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My money’s still on FOX snatching up WPLG and makING it an O&O when Fox’s affiliation contract expires with WSVN.

I don't think that's realistic, given who PLG's owners are and their relationship with Graham.

DPG Media from Belgium has been approved by the Authority for Consumers & Markets to take over RTL Nederland, as announced on the Noedoleckin YouTube channel. https://www.acm.nl/nl/publicaties/acm-stelt-strenge-voorwaarden-aan-overname-rtl-nederland-door-dpg-media

Saw this posted online: Made a few bucks from ABC when WABC-TV legend Al Primo plucked part of Schifrin’s COOL HAND LUKE (1967) “Tar sequence” track to be the new theme for “Eyewitness News” here in NYC and on ABC’s (then) 5 owned tv stations … you know the rest! https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/articles/lalo-schifrin-dies-mission-impossible-204407328.html?

Over 17.1 million Americans watched a national evening newscast last week. In this fragmented media environment, that is a sizeable audience. What's your source on this? Have you spoken to his successor? Is he set on selling to Nexstar, or will he entertain offers from other groups?? I'll put my sarcasm aside to say, I don't understand this overly dramatic doomsday prediction for WPLG. Dropping a costly network affiliation is a "self-destructive" effort that is a"recipe for disaster" and "the biggest blotch" on Warren Buffett's career (as if he made the decision himself). The people who made this decision at Local 10 have a wealth of data to consider. They know what they are paying to ABC. They are aware of their news production costs, syndication programming costs, and so on. In short, they have made a business decision that leaving a 70-year partnership is the more financially beneficial path. Now, not all business decisions work out for the best. WPLG may very well come to regret this decision. But it may be a success. Remember, you don't have to be #1 to be a financial success - owning all of their inventory sure makes that revenue column balloon. I'm not trying to force anyone to root for WPLG's success or failure. I just think it is a bit extreme to make such a bold prediction of a catastrophic collapse without knowing the business factors and fiscal numbers that went into this decision.

The notion of over-diluting one’s brand with too much local news continues to feel self-destructive. In what way is WPLG going to benefit by airing more news to a smaller overall audience? And especially when they are simply Xeroxing the 6:30 network newscast, which is itself a game of total attrition? To be blunt, WPLG might just be the biggest blotch on what was a sterling career for Warren Buffett. His successors can’t wait to offload it to Nexstar.

Byron doesn’t seem to last very long at any place he works. Just sayin.

The 18.1 placement really doesn't matter for anything but cable carriage. Not that it matters because LPTVs are excluded from must-carry rules.

I also don't want to see yet another local station oversaturated with news. The all local news all the time bubble will eventually burst. There's no doubt 'Local 10 World News' will be a copycat of David Muir's show with significantly fewer on the ground live shots, and mostly anchor VOs from wire services. That said, what choice does WPLG (and similarly WANF) have? Syndication options are few and costly. I like the world news concept with a Caribbean and Latin American focus to appeal to Miami's demographics. They're taking a page from Fox O&Os --- diversifying obscene news output with creative programming. KCPQ for example doing a Washington State based newscast, and KRIV having "The Isiah Factor" etc..

Frank Gari brought Lalo's Cool Hand Luke into the 80s and early 90s with NewsSeries 2000. I remember hearing that Gari version on KRDO ABC13 in Colorado Springs (my hometown) when I was a kid. I didn't hear the Lalo Schifrin original until I was a senior in high school and the internet came along. We'll miss Lalo a great deal. Oh, and say Hello to Al Primo for us. Schifrin is now up there with Primo. in the Eyewitness Newsroom in the sky.

I wonder if they'll relocate to some of the space that CNN just vacated downtown...

Here's something new... a physical weather team still in Cedar Rapids, but now using TWC graphics. What an odd mix. Again, its Allen.

I wonder if any of the stations that used that theme will cover this.

Looks like they’re building a full-fledged news operation in Atlanta. I wonder where they’re going to house all those people in WUPA’s current facility.

