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57 years at one TV station? It is unheard of now these days in this business. Yet, longtime KARK camera operator Morsie Eagles did just that. Today, he finally retires at The Morsie Eagles Studio (named in 2018) at KARK. https://www.kark.com/news/kark-4-today/kark-4-news-longtime-camera-operator-morsie-eagles-retires/?fbclid=IwY2xjawJX1BhleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHS0eLyTCFzdcloLYtNqauQLYZANUA2F69eToVGruBf2P6KCN2ZX8MbUz7A_aem_9QydHpk2FLzzGMCPCj9e3Q

WABC also uses Eyewitness News This Morning… CBS’s national show used to be called CBS This Morning.

So basically they've become "Early Today"...

I'm guessing since the same staff does GMA First Look they justify a two-hour shift (outside sudden breaking events where the GMA cast isn't on-site yet) and keep running it in that manner for cost efficiency purposes.

All good. And yes, the lack of public availability of ratings is unfortunate.

Europe is varied, and fragmented. But it's not dire yet for various reasons - a lot has to do with the fact the media there is fed by taxpayer money. Even the private channels. The EU doles out tax money as subsidies, and countries' governments do that too separately. Whether anyone watches or not they throw money. The rating trends with the young are the same, and in some ways worse than the US. Add to that the fact that star anchors rarely if ever make 6-7-8 figure salaries, there are no networks to bleed the retrans fees from cable, and sport isn't eating up the budgets to the same level. The NFL bags $13B/yr in broadcast rights, the NBA $2.7B. UEFA is around $3B/yr for broadcast rights and unlike the US, various channels acquire the rights some of which operate like an HBO does. In Eastern Europe, where I'm from originally, will have some games air on broadcast but a lot of the games will be on a pay channel in the style of HBO that sits on top of your cable/satellite subscription. If not fans pull up some foreign satellite channel out of Germany/Italy and watcht that way I was talking to a friend in the biz the other day, and he said they're surviving because they aren't news focused. EU broadcast TV has never been news-focused like the US. bTV/NovaTV in Bulgaria has 2hrs of a GMA-like morning program, then it's coffee talk, gossip, cheap Turkish and Indian soaps until 6pm with a few minutes of noon news, and a 1 hour in-studio political program. The 6-7pm news follow and then it's Masked Singer or whatever bullshit show is on with another 10-15 minutes of news at 11pm. So 3-ish hours of news total in a weekday. Overall the trends of the young not watching are the same or worse as the US. At least for Eastern Europe they're worse, we're leaping right into social medial and our young people are constantly out with their friends. On weekends especially.

NCIS: Albuquerque and FBI: Office Cleaning Crew look to have potential. But seriously, let’s stop with the “let’s do what they did decades ago” reactions. This ain’t then, and that ain’t happening.

What does ABC News Live run during the hours that WNN is available? Because what CBS needs is more cop shows.

Another round of Cumulus AM radio stations shut down…. https://radioinsight.com/headlines/297717/cumulus-shutting-down-des-moines-flint-fort-walton-beach-ams/ for the record before that there are already 20 Townsquare and Cumulus stations shut off https://radioinsight.com/headlines/296690/twenty-cumulus-townsquare-media-stations-cease-operations-with-more-to-come/

WPLG's 9am is more lighter in nature than the 4:30-7am and other newscasts. I'm betting the new expanded morning newscast will be done by two separate anchor teams, like when they had the 7-9am WSFL newscast. If CBS/Sony allows KTVK to run both shows in primetime...

With the 9pm evening start, I wonder if they’re hedging on being contractually able to run Jeopardy! and Wheel at 8pm…

I hope they use the 7 to 11 AM block to do a lighter morning show (like Good Day Orlando), instead of all hard news. It's surprising that in a place as active and vibrant as South Florida, there was no light morning newscast in the overlapping Miami or West Palm Beach markets, until WPEC added ARC Florida recently. WOFL 35 in Orlando is a great example of a station using creative formatting to fill heavy news output.

It makes you feel like they're going to have red LEDs all over the studio even when its 85º and sunny as they Future Alert you that thunderstorms may happen in the month of April. Baffling brand; it feels like it belongs solely as a forecast model brand rather than one for the entire department.

28 WBRE/WYOU 22 continues to slowly phase out their Eyewitness News branding, and this week they have introduced “Future Alert Weather”, to replace “Eyewitness Weather”. It looks awkward as all get out in the graphics banner, and as a brand I’m really not sure how I feel about it.

Because crime sells. (See also: "If it bleeds, it leads.")

I don't think it has anything to do with Fox News. They started de-emphasizing network branding when NBC bought WTVJ, and I assume they've stuck with that approach ever since then because it's worked for them.

