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Hello everyone, I'm sure many of you are wondering what's been going on with the site for the last couple weeks. While I don't even have all the answers, I figured it'd be useful to explain a bit about what happened and where we're going from here. First, a little history. I have never been in control of the tvnewstalk.net domain. Many years ago (we're talking like, at least 10 years back,) I ultimately inherited the responsibility of operating the site while a former administrator owned the domain. This, generally, was uneventful, except for a few instances where the domain registration lapsed and I had to poke them to get it renewed. This just kind of became the way things were, ownership of the domain never really came up, and slowly they stopped coming around the community. Fast forward to 2024, when in late February/early March, anyone trying to visit the site via tvnewstalk.net was greeted with a page reading "Account Suspended". As far as I know, this was the "old" server (that was still operational, serving only to redirect visits to tvnewstalk.net to forums.tvnewstalk.net) going unpaid. Since the DNS for the domain still pointed forums.tvnewstalk.net to the server I control, the site stayed online and accessible. This issue had happened before, and to my recollection, resolved itself without me having to alert anybody. I was also getting quite busy with work, so I chose to just let it go. Since everything had forever been at forums.tvnewstalk.net, impacts on traffic from the redirect not working were extremely minor. At the end of March, another problem arose. TVNewsTalk.net dropped off the Domain Name System. My assumption is this is related to the earlier "Account Suspended" issue, I guess the domain was registered through the host, and they removed it from their DNS when the bill (presumably) went unpaid. For most users, access to TVNT was cut off. This, however, happened slowly, as DNS servers took some time to update to process the removal. At least until a few days ago, we were still seeing people using the site via T-Mobile. When the domain dropped off DNS, I reached out to another one of our former administrators, who I had gone through the last time I had to contact the domain owner. They attempted to make contact, and got no response. There was beginning to be a lot of noise in the community wondering what happened to the site, and there was even some sort of unauthorized crowdfunding campaign spun up. It was at this point I decided to take matters into my own hands, registered LocalNewsTalk.net, and began the process of moving the forum over. That's where we're at now. The site has been transferred over. There are still a few loose ends to tie up, but otherwise we're back in action. I do not know what will become of the TVNewsTalk.net domain that we've called home for almost 20 years. Perhaps it will return, some day, but for the foreseeable future, we're going to be here at localnewstalk.net. Things still being worked on: Email (Registration, Password Resets): Email has been changed over to the localnewstalk.net domain and should be working as intended. Check spam folder if you don't see an expected message. Google Login: Changes submitted for review by Google Trust and Safety. Might be working. Facebook Login: In Progress. Need to complete extra steps to re-enable this. Discord Login: Should be working. Forum Theme: There are a small handful of broken things due to an update I ran while the site was unavailable. Please feel free to leave any questions or concerns you may have below. -Weeters

Can we maybe start an "Anything and Everything Wrong with KTRK" thread, move the relevant posts there, and keep this thread just about the changing graphics at ALL the ABC O&O stations, not just KTRK? When kept on topic, I've found the posts and discussions about what we've seen overall at WLS and in weather on some of the others very interesting.

Thread cleaned up and unlocked. The user that initiated the disruption has been banned. In the future, I humbly ask members to use the "report post" function and the block tools built into the forum over "backseat modding" users disrupting a thread. -Weeters

