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I'm impressed this insane conversation has sustained itself for weeks now. Really great job everyone.

And? It's the summer. Sometimes people are on vacation. Sometimes all at the same time. Sometimes they're all on together.

This isn’t a slam on participants but I don’t understand why certain threads — notably this one and WPVI — seem to be flooded with posts regarding whom is subbing for whom. Maybe because it’s summer the thread is short on content.

No it because they KARE lol…

With the Hall of Fame Game taking place one week from today, let’s fire up this thread. The Lions have named Jason Benetti and TJ Lang as their preseason broadcast team.

The set they had before was completely fine, one of the best in market. The main improvement I see so far is that the seamless video wall behind the anchors looks a bit better with the skyline at the edges.

I can’t speak for the WPVI thread but for New York, it’s been interesting to point only when notable fill in or pairings are made. For instance they began rotating several network level talent, Liz Cho anchoring weekend mornings or at 11, etc.

I guess that begs the bigger question, any reason why the Today show is 4 hours M-F and not Sa-Su? Why The Tonight Show skips Saturday and Sunday? Why local stations do more newscasts M-F and not Sa-Su? I mean this isn't hard ... local NBC's repeat their 11pm news on the M-F schedule (which runs into early Saturday am) and they don't repeat it on the Sa-Sun schedule (which runs into early Monday am). Lots of reasons why - one that comes to mind is the late news is most likely to be delayed or adjusted because of sports overruns on Saturdays and Sundays so why force editing or adjusting on a weekend when you're running an even more bare-bones staff?

Tahman filled in on the morning show at least once in 2017.

More people joining the NBA on NBC including Michael Grady, who also has duties on Prime's NBA team. https://twitter.com/NBAonNBC/status/1948399282668576900

WAVE Louisville will soon have to give up local coverage of the Kentucky Oaks because next year, for the first time ever, its going national, in primetime, on NBC. https://www.nbcsports.com/pressbox/press-releases/for-first-time-ever-nbc-sports-to-present-kentucky-oaks-in-primetime-friday-may-1-2026-on-nbc-and-peacock

106.3 WUUB, the ESPN Radio station owned by Good Karma Brands in WPB, has changed its callsign to WESP. The request took place on April 11th, granted by the FCC on April 17th, and became effective on April 28th. Its the closest ESPN Radio station to Miami since Miami itself doesn't have an affiliate anymore (WQAM has Infinity Sports and WINZ has FOX Sports). https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/views/public/fmDraftCopy?displayType=html&appKey=25076ff3961a34fd0196253ca8a808ec&id=25076ff3961a34fd0196253ca8a808ec&goBack=N

A third newscast at 7:00 p.m. is coming to Baltimore. WBAL is launching theirs on September 15th. https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/baltimores-wbal-to-add-evening-newscast-shuffle-meteorologists/

CHSN will temporarily return OTA in Chicago for 7 games the rest of the MLB season via WCIU (posted via T Dog Media on Bluesky).

Nope! That's trash TV programs right there, and I'm glad WPLG didn't pick them up. We don't need those programs here, so no. Not a bad thing.

This is a bad thing?

To be fair, the Ansin's are kinda known for real-estate so I'm not that surprised.

Ol' Scotty is off here, it wasn't ABC that did this, it was Sunbeam. By far the best-designed easy-to-read, billboard I've seen in a long time. Ed would be proud.

Corporate contingency plan. Likely a playbook written years ago, and refined with lessons learned from Hurricane Harvey flooding KHOU. Have a few strategic locations with fully functional second control rooms, studios, and a large enough of an operation where they have staff levels to support a sudden, unexpected addition without harming the host station’s product too much. Plus, MSP and ATL are both Delta hubs - so there are frequent flights between both cities to get talent there.

I can’t tell if this is a joke lol. Is this the first time you’ve watched a television news broadcast? I’m starting to think people do live under rocks

NBCSN maybe rising from the dead with the NBA on the horizon: https://awfulannouncing.com/nbc/exploring-launch-sports-focused-cable-network-nbcsn.html

Sky TV has agreed to buy Warner Brothers Discovery NZ, which owns Three, for NZ$1. WBD bought Three, also known as TV3, for US$20 Million in 2020. Sky TV shares a name, but is not related to Sky Group in the UK, which is owned by Comcast.

WBD will pay off the debt before transferring the stations, but also tied SkyTV in content agreement worth $20 mil a year for the next 5 years I think. So really a $100 mil transaction

fwiw AI built for lawyers gave this summary: "Hedge fund investors, private equity, and media conglomerates like Nexstar should reevaluate their portfolios and may undertake a divestiture of small-market assets [...] and target the most valuable pairs, a #1 and #2 station in a larger market would obtain a significant market share without triggering antitrust... small market stations, below even market 70?... are probably toast-ed

WIAT opened their 10pm newscast on the story last night: https://www.cbs42.com/sports/report-birmingham-stallions-to-move/

I live in a 120+ market where the Nexstar affiliate(s) has fallen apart, especially on weekends. Aside from weather, NO local stories on weekend evenings. Right to network or Nexstar reports. Maybe some sports, since we're adjacent to pro teams. They were running with one MMJ for months, until he went on to a bigger market. Currently, it appears to be interns. Anyone else seeing this in small market Nexstar stations?

Couldn't it just be transitional services or something.

I expect no changes at all to occur with WVTV (they're running a promo with SBG congratulating a long time employee for being enshrined in the Wisconsin Broadcaster's Hall of Fame even now), and they share programming with WLUK/WCWF and hub with WUCW. It's very clear the owner may have changed, but Hunt Valley still runs everything.