I don’t think it’s a bad idea for WPLG. I mean, what else can they do when losing network affiliation other than fill up on news and syndications?

ABC Miami will also be offered on channel 18.1.

And now two years later a new deal has been reached; all those networks are actually coming back to Spectrum, along with Hulu with ads access. I think we can easily see that Spectrum held out and Disney realized that fewer children watching their channels did make a difference in depressing their other properties, like Elio's box office performance last week; kids are not watching interviews with the adult voice actors on Good Morning America and certainly not The View (the only real prominent promotion I saw for the film).

That story is a very interesting way to spin away from the fact that they've just lost half their weather staff, and Tyler and Kristen felt so underappreciated (you can easily argue Kristen was doing so much more work/shifts than the actual chief, and Tyler basically ran the day shift all by himself), that they just gave up and looked for other opportunities. The days of Paul Joseph and John Malan keeping that station the market's gold standard are truly over.

I will say at least the new set will help with the seamless transition between "local 10 news" and "local 10 world news"

Clever, just can’t unsee the oxymoron of “Local” 10 “World” News The network evening newscasts are heavy on feature style human interest reporting, curious how their ABC World News audience will respond to this version

More changes to the Weekend News today: Today's edition was anchored from the regular Evening News set instead of the other set they had been using. Wonder if this will be permanent or not... They've also changed the L3s that appear during stories to match the ones used by the Evening News, although slightly modified to appear to the right of the logo bug at the bottom (the logo at the top left is also a new addition):

They maintained that living room look in the early Times Square years (screenshots from 2001 and 2003) but yes that faded as time went on. Really liked that set.

The new set looks great! It's a bit of a shame that they can no longer interact with a live audience anymore. I guess the rival Today Show will be the sole show that has this card now at 30 Rock. Nonetheless, it's a significant improvement; the studios at 7 Hudson are quite nice. Maybe without the distraction of the street audience and fanfare, it will be a more polished and focused product and environment for employees and stakeholders. The only gripe so far, is that, the show is supposed to represent America, not New York City, and lately ABC's national news shows have been too New York Centric, while I agree that New York is America's largest city and is arguably the crown jewel city for the country, I think they should try to do a dynamic backdrop that shows every city or perhaps do a blend of the skylines of different cities like CNN does for their Morning Show or even Good Morning Britain which does something of that sort to represent America as a whole not just New York. But overall, the studio is incredible, kudos to ABC for fitting all of this into this building it's hard to believe they have all of these large studios in such a small footprint.

The 18.1 signal will be used mainly for cable and probably satellite services.

Bill Moyers, former White House press secretary turned acclaimed public TV journalist, dies at 91

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Entertainment/wireStory/lalo-schifrin-composer-mission-impossible-theme-dies-93-123252064 Lalo Schifrin, the legendary Argentine–American composer, passed away today at age 93. Among his many influential scores, the “Tar Sequence” from Cool Hand Luke (1967) found a second life far beyond the silver screen—it was adopted as the signature news theme by numerous ABC-owned stations (and some affiliates) from the late 1960s into the 1990s, and even inspired later Eyewitness News packages—a testament to its driving rhythm and broadcast-ready punch.

Good luck with that. WDFL's signal is very weak and unless they significantly upgrade it, more people will access ABC Miami via WSVN 7.2 than WDFL 18.1.

Does all this affect Glendive's status as a Nielsen DMA? It would be interesting to see how ownership changes, loss of NBC, and viewership there makes Nielsen feel about the Glendive area.

Surprised this wasn't posted yet. Former WCAU reporter Orion Reid passed away last week. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/orien-reid-philadelphia-wcau-tv-channel-10-reporter-dies/4213726/

WPLG is launching their version of World News on August 4th.

Longtime WRAL anchor Charlie Gaddy has died.

Renee Ferguson, long-time NBC 5 Chicago investigative journalist, dies