This constant debate is getting nowhere. The gaslighting and ad hominem attacks aren't constructive. Both "sides" here are making compelling points, but some are less rooted in the reality of the situation than others. Folks, we can sit here and scream about "market research" and "freedom to brand as they want" until we're all blue in the face, but that doesn't change the material facts being offered up at this point in time. Every station (with the exception of KCBS/KCAL, using a modified variant) has adopted the "CBS News [location]" co-brand, which is, in essence, the dominant brand in the graphics. Most, but not all of the stations, have also begun verbally using only the "CBS News [location]" brand, with the co-brand being regulated to nothing more than an image on the screen. If there was truly as much freedom being offered to the stations as some claim, I cannot imagine a world where every single station has adopted the same exact branding strategy with minimal to no variation. The rumored KYW co-brand is the first one that seems to have been designed for the branding scheme developed here, however even it is confined to the co-brand box. Either every station is on-board with the strategy CBS has developed (likely!) or there's now a real "CBS Mandate" that they stick to the one size fits all "cram your co-brand in this square" strategy. Otherwise, I'd suspect we'd be seeing stuff like this or this. "Brand equity" and "market research" is just a snapshot of consumer sentiment at one point in time. Many of these stations, with a few exceptions, are only visually co-branding. KTVT may still show the old CBS11 logo in their bug and certain graphics, but every single on-air mention, every promo, every reference to what the station is, calls it "CBS Texas". What's that mean for "brand equity"? It means that, over time, more and more people will connect "CBS Texas" to the station than the "CBS11" brand. This could happen six months from now, or maybe six years from now. Who knows! In the case of KTVT, the SVP of Brand Strategy and Development for the CBS O&O group is on record as saying "I think it was a no-brainer that while you’re trying to make a position around CBS New[s] Texas, that [the CBS11 logo] remained.” A very interesting choice of words, as "while you're trying to make a position around CBS New[s] Texas" seems to imply that the CBS11 logo will stick around as they build up the CBS News Texas brand, but not forever. Yes, older generations are going to refer to these stations however they damn well please until they ultimately depart this mortal plane. I still have family members that call WITI "TV6" despite the fact they haven't branded as such for almost thirty years. WITI smartly used the long-dormant "brand equity" for the TV6 brand on their Antenna TV channel, which appeals to those same people. This same demographic has also long aged out of the demographic these stations are largely trying to appeal to on their primary channel. All of this, all of it, is at the whim of a few managers at each station and a few people at corporate. The understanding is that the News Director at KCBS/KCAL fought for the "KCAL News" brand. What happens if he leaves? What if viewership and impressions decline? Whoever comes in next could easily blow up the whole branding strategy and decide to brand as "CBS News Los Angeles" in an attempt to change things up. To claim any of this is "permanent" is disregarding how this industry has worked for the past 40+ years. Nothing is permanent in this industry. There's been graphics packages that have lasted less than a year (some that have never even launched!), sets that get re-worked within months of debuting (look at what became of the very expensive WBBM Streetside Studio set...), brands like "Ei8ht is News" that lasted all of a handful of months. NewsNation launched with a bright "WGN America" plexiglass panel on the front of the desk. Surely, someone at Nexstar knew that the channel would be renamed "NewsNation" in the future, yet they paid for that WGN America panel anyways. @Myron Falwellis free to have his own opinion as to when this will happen, so is everyone else. I'm a bit more conservative with my guesses, I think it could take some stations years to move away from their co-brand, and I think a handful (KCAL, maybe WBZ) could keep their co-brands indefinitely (though the co-brand box is super awkward for a long-term brand.) Fighting about it isn't constructive. It doesn't have any effect on anybody's day-to-day life, unless you're in one of the aforementioned positions making these decisions. My opinion? Folks, we're not in 1995 anymore. The local broadcast TV industry has long resisted necessary changes, and we're now on the precipice of needing to do some once "unthinkable" things for it to remain viable. People who actually work in it were telling me 6 years ago that they expect it to utterly collapse by 2030, and that was before we had a global pandemic that showed these companies that you can have your reporters file packages out of their home and pipe in newscasts from the other side of the continent. Nothing lasts forever, and that includes retrans fees (which, I should add, largely became a "thing" when stations started seeing ad revenue fall off a cliff) and political ad dollars. At some point, the proverbial gravy train is going to come off the tracks. These station owners, large and small, are going to have to cut costs more than they already have, and that could come in the form of working with the networks to have more national news programming with local opt-outs (Similar to how the BBC handles regions, which the US morning shows kind of already do, and NBC News Daily does precisely) or the companies will just opt to do it themselves (Nexstar is in a position to do this with NewsNation, Scripps with Scripps News, etc. Why pay for a network news service when you already have your own?) The "CBS News [location]" strategy accounts for this while also giving each station a unique brand, which is more important in the digital age than ever before. There are a lot of "CBS 2"s out there, but only one "CBS New York"/"CBS Chicago"/"CBS Los Angeles". If the local media landscape looks the same in 2033 as it does now, some terrible mistakes were made.

Fascism isn’t coming. It’s here. Never mind the irony that the person being mourned as a victim of an absolutely heinous crime is memorialized as being a champion of free speech. Kimmel’s comments apparently don’t count.

I think we've gone over the weather graphics debate enough. People love to claim on here that viewers will switch away from Channel X in droves because they adopted the Tegna music, or because the weather graphics aren't "weathery" enough, and are almost always proven wrong. It's not even worth my time to rebut the absurd claims being made.

