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Except… The thing about WABC is that viewers are loyal and fickle at the same time. They become very attached to and protective of long time anchors. But once they’re gone, viewing habits don’t change. WABC has lost big names over the years including Roz Abrams, Bill Beutel, Bill Evans, Scott Clark and Lori Stokes. They may have left, but the viewers stayed. Perhaps because the other talent are also strong long timers. Perhaps because WABC attracts anchors and reporters that people like watching. Whoever it might be, WABC’s strength will continue. That’s not to say individual anchors aren’t valuable. It’s just that viewers aren’t as committed as one might think.

This is a town hall for the Republican primary. CNN said the audience was full of Republican or uncommitted/independent voters. It was not meant to be representative of New Hampshire or America as a whole. These large panels are designed to get many different points of view, instead of hearing the same few people making the same few points.

CNN deserves to continue failing miserably. They've been on this re-identification thing for 10+ years now and not once have they considered going back to what made them a household name.

Why does MyNetworkTV even still exist? I've never understood why stations brand themselves around a two hour block of reruns. Some stations even show the programming in the middle of the night and not during primetime.

Well! it's about damn time! The last one is KOVR-13 IN SACRAMENTO!!!!!!!!

You called it, they’re live.

This should have been a one-on-one interview rather than a Town Hall. From the clips I saw, it came across as a debate between the two which in turn ended up being a disaster. Without question, this Town Hall likely alienated the few viewers CNN has during primetime and really hurt their reputation much like when 60 Minutes /Leslie Stahl interviewed MTG. I don't understand this excessive need to offer individuals who are known liars, idiots, etc... a platform in the name of being fair/offering both sides. And for goodness sake... what is with them always having a thousand and one people offering up analysis? Couldn't Anderson and maybe two or three people handle things?

Here's one tidbit that might help explain that: The college the town hall Trump rally was held at? Final exams start tomorrow. Those students didn't need the kind of disruption this event brought.

As much as I would love for CNN to “go back to what made them a household name,” I know in my gut that people wouldn’t watch it. American cable news viewers love outrage/conflict programming that’s hyper-focused on US politics. A shift to the center barely scratches the surface of what they need to do for someone like me to watch them. Tonight’s town hall was just another example of conflict television. There are YouTube channels (like TLDR News) that, while flawed and still growing, offer more sober and intelligent coverage of the news than anything I’ve seen on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. IMO, cable news as a whole deserves to fail miserably, and considering that younger viewers generally don’t watch it, there’s hope that it will. Side note: The fact that the audience was basically full of Trump supporters made this whole thing a near farce. If you ask me, the audience of a town hall should be chocked full of people who are either undecided or solidly against the candidate. If the people aren’t going to scrutinize politicians, then what’s the point of a town hall anyway?

If tonight was a test of how she’d work at 9pm, she failed massively.

I thought Kaitlan did an excellent job maintaining her composure while fact-checking lies in real time and asking important follow-ups. It was a tough assignment and I feel gross for having watched it, but she probably told some Republicans watching it some facts that they had never before even heard. And yes, she was the White House reporter for The Daily Caller, but if you watch her, you know she has always been tough and fair on the former guy. She was fresh out of college and got a job there. Don't hold it against her. Look at her work. She's excellent. (Yes, I am a fan.)

Respectfully, this comment makes it sound like you've never watched CNN's election coverage before. This has been standard operating procedure for them for all large political events for at least a decade. They have one host (typically Tapper) anchoring a panel of journalists and political analysts, and another host (typically Cooper) anchoring a panel of pundits. One gives objective analysis while the other gives opinion from the left and right.

I guess it's because TWC is becoming more irrelevant in the days of Googling the weather forecast and getting tornado warning alerts on your phone. It's another way for Byron to get profit for his cheap game show that has a whopping *$5,000* bonus round. Are you sure it's not 1973? $5K wasn't chump change in those days - with inflation currently, that would be well over $30K in 2023. Anyone remember Flick and a Forecast?

It captures the essence of Maryland.

I do like the opening with the city of Baltimore in the background!!!! That's really cool!!!!

Hopefully Michelle finally gets a weekday anchor spot.

Looks like they also kept the 13 on the desk. KPIX is the only one in the group to change it to the call letters instead.

What a great looking set

They look great... although if they do ditch Chroma Cues altogether, I wonder if we'll have another round of riots??

If it’s Ken Rosato, that would be a mind-numbingly awful move on channel 7’s part.

Here's a tour of the new WMBD News set that debuted yesterday at noon.

Funny You Should Ask on the Weather Channel

I like these moves a lot. Eva and Demarco have been great on GMA3 and Gio works really well with Whit and Janai. ABC got this right.

It's corporate malpractice not to bring the WLWC call letters to Columbus. You can design an entire marketing campaign around that to give your station some recognition instead of just some station on autopilot. They're based in Cincinnati so you'd think they'd have some kind of an appreciation of the way you could market using that heritage, but they don't have a very good track record. They seem to always screw up their businesses.

Not quite syndication but longtime General Hospital actress Jacklyn Zeman has died at age 70. She played Bobbie Spencer (Luke's sister) on and off for 45 years! We're losing our daytime legends. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/jacklyn-zeman-longtime-general-hospital-actress-dies-70-bright-light.amp

I think this is about right. Much like Denver and St. Louis, I could see where they might shift around some of the evening newscasts on KUSI to not compete with KSWB. A primetime block on KUSI might make sense. They then can keep the morning blocks the same and compete with one another and differentiate them with "unique talent" even if much of the content is the same, and cheap. The whole point in all of these duopoly markets is to simply maximize ad inventory, not about maximizing the potential for new content.

