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New WRC/T44 newsroom looks nice.

I’m not an expert on affiliation renewals or the processes involved with them, but I really don’t think logo removals are an indicator of much. I feel like if 81 stations were suddenly going to change affiliation, we’d know about it by now. If I had to guess, perhaps Gray wants to push local branding to distinguish local stations from the networks. Keep in mind that many of Gray’s CBS affiliates have also dropped the network logo, and former O&O WTVG has dropped their network logo as well. Unless proven otherwise, I don’t really think there are any immediate implications surrounding those branding changes.

GMA3 straddles the line between a news broadcast and a talk show. Most of the other late morning / early afternoon talk shows also go on holiday hiatus, so it's not really much different. It gives the production staff time off.

...and NBC has an agreement with Gray "in principle" to renew all of their stations' affiliations. The current agreement expires at the end of this year. https://tvnewscheck.com/business/article/gray-television-renews-all-its-nbc-affiliations/ Despite what people have been saying, I really think this was all a scare tactic by Gray to force a renewal, or to be ready for NBC to pull up stakes if a deal wasn't made. Now how long before the peacock starts showing up again on all of these stations?

Early KDNL 'News 30 Now' clip from 1995 that I just found.

And there is plenty of coverage of world events from a multitude of sources. Were there to be something truly monumental happen, it might be bare bones initially, but the major national and international news outlets would get the coverage going. There are correspondents out there filing for the web, and it stinks many of them are far from loved ones today. That doesn’t mean every news outfit needs to act like it’s just any old manic Monday. The regulars would be off, for the most part, and you’re not using fill-ins for no meaningful purpose.

It's always cool to see field reporters like Tony Aiello and Dave Carlin anchor over the holidays.

Agreed. Let's be fair. People work 300+ days out of the year. I see no issue in setting aside a few holidays for rest. We really need to drop our live to work attitude. Let's be reasonable. One of seven stations slashed a news block designed for people waking up for work, where not many are going during America's biggest holiday. That's totally fine. On a day like Christmas, all you really need is morning news starting late, and 10/11pm. Previewing the day and end of the day wrap up. Christmas is typically a slow news day. In the internet age, skipping a newscast is nothing. Even Today and GMA usually go pre recorded on Christmas with a live headline insert. I'd say it's cool to see the world pause, even the always on TV institutions, for just ONE day. Empathy. The notion that because someone works in news they don't deserve to be with their family and should be at work on a day with below average ratings and dry content is overkill.

Sheesh that looks incredible.

WABC has always done it right with the weather and also fellow NY station WNBC as well. These two stations are weather powerhouses. NBC is the only station with an exclusive 10 day forecast superceding WABC's 7 Day. WABC is prudent and wise to continue to invest and build in the weather department because most people tune in, just for that. Why? Because the weather directly affects the viewer. Decisions are made because of the weather so its a crucial element for any broadcast if not the most important segment of the broadcast in my opinion. Also it helps to know that, viewing habits are changing. The era of Live Television has steadily been declining. As millenials and Gen-Zrs get older and are coming of age, we rely on our mobile devices to fast track to the content we are looking for. We are not sitting down on a couch watching TV (unless its a sports event). So this also allows WABC to continue to build and solidify their online presence and produce quality content for ABC7NY and their social media platforms. So really kudos to WABC for expanding, lets see what 2024 brings!

Full House reruns aired on NBC in summer 1991 right before it went into broadcast syndication but that wasn’t while original episodes were airing.

And just out of curiosity about what 41.2 will air, it looks like Dabl is completely done after December 29th; according to its national schedule it's becoming yet another Paramount Global specialty with their networks that need to die; a rerun feed of 90s UPN/WB sitcoms; no network name known yet, so expect another big exodus of stations at the end of the year switching networks on their Dabl subs. The network's social feeds haven't been updated since mid-September so it already was on borrowed time.

It makes me nervous. There's great potential for this technology to be abused for nefarious reasons. As it is now, there's a bit of an uncanny valley-ness to it that's unsettling. There are some things AI will probably never be able to really re-create, that being what it is to be Human with genuine Human expressions and emotions. Part of what makes real people appealing is the ability to connect with them on a personal level. Will AI be utilized in news? Undoubtedly, but it needs to be done extremely carefully.

I could see Paramount merging with a pre-WBD Discovery, as the latter was basically just a bunch of cable channels at the time. But this.....

There’s plenty of time for investigating particulars. Perhaps people can hold off on casting aspersions for just a bit.

It's early but so far Tony Sadiku seems like a good hire. He was out in the rain and wind all morning as a third live reporter. Unless I missed it, they haven't made clear mention of his shift. At 5 p.m., Kristine Johnson read a quick story about his first day, then said of both John and Tony: "Look for them weekdays at 4:30." I wonder if he'll be doing weekends, and a weekday morning backup two or three days a week.

I would say it's pretty important for a New York station to be based in Manhattan.

Any other market these stations would've long ago moved to bigger quarters or a part of the market where parking isn't a nightmare (like WCAU keeping their base on City Line while being in a big Comcast Tech Center space). We're nearly getting to the century mark of 30 Rock and the CBS Broadcast Center is much older than that, and Fox abandoned a nice studio in Secaucus to keep the dreary Fox Television Center because they have to keep that Manhattan address no matter what. Only ABC is making any kind of move to Hudson Yards and you have everyone whining because there's 'so much history' and 'it's always been there' while they have to shoot around the network's schedule (and The View is on an old soap opera stage). You'd hope someone would make a jump to Brooklyn or that NBC would even just call game and shift to Stamford. These executive egos needing to be Manhattan are just doing so to the demerit of how their stations are treated. A studio space for a local news operation in New York shouldn't be the same setup as a low-rent Sinclair station.