Please don't encourage people to call newsrooms, even if you're not serious. Frankly, I suggest you lose that number, as well. Nobody should be calling a newsroom line (what was posted above was a public NEWS tipline), whether publicly-advertised or not, for any trivial shit, like weather graphics. If you don't like it. Don't watch. It's that simple. Frankly, I'm getting tired of this discussion, no matter someone's opinion on this matter. That means that no response to this post is necessary. Failure to restrain from reiterating the same tired points could result in...well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.

Same energy:

Had a blast putting this together. There’s a hidden message or two in here…

I do like the new ABC logo, but not the size of it. Rather the ABC size be same size as the 7 logo and be right beside it. Like CBS 2 for example. By 2033, we should have this logo.

It's been a rough road getting here, but we're excited to reveal the new site. Let's get to it! Outside of visual changes, there aren't a whole lot of functional changes. Notable changes include: Mobile support is improved, especially when composing a message. Emoticons are OUT and the full suite of emojis are IN. BBCode has been removed completely in favor of a more robust WYSIWYG editor. The logo has been refreshed. Coming soon: We will be restoring the ability to register and sign in with popular web services like Google, Twitter, and Facebook. And there is much more to come in the days and weeks ahead! Stay tuned for more updates. Regrettably, the old Shoutbox was not able to be carried over to the new site. We are looking into our options when it comes to real-time discussion, including integration with services like Discord, which many of you already use. This will also be addressed within the coming days. Please reach out if you encounter any issues, either by PM or by emailing [email protected].

This is what a forward-looking news organization looks, sounds, and feels like. I'm sure there will be people upset that the "Westinghouse channel numbers" and "iconic" other cruft disappears, but these stations existed before that stuff came around, and will exist after. Most of these stations never had a firm "logo" for their first 20 years of existence and they did just fine, without "confusing" anyone. Most of these logos have outlived several generations of logos at major brands. I'm still not sure why it's seen as important for a local television station in Baltimore or Pittsburgh or wherever to keep the same logo forever, while major companies like United Airlines or Hyatt Hotels get to update theirs just about every decade. TV has this bad history of treating viewers like they are absolute idiots. "Oh, we can't change anything because someone out there might get 'confused'." If someone told me RJ Fletcher's speech in UHF about the "pea-brained yokels" watching TV in his market was based on real worlds said by a real TV station GM, I would not be that surprised. There's nothing wrong with a little nostalgia, but it can't get in the way of progress. When a station branded as "TV 7" in 1954, that's because that's where it was. On TV. On Channel 7. That was it. The first signs this branding didn't work in the modern era came in the late 90's when every "ABC 7" and "NBC 4" was fighting for a relevant web domains. Then came Social Media. If I go on Twitter right now and search for "ABC 7" this is what comes up: Talk about "Confusing viewers" when the first one offers no way of identifying which station it is, and looks identical to the rest of the ABC7s there. No, most viewers do not know offhand how to differentiate between the different Circle 7s out there. There is no confusing where these CBS stations are located. I don't buy into these stations "losing" any "local flavor" with this branding, because locality is baked into the heart of it. You can be any one of a bunch of "CBS 2s" out there, but there's "only one" CBS News Chicago.

Also, I don't get all the disappointment. All the signs of what this package was going to be have been laying around since the start of this thread, and should have become clearer when CBSN was launched and the overhaul of the network package. If you thought it was going to be anything else, you weren't paying attention.

Or as its put in the newsroom; 'former colleague with smelliest lunches in employee fridge finally gets her just desserts'

Watching the monologue on his first show back, and I have to say Nexstar and Sinclair look real dumb right now.

This is a fine set for Spokane and market 73. Folks, I think we need to collectively come to the terms with the fact that the money is gone, everything is more expensive, and design trends are different than they were 20 years ago.

KWQC finally made the switch to GrayONE, and it's probably the best implementation of the package thus far.

I designed this open. We needed something fresh pretty badly so I whipped this up using some aesthetics from GrayOne. Without giving away the details, I can tell you a 3 phase relaunch is in motion. Phase I begins October 31st as we begin our 75th year, Phase II will begin in early January with some more really big changes. Then phase III happens middle of next year. And yes, part of this rebrand is launching GrayONE. So, stay tuned for some really exciting changes!

Can we get back on topic please?