Again, the reporting (from Variety, Comcast press releases, etc…) indicates that sports coverage/programming will continue on USA, CNBC, etc.. There has been nothing I have seen/read that would indicate otherwise. For example, this is directly from a Comcast press release from February in reference to the 2026 Winter Games… ‘Consistent with previous Olympic Winter Games, comprehensive cable coverage will be on USA Network and CNBC. USA Network will once again be the 24/7 home of Team USA while CNBC will provide coverage on the weekends and weekdays once its business day programming concludes.’ From a World Soccer Talk article.. ‘From a sports perspective, the partners that we have on cable assets like Golf Channel and USA, we’re going to fulfill every obligation and every promise we made to them across NBC and SpinCo, which is the cable assets,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella explained this week at the SBJ Conference.‘ You have to keep in mind that removing sports from the spun off cable networks will greatly devalue them. Comcast is not going to do that despite the networks not being a part of the company. Again, it is expected some things will be sub-licensed to SpinCo and/or outsourced (likely to NBC Sports). For now, everything will continue as planned.

Friday and Saturday are the weakest TV nights of the week, so that does make sense to use the "B" team then as opposed to the standard M-F and weekend teams. Some ABC affiliates tended to do this in the past when they had strong shows back then...

I grew up during that era, so I watched a number of syndicated shows (mostly sci-fi and fantasy), though little of it regularly as there usually wasn't a TV available in the house when I wanted one. The thing that always annoyed about syndicated programming was that it'd end up in weird time slots such as late at night or weekend afternoons. Even the most of indie stations would do that, saving the 8-11pm hours for movies. I remember being down in Florida one summer and discovering that one station was showing either Hercules or Xena during primetime hours on a Tuesday night.

If you're of a certain age, you can remember the glut of first-run syndicated dramas, sitcoms, and musical/talent shows that were around during the 1980s and '90s...a lot of that had to do with more TV stations signing on the air during that aforementioned time (thus needing the programming, besides old off-network reruns and whatever live sports they could cobble up), and already-established stations having more control over their programming inventory. Over time, with the launch of Fox, and later The WB and UPN, plus the growth of cable TV (both in terms of subscribers and the number of networks), a lot of these same kind of shows that would be meant for first-run syndication eventually migrated to those outlets, and now 25-30 years later, much of that same type of content has migrated to streaming. The more I think about it, these local stations (including the likes of WPLG) may have to try "re-invent the wheel" in order for them to survive in the long-term...going wall-to-wall news (like a certain CW station in my home city) may not cut it everywhere.

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?)

Miami is one of the most unstable markets for network affiliation. This is just shocking. WSVN seems to be ashamed of being affiliated with Fox, so I can see them wanting to become the full-time ABC affiliate. Exactly my question, does ABC want to be relegated to a sub channel? I would imagine they just simulcast newscasts. Where does ABC go if it wants a full channel? WSFL, a less popular station with a high dial number? If ABC ever goes to its own full channel they might want to start a news department --if it lacks one. The south Florida television market would then be saturated with roughly seven english major broadcast stations in one signal area (Counting WPB) What syndication options are left? WPLG is already a news intensive operation...to fill programming holes they wont be too far off from KTLA's news output.

I didn't think about that, but it's a good point too. I'd add that the non-news programming (especially syndication and cable) has become mind-numbingly repetitive in its own way. American TV has always been lazy in terms of its presentation, but it seems like around the mid-2010s, streaming became an excuse for the linear TV industry to give up and become just as lazy with everything else.

45 years in television, 20 years at KATC, a few at KVHP, and the last 18 at KPLC. Yesterday, Agnes DeRouen retired from KPLC. https://www.kplctv.com/2025/03/28/farewell-agnes-derouen-7news-anchor/

I'm sad to hear this but after a 33-year run at WCAX, Gary Sadowsky has retired and Jess Langlois is the new Chief. https://www.wcax.com/2025/03/21/so-long-sadowsky/ https://www.wcax.com/2025/03/12/say-it-aint-so-gary-sadowsky-gets-ready-retire/

I would see it as an opportunity to do a show about NCIS's Army or Air Force counterpart. Why should the Navy CIS get all the shows? Personally, though, I've been waiting for CSI: Podunk. "Solving crimes...in the middle of nowhere!"

Neysa Wilkins is retiring from WJHG in Panama City after 32 years as a main anchor there. https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/neysa-wilkins-retiring-from-wjhg-in-panama-city-after-32-years/

WBAY is dropping Catchy Comedy from 2.6 next Monday. Don't be surprised if new station WMEI from Weigel picks it up. https://www.wbay.com/2025/03/25/wbays-subchannel-26-going-off-air/