eyewitness News Mornings at 10, despite Mornings being CBS's AM branding. While it's common practice for local stations to brand their morning newscast in line with the national AM newscast, I don't think it's a requirement or an expectation.

It wasn’t a big deal for Fox because they don’t have a national morning show competing against TODAY. ABC does have a national morning show, GMA, who often is neck and neck with the TODAY show in the ratings. That’s the difference here. Also, the morning program on 6 used to be referred to as NBC6 News Today in South Florida.

37 years. What a legacy. What a host. I know this is something we never post but it's TV and broadcasting overall so I'm posting it here. Move it somewhere else if it needs to be. After a 37 year run at QVC, one of its most signature hosts of the shopping network, Mary Beth Roe, has called it a career. While not an overall household name like say Guy Fieri or Rachael Ray, Mary Beth was still a beloved host for the network and you can tell by all the love she received on her last broadcast. This is her last broadcast in full, a two-hour special:

Gray has conflicts in Atlanta and charlotte. Nexstar conflict in Dayton Any chance Hearst jumps on this? Good chance to get some pretty good assets…conflicts in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Orlando would need to be divested, but that should be easy.

barring a hurricane visit, 16 months is probably doable. WPLG started construction in October '07 and was on air in March 2009. besides, it's not like that building is a complex work of art, it's a tarted up concrete box made from precast panels on a slab. 60-90 days for the shell is probably very realistic. Getting the other stuff done will eat most of the time.

Have a feeling when ABC's aboard, WSVN, when it comes to their newscasts, might be a bit more judicial when it comes to nat'l stories mixing in ABC along with CNN moreso than currently constitued btn. FOX & CNN. Also with this affiliation change, Miami joins Phoenix (KTVK) having both Jeopardy! & WoF on a non-network affiliated/independent station.

Well, hopefully construction is underway and that they do it fast, or make it a 24/7 operation (outside of hurricanes and whatnot). The 70th anniversary is July 29th, 2026. That's almost 16 months away.

WSVN is likely not for sale for the forseeable future. We would be reading a very different news releases right now if it were. ABC just didn't want Scripps' alsoran station, and liked what Sunbeam offered. The renewal with FOX is coming up spring 2027, maybe Sunbeam is hedging its options just in case. WPLG will try and give it a go alone copying what WHDH did in Boston but don't nobody be shocked to hear they're for sale As far as construction of the new building for WSVN - people think they were in a rush to move but the new studio was always contingent on the big project accross the street being approved first, and the city didn't take the last vote on that till 11/2024. Ansin siad he wants employees to have somewhere to go, which makes sense many of them live in Miami Shores and the beach for years, they're used to having nice places to visit and Miramar isn't exactly hot, hip and happening. The goal, as I've been told, is to be in by the station's 70th anniversary so they can tie it all up and make a big deal out of it. nah they don't distance themselves. It's a branding decision since the switch days. Currently WSVN airs FOXNews Sunday at 9AM, it used to be on at 4AM Mondays right before Today in Florida. And during the Iraq war they heavily promoted being attached to FOX News. They actually make use of and mention FNC more now than they ever have, and last I was told they're still part of the CNN pool/NewsSource or whatever that's called. Similarly, WHDH referred to itself as '7NBC' only when they mentioned NBC shows during a newscast. Come 2009 when they went HD, the peacock was completely gone from the WHDH open.

So, I actually think there might be something here. Maybe. It's a hunch. Maybe I'm wrong! But, allow me to speculate for a moment. WSVN is in a very unique situation right now. They have plans to build a brand new facility, and their current owners are developing the real estate for both the current facility and the future one. They own the land at both sites, in fact, the future facility is on empty land they've held for years, and the current facility is on land they want to develop into expensive condos. The condo development wouldn't be planned if they didn't think it would make money, and it will probably make enough to pay for the new WSVN facility several times over. This whole new facility project has always had the underlying motive of Sunbeam wanting the station off the current land because they see the value in it, and they have a lot of empty land in Miramar that they can plop it on, to get it out of the way. The common saying is "Disney doesn't buy stations", but there should be an asterisk there. Disney doesn't buy stations because Bob Iger is convinced most are overpriced. Sunbeam has a very interesting position here. Their primary business is, at this point, property development. Building a building just to lease it out is what they do. It seems to me, like they could be in a position to sell WSVN at a "discount", with the remainder being more or less made up via a long-term lease on the new facility. This would be a huge win for Sunbeam. They can develop land that has sat idle for years, and have it immediately start making money, from a tenant that you really wouldn't have to worry about going bankrupt. They'd still make money off the station for years to come, and best of all, it'd be a predictable amount. It is notable that, despite the project being announced some time ago, the parcel the new facility will sit on was untouched as late as October of last year, over a year after it was announced and approved by the city. What's the delay? The fact we're hearing about this now means there's probably been talks about this for months. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that Sunbeam put the brakes on the project in order to provide the ability to any possible future owner (I think FOX is also in play here) to make changes before the construction begins. I'm not sure we're done hearing about this "deal"... I don't think Disney would settle for a .2, if there weren't other things in the works. I've been saying since the new facility was announced that this seems ripe for them to sell the station and make money off the lease, and this seems to be the perfect opportunity to do so.

