Leaderboard

On the same day it turned 140, The Dallas Morning News confirmed it is now a Hearst newspaper. Hearst became owner of the paper on September 24th, one day after shareholders approved the merger at $16.50/share, up from the previous offer of $14/share. I know we all said, “At least it wasn’t Alden.” Alden did put in a bid after Hearst of $16.50/share; the board said. Once again in September, another bid of $20/share; the board and shareholders said no. Both the board and shareholders all know and see what Alden has done to other papers. They would rather lose a little bit of money than see the newspaper go under.

The 2012 set just looked more...grounded and authoritative - yet inviting and authentic. The new set does look okay on the air. But I don't see this new set lasting more than a couple of years (and that might be generous) without more changes.

I'm more curious about what this "beyond expectations" audience feedback is. Music is way too weak.

Cheap google play box. I have to reset it every two days - audio and video go out of synch. Also a big delay from my other Altice One boxes which have far more capabilities.

Weigel is not going to build out a news operation for an ABC St. Louis affiliation for the same reason Sinclair hasn't: There's no demand for another news operation in the market. ABC isn't going to pull the affiliation over not having news, because there's nowhere for it to go. ABC knows this. That's why it hasn't already happened, end of story. The market is dominated by existing news operations. None of those are places for ABC to go. Nexstar is being openly hostile to ABC, Gray has been semi-openly hostile towards the networks in the recent past, and Tegna has been desperately trying to not exist for years now, and will likely become an extension of Nexstar. None of these seem like good options for ABC to even start negotiations with. Look at Miami. They had to settle on a .2 of what is ostensibly an "independently-owned" station with an existing news department. You have to assume they went to Scripps during these negotiations, as they own both WPXM and WSFL in the market. Scripps probably said "no" to the idea of building out another news operation in Miami, because they've done it before, and it's failed every time. At best, ABC would end up as KSDK 5.2 in St. Louis. Weigel does not seem interested in owning network affiliates as their entire business at this point is diginets. This is why the rumors frequently swirl about CBS buying up WDJT. It just makes more sense than what is currently happening. KDNL is probably what most "network affiliates" will look like at some point, anyways. It's no secret that Nexstar and Sinclair are dreaming of a world where they control 100% of the airtime on their stations. As the networks increasingly become commercials for streaming services, I can see a future where the "Big 4" simply bounce around low-powers and diginet trees with a deal that they get to program 2 minutes of ad time an hour. The big owners won't want them, because they don't want to air an all-day long commercial for Disney+/Paramount+/Peacock. CBS in Atlanta, ABC in Miami, and the Kimmel thing, are all symptoms of the early stages of the death of the current affiliate model. Not to mention, business analysts are starting to suggest that ABC (and probably the others) get out of traditional broadcast altogether.

It was better to keep this here...

This is Studio 47. Mornings is moving to 57 (the former home of CBS News 24/7). They even showed a preview of the new studio on today's broadcast.

I don't see anything wrong with it. This is for the 7am streaming show, not the TV broadcast that airs in many markets at 4am. I think it looks nice and bright.

Still better than the 2000s when they were still rocking the 1991 vintage graphics and the dark corner of the newsroom for them and Up to the Minute. For a morning newscast that had been stuck with 'last man up' at CBS O&Os during the pandemic, it's actually fine.

It's not like they can't return to 1515 Broadway since you know, the casino got killed but of course, that costs money so... GMA's and Today's/Nightly News' set looks better than this hot garage.