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Once again, a Christmas tradition at WABC-TV is coming with the 24th annual reading of Christmas messages and greetings on Eyewitness News This Morning. With Bill Ritter now in semi-retirement, he's no longer doing it, so this year, its David Novarro, Chanteé Lans, and Lee Goldberg (the usual one) who'll be a part of the broadcast. If you wanna send your message in, here's the link and form to do so: https://abc7ny.com/post/send-christmas-morning-greetings-eyewitness-news/18272088/

Former KTLA news director Jason Ball had a sucessful podcast during his tenure at KTLA. It was called "The News Director's Office." Jason left the business during Covid, but he is back with another podcast which features many former high profile media people...several from LA. His new podcast is called "Life After News." It can be found on most streaming platforms and YouTube. Jason and his guests keep it real with the state of the business. and other topics Jason and GM Don Corsini revitalized KTLA after it had been run into the ground under a previous leadership regime. https://www.youtube.com/@LifeAfterNews/videos

They filmed scenes in New York City, New Jersey, Atlanta and Huntington. That top white box above the weather map is definitely based on a Scripps graphic I think. They could easily have paid them to use the design elements. Looking a little harder one of the real KC stations did a piece on it… this was filmed in New Jersey. The set is a fake built at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. They dressed up a building as the stations building… they even put satellite dish props behind a fence.

I don't know where else to put this (and if you have any recommendations, I will move this post). Disclosure Day, a few film from Steven Spielberg dropped its first trailer on December 18th. In the first several seconds of this trailer, Emily Blunt's character is presenting a weather report at a fictional NBC station in Kansas City. We can of course rationally say of the images below that 1. There wouldn't be that many people on a new set these days or ever. and 2. Spielberg wouldn't build a custom set for this. So we're probably seeing an existing set from a local affiliate (DDG maybe?). I don't immediate recognize the affiliate to whom this set belongs. Does anyone else? The U3 on the weather monitor also scream EW Scripps, too, which given that KSHB is in Kansas City, is a nice touch.

NBC10 could barely hack it at creating a brand new news operation even with NBC's deep pockets. Gray would be even worse, it's an LPTV that has no must-carry. The FCC issued clarification on LPTV rules on the 18th when this petition was filed, it gave LPTV stations more displacement protection vs old rules that would often result in an LPTV being eliminated. Given LPTV is not anchored to a DMA and TV licenses as spectrum, it looks like an ATSC3 speculation or Gray simply increasing the value of their license to about $4-$6 million just by relocating for ~$500K cost. Snatching FOX from WFXT is a possiblity, if FOX doesn't care about having a local newsroom so not quite a ABC-WPLG

And here's his final sign off...

Hunt Valley loses again! I think their failed Tribune deal blacklisted them.

A planned report on a notorious El Salvador prison, “Inside CECOT” was pulled prior to airtime, with this statement at 4:31 ET. Here’s the Mediaite write-up on the dropped story https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/60-minutes-abruptly-yanks-segment-on-prisoners-sent-by-trump-to-el-salvador-mega-prison/ The trailer for the now-dropped story would later re-emerge and people are demanding explanations from the network https://x.com/marcofoster_/status/2002889641268285661?s=46 https://www.mediaite.com/media/critics-lash-out-at-bari-weiss-after-60-minutes-yanks-segment-on-trump-deportations-last-minute-shame-shame-shame/