WSVN has formally announced the adding of ABC to its affiliation lineup on the air. WPLG also announced the ending of its ABC affiliation on TV. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF4ISfI7QJU

Comcast is considering spinning off their cable networks. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/comcast-exploring-spinoff-cable-networks-124654274.html I wonder why they would so this. I would keep the most successful networks or programs and close the ones that aren't. Or turn them into streaming categories & put it on peacock.

This season will be the last for Bob Carpenter as the TV voice of the Washington Nationals & also the end, in all likelihood, of a great sports broadcasting career. He was the first host of ESPN's College Gameday & did other stuff for them & also was a voice for the St. Louis Cardinals. https://www.masnsports.com/blog/carpenter-reveals-this-will-be-final-season-as-nats-lead-announcer

KCBS is now airing the CBS Evening News at 4pm with Evening News Plus at 4:30pm. This is what's other schedule on zap2it TV listings.

Exactly. I really don't understand what the point was. It must be really annoying to work at CBS News with all the cost cutting and then see them spend money on stuff like moving "CBS Mornings" (what a dumb name) to Time Square with a set that looks like it could be a green screen. Honestly, all the networks have gotten really lazy with set design. The new trend seems to be make a fake digital set and then display it on a huge screen as a background.

Well, this is certainly a surprise! It'll be interesting to see how WPLG does as an independent (something tells me station management will be chatting with their counterparts at WJXT for advice), how ABC does on 7.2... and whether or not Sunbeam takes the opportunity to go shopping for a duopoly partner for WSVN (with ABC moving to said partner). Didn't that attempted sale also include WVIT? It's on (virtual) channel 25 in one neighboring DMA (WPB) and 26 in the other (Fort Myers), so I don't think being on channel 39 would be that big a deal.

WSVN and FOX have a 30 plus-year relationship and have described each other as 'perfect partners.' FOX went as far as to say, when they renewed the affiliation last year, that their 'relationship with Ed and the Sunbeam team is one of our longest and strongest affiliate partnerships.' That doesn't sound like either party is unhappy.

That was wild and I remember that announcement very well. I think today's news though tops it.

I did not have that on my bingo card.

I’m old enough to remember when NBC tried to sell WTVJ to what was The Washington Post company at the time to form a duopoly with WPLG in 2008, which would have been the first top 20 with two of the big 4 English language networks under common ownership. That felt wild and ominous for the future of the business then. 17 years later the business model is so dramatically different this feels like a “yeah something like this was bound to happen in a market that size eventually” moment. Yet another network switch in a market where change has been pretty constant.

Hell, if you want to get technical, those are the only stations that ABC or its corporate parent at the time has ever bought. CapCities did make an equity investment into Young Broadcasting, but Disney sold that interest in 1998. I feel like not enough is being said about what a bad, bad sign it is that WPLG is losing ABC because they literally can't afford to be an affiliate anymore. The fact that WPLG doesn't have scale to fall back on (anymore) is part of it, but still. If a station owned by Berkshire Hathaway cannot or will not cough up increasingly-onerous reverse compensation fees, how long will it be before the time bomb goes off for the big chains?

They’ll probably have to lay off staff regardless as ad rates and retrans fees are likely to decline without ABC programming

This assumes that this isn’t a negotiating tactic on WPLG’s part: walk away knowing ABC has no good options for a replacement affiliate (considering WSVN is most likely locked in with Fox, and six other stations are owned by the parents of the other major English- and Spanish-language networks), so that the network will have no choice but to crawl back and meet its offer, a gamble that’s incredibly risky (they’re dealing with Disney, after all). We know other station owners have been trying to claw back on the reverse compensation model for the same reasons why WPLG said no to ABC’s terms. WSFL is the only option (relying on its existing deal with Scripps, though that would necessitate Scripps building the market’s fifth English news department from scratch), unless Disney/ABC pulls what NBC did in Boston a decade ago and launches an O&O from scratch. If it goes through, none of the major English-language television stations in Miami will have been an affiliate of their network for longer than 36 years, a rarity for a top-20 market.