A big dump of new videos this week...starting with this gem. This is a brief clip of BIZNET News, a business newscast that may have been the predecessor to First Business. USA Network aired this at 5 or 6am weekday mornings in the mid-1980s. KAPP/KVEW Weekend Report, 9/21/1991, with Kerry Tomlinson (taped from KVEW) KIMA NewsBeat at Noon at the end of this commercial compilation from 10/12/1994...KIMA aired a 5-min. local newsbrief before joining CNN Headline News. KREM 2 News, 5/8/1993, with Steve Becker and finally...I promised...Missoula newscasts!! KPAX 10:00 News, 9/13/1997, Jennifer John is the anchor and a partial 12/2/95 newscast from KPAX with Shane Edinger, before he moved to central Washington (and KNDO/KNDU)

I just can't picture Nexstar being able to fit both operations at either location unless they were to expand the building. If they're going to keep both entities as a semi-separate operation, then they would be wise to start looking at other places they could purchase/remodel. Either way you slice it, any move(s) Nexstar makes will come with backlash from KUSI's audience. The channel has a niche audience that is not sustainable on it's own. They do run a pretty lean operation there, so any efficiencies will probably be minimal. The biggest question will be: will they completely dismantle the anchor teams or shift them to different hours as to not compete with FOX 5?

KSWB has a much larger and more modern plant overall and there's been stories out there about how KUSI's shared building (it has another tenant but it looks like the other part is vacant) needs severe maintenance. There's two miles and roads between each studio, so there's not much complication to merging them together.

Does anyone really pay attention to the bottom ticker these days though? Outside snowbird closing reports (or I guess 'snow eye' for CBS stations) and specific city weather and your road in, you know the game score (there's six possible local(ish) teams) and the tickers have repetitive and dull news anyways. You can look up scores and the Dow easily with a smart speaker. The ticker is more a public environment utility in muted environments than actually useful to a viewer, and if they only have weather and traffic, it does serve its purpose perfectly. Maybe if this new ATSC 3.0 standard actually includes interactive features that are cross-platform and not just half-assed implementations that depend on proprietary systems, the ticker becomes useful. For now though, it's just full of 'why is this news' stories rejected for the actual show that don't need elaboration.

Gilma Avalos will co anchor with Adam Kuperstein at 11am and 5pm starting in mid June. Rana Novini will take over weekend evenings at 6pm and 11pm. https://www.nbcnewyork.com/on-air/about-us/gilma-avalos-rana-novini-move-to-new-anchoring-roles-at-news-4/4313567/

So Kelly Clarkson is indeed moving to 30 Rock:

What a development. I'm totally excited and so looking forward to what's to come here. It's gonna be quite a summer, fall and beyond to behold.

CBS and Gray (WPCH) will no doubt be bidding aggressively for all of those teams. Plus there’s nothing stopping CBS from moving an indie WUPA to a .2 (and buy WTBS-LD to put it on a ceremonial 6.1) if they do choose to take the network affiliation in-house. The possibilities of in-market realignments are endless tbh. If Gray winds up securing one or two teams, then they become a sports heavyweight and may want to make WANF (for lack of a better description) the WHDH for the South. CBS gets an O&O and possibly a sports-leaning indie that’ll be having Paramount’s content library opened up. This could be really fun to watch unfold.

Shirley Chan posted an announcement on IG today. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr8fcT_u7uo/

I thought The Ringmaster Jerry Springer would've had another entertainment venture before he passed away. Jerr made for interesting TV that is for sure. Jerry is up in haven being The Ringmaster Of Trashy Talk Show LOL, R.I.P. Jerry Springer. JERRY, JERRY, JERRY.

Another win for Hearst here. They love Me-TV so much. Some of its affiliates have been carrying it from the beginning. EDIT: The only Hearst stations now that don't carry Me-TV after KOAT Albuquerque (its on low-power KTEL-CD), KSBW Salinas (its on low-power KYMB-LD), WISN (Weigel has a grip on its diginets across its Milwaukee stations, including WBME-CD where Me-TV is at), and WTAE Pittsburgh (its on WPXI instead).

I like it. Not everything has to be flat.

No wonder Regis finally left when he did. Kelly ALWAYS interrupts the co-host. Now, it's her husband of all people. I can't understand how she still has a TV audience. Meanwhile, Judge Milian being snatched by Byron Allen...I was DEFINITELY expecting this to happen. Another dime-a-dozen court show for MNTVs and CWs to air in lieu of another OmegaXL or weight loss infomercial. At least Judge Judy did the right thing and started her own streaming spin-off when she left syndication. Oh, and The Weather Channel is a laughing stock...they air Funny You Should Ask weeknights at 8pm. No, seriously. It's on the freakin' schedule.

I wonder if WPHL will continue to outsource their 10pm news to WPVI.

A tribute from Rosanna Scotto aired on the 10 o'clock news. John last appeared in an interview in February 2023. He was 81.

The fox5 anchor of my time https://www.facebook.com/100057977715959/posts/pfbid02WHaj95eybHmpZi6egM8mdvz4Bpu5K5W3FwBqPcxgexqm3E9CWRjsrgyK5ak5dqVpl/?mibextid=CDWPTG