I can’t tell if this is a joke lol. Is this the first time you’ve watched a television news broadcast?

It’s the middle of the summer. They’re probably on vacation. It’s also Wednesday, the show is still Savannah and Craig why would they change the open?

Because Savannah and Craig are away (either on vacation or on assignment) and Laura and Peter are filling in for them. They want the viewers to know that Savannah and Craig are still the weekday hosts and they will be back.

Since Countdown never has a steady panel from season to season you can really just assume anyone not named SAS, Shams Charania or Brian Windhorst won't be back next year and whatever Inside does, they'll adjust to that style. Or that they'll just finally ditch "Countdown" altogether for the branding. It's also for the best since ABC has the Finals and we can finally get them past the conference finals (that first post-Finals "Gone Fishin'" is gonna be fun!).

They got some international rights but nothing here. Licensing Inside the NBA to ESPN was a savvy move by both sides.

Hollywood Reporter says ESPN will only use Inside The NBA for Opening Night, Christmas Day, playoffs (including the Finals), and ABC Saturday Primetime games in the second half of the season. All other ESPN/ABC games will use the existing NBA Countdown crews.

If NBC is going to keep Inside the NBA, they're probably going to put the program on CNBC. Back when NBC had the NBA in the 90s, CNBC was used for pre and post game coverage. It might be easier for NBC to use CNBC for this than USA Network. It would not interrupt schedule programming already on USA network. CNBC doesn't have programming that gets more audience than USA with reruns of law and order svu, ncsi, , chicago fire, & etc.

That's where those pointless world feed highlight shows go to die, nobody would agree to that. Best place would be USA NBC-wise.

NBC could put the show on Peacock.

Was just thinking about what becomes of “Inside the NBA” if Turner loses rights. I don’t see it being the same great show it is on NBC or ESPN (where they’d easily work them to death as Chuck has joked).

It will truly suck for TNT to lose the NBA. It would be worst than NBC losing it back in 2002 because at that time NBC outside of the Olympics and Golf were to me feeling like the sports department was “mailing it in”. They had Arena Football as football filler for losing the NFL in 1998 and they had NASCAR to fill the void of no NFL but IMO Dale Earnhardt getting killed in 2001 started a slow death (no pun intended) for NASCAR ratings wise. TNT (Turner as a whole company really.) is still going strong with all of the high profile sports and events they have outside of not having the NFL. And they have the hottest studio show in North American Sports TV with Inside the NBA. TNT losing the NBA would be up there probably 3rd with NBC losing baseball in 1989 and behind CBS and NBC losing the NFL in 1994 and 1998 respectively. ESPN has their priorities. Have blank check in hand for the following sports 1. Monday Night Football 2. College Football (sans Big Ten) and the CFP 3. The NBA and the Finals 4. NCAA Women’s Tournament and Final Four As much as I and many others hate ESPNs coverage of the NBA, they do whatever it takes to keep it unfortunately and their daytime shows are heavily influenced by it when it’s not football season.

The primetime games would have to air during the week given NBC has college football on Saturday nights (Big 10 Saturday Night) and of course... SNF on Sunday during the Fall. Once football is over, they could then mix things up. The prospect of NBC airing sports 3 (or 4) nights a week would be interesting to say the least...

I think the strength of the Super Bowl, SNF, MNF on ESPN/ABC, NBA playoffs, etc. will help maintain a sizable portion of live sports broadcasting on linear for at least the foreseeable future.

It will be interesting to see how fast traditional TV declines now that so much of the sports coverage has gone streaming. I'm sure most of the MLB & NFL games will be exclusively streaming in the coming years as the contracts come up.

Little update on this; John Tesh says all they have to do is give him a call if they win the package. The Fox license isn't exclusive: http://amp.awfulannouncing.com/nbc/john-tesh-roundball-rock-nba-media-rights.html

NBC usually does a great job with transitions (outside Al Michaels, but that's more him than him), and like NBC basically grabbing the entire ABC MNF crew when they got the Sunday night package, I would expect them to just grab most of the Turner personnel and mix with their own. And though I love Mike Breen (and it depends if they switch it to a Super Bowl-like rotation), to finally give Kevin Harlan a Finals call would be amazing alone.

Unfortunately, I think the rumors about NBC have something to them. David Zaslav, in a rather idiotic move IMO, went on record to say “We don’t need the NBA.” In other words, they need us more than we need them. Not only is that an extremely foolish and arrogant thing to say in public; it’s patently false. TNT’s entire sports division is built around the NBA; their plans to start a streaming service w/ Fox and ESPN revolve around having the NBA. It would be disastrous if they lose it. Source: https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/david-zaslav-nba-rights-deal.html If TNT doesn’t pick up a package of games, I just hope one of the other broadcasters picks up the Inside guys. It would be a shame to lose that show like this.

Well, if Roundball Rock is not an option, they could bring back this theme from the dead. After all, if CTV in Canada could acquire 'The Hockey Theme', then NBC can acquire this one, even if it's just the licensing rights.

They'll probably have to wrestle away the license from Fox but I'm sure that won't be a hindrance. The current (or Current) RSN theme is a pretty good #2 option though.

Do it right, or don't do it at all.

If TNT loses the NBA this is the biggest loss of the entire process Turner being with the NBA for 40 years Inside the NBA ends it will be the biggest mistake in the history of the league

What are the chances of NBC getting a piece of the rights?