Somehow, this didn't get much attention other than a paywalled Bloomberg article, but back on March 7th, the Court of Appeals issued a decision in Gray's appeal of the FCC's $518,283 fine against it over the KTVA/KYES acquisition. They affirmed the FCC's ruling that Gray violated the top-four rule but vacated the fine, saying that the FCC did not say in the Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture that it found Gray's conduct to be egregious (which is one of the factors in calculating fine amounts), only doing so in the Forfeiture Order. As a result, Gray couldn't respond to the FCC's finding in its response to the NAL. They also said that the FCC didn't adequately explain "how it considered whether Gray acted in good faith" in determining the fine amount. The case will now go back to the FCC for further proceedings. Court Opinion: https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-410086A1.pdf

Extra is renewed for season 32 ... possibly without Billy Bush as host. https://deadline.com/2025/03/extra-renewed-season-32-billy-bush-host-returning-leaving-1236329140/

That feels A. Very European. B. Super cheap.

That's a bit...dramatic.

It wasn't giving KCAL at all to me. More like the former KCBS set. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C77RqBwvOd2/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Just saw the Instagram Reel. The framing elements is giving KCAL.

KBAK finally has a new set. It might be a hand me down from the shuttered news department at KTVL in Medford, OR.

You're bang on!

KTVZ/Bend, OR is unveiling a new news set and weather center on Monday (November 20), debuting during sister station KFXO-LD’s 4:00 p.m. newscast. It is the first set overhaul in 15 years. According to TVNewsCheck (story linked above):

“It is the first set overhaul in 15 years.” They did do newscasts at Oregon State University-Cascades for a little while.

Then set ”upgrade” looks beautiful.

They replaced their plasma array backdrop with a seamless video wall.

JHD group was the set designer

Update that debuted 9/2/14. Includes new rear projection background used for topical graphics, and update newsroom shots (looks to me like LA newsroom). There are more photos on my flickr page. (sorry but couldn't upload them all for some reason). https://www.flickr.com/photos/126675500@N05/?details=1 I personal love it and hate it. I like the fact that they got rid of the monitor wall as the home base background like it because i hate the line. I hate it because it just looks awkward with the orange accent to the set and looks like a combo of the old set from 2012 and the set from studio 3C years ago. It looks like they've made the set smaller.

Gray Television, based here in Atlanta and owner of WANF will fight tooth and nail

I thought jurors owners just renewed a year ago but I could be wrong

Will the CW in Tampa be on WFLA’s spectrum or WTTA’s?

Just a lighting upgrade, they should be back in the main studio in a week (they are in front of a screen in the secondary studio). they recently repainted the weather center and put in some new desk and computers, it doesn’t look like it will regularly be used on air much if at all.

In hindsight, I suppose you’re right, nearly 10 years is a long run. And I didn’t say that presentation didn’t matter, just that it wasn’t the single most important aspect of a newscast. Still think they could’ve done a better job, but hey, it’s the best set in the market, so that’s fine. That said, I’m still not sure why some stations (KDVR, KNTV, WTKR, KXAN) are junking sets from 2016 (and in KDVR’s case, 2019!) when the money could be better spent elsewhere. EDIT: To WKRG/Nexstar’s credit, the old set isn’t going to waste. It’s being donated to the University of South Alabama.

WKRG even did a retrospective of pretty much ALL of their prior sets... https://youtu.be/en3oiNW7KDU A takeaway from this, in the 70s, WKRG took some inspiration from WAGA. Their 1970-90s logo was based on the 60's WAGA logo, and the 'TV5' logo (which I've never seen before) is virtually identical to the WAGA logo they used prior to their "A5" "5 Belongs" logo. Yes, it's a Nexstar set. Yes, it's a corner desk. Still better than any other set in the market. I get the idea that it's basically things around the walls and nothing in the middle, giving little depth to each section. Nexstsr seems to cram as many looks as they can into a single studio.

It's not an improvement. Classic Nexstar.

Look for WKRG, WMBB, WSAV, and WCBD getting sets this summer.