This is a large rearchitecture. The reason it has taken this long is simply because of how comprehensive it is. Of the four O&O chains, CBS has the most problems ailing its. Most of the stations are ratings fixer-uppers and have spent two decades or more in such a condition. There was no news in Detroit. Post-Dunn and Friend, something radical needed to be done. And the investment in News and the fact that there is actual innovation and renewal in News are all to be hailed. If you watched the first night of the new Evening News look, you might have noticed the text elements listing places where CBS News has bureaus. There's London...Rome...Johannesburg...Atlanta...oh yeah, and Sacramento and Baltimore. News and Stations in a nutshell. There is a lot going on. A visual overhaul, the first top-to-bottom one at Stations in nearly a decade; a restructuring internally; the continued effects of the Paramount Global merger, etc.; the launch of news in Detroit; and the shift to a streaming-first or -co-first mentality at every outpost in Stations. This does not happen overnight. Why are we so excited? Because there is a sense of renewal at CBS that is long-deserved and needed. Because they are fixing, finally on a comprehensive level, a historic inequity in Detroit, and they are making the right moves in doing it. Because there is a pathbreaking branding approach. ABC has too many successful news franchises in its markets to do this. NBC has too many, and it also has Telemundo; it's hard to have that sort of fusion of national and local news when there are two separate networks (with separate teams) to feed and all of the NBC newsrooms it runs are bilingual. Fox fundamentally cannot do this without compromising and tainting its local news product to a significant portion of the audience.

Kimmel is back.

It's just insane what has happened to America's media companies. They are all a disgrace. I used to worry about the decline and cutbacks at traditional media because there is so much fake news online, but CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Nexstar, etc. have all decided they want to appease the far right and the far right only. They are all terrified of the far right dictator in the white house and the FCC and worried about him harming their other assets. Our media companies are as credible as the media companies in China and Russia. Jimmy Kimmel doesn't need his ABC show. He talks about leaving all the time.

It's so cute that everyone is just casually assuming that Nexstar would be obligated to sell anything when this merger is announced. The cold hard fact is Brendan Carr—a total right-wing hack of the worst sort—along with his lackey Olivia Trusty, will do all they can to get this cleared and approved as quickly as possible and will ignore any protests to the contrary. Why? Because Nexstar is the quintessential Republican company led by a typical Republican (Perry) whose lone purpose is to buy shit up. It's a company Brendan Carr loves and adores. We've seen in full display what he'll do with companies he doesn't like. Who cares if the current legislation doesn't allow it? No one else in this regime gives two shits about laws on the books they don't like, let alone one shit. Congress, who already just destroyed public broadcasting with a glint in their eye, wouldn't care if Carr superceded them (beyond the meaningless whining from the likes of Susan Collins or the tone-deaf tweets of an enriched, oblivious Charles Schumer) and you know it.

It wasn’t a gesture. It was a Nazi salute. Let’s call it what it was.

This week every news organization is going to have an abnormal schedule. It's the holidays. It's expected. We go through this every year and seem to begrudge people for taking time off during the holidays and...no. Just enjoy different people getting on the air. Some of them REALLY need it after the abuse some of them have had to deal with this year from the public, politicians and c-suiters pushing them to their last nerve. Live with your ABC station not having news on Wednesday because of the NBA being on all day and get over that your local station doesn't have your precious morning news and advertorial show on that morning and instead runs a mass, some bargain-bin Christmas film from Trifecta, or a taped parade. I feel like I have to say this every year and it's tiring. People deserve time off.

New WRC/T44 newsroom looks nice.

Oh, this again. Fun fact: It's been longer since WPVI tried changing music (27 years) than it was from when they started using MCTYW to when they tried changing it (24 years.) Only on TVNT will a graphics package or set that's older than 5 years be declared "ancient", but a music package used for 50+ years is something that shouldn't be touched. A lot has changed in the last 27 years (namely declining viewership!) and I suspect that a subtle modernization of the music (the 1996 version was anything but subtle, it was a drastic change that tried to make MCTYW into a serious, The Mission-style orchestral news package, which it is definitely not) wouldn't result in the "riots in the street" people around here like to imagine happening. We know they have selection of 615-made cuts they've been using for a few years now, I would imagine most viewers are now used to hearing "the music" that's not specifically the 1972 version.

The discussion about channel numbers is missing the entire premise of CBS News Detroit. Somebody please show me how to tune my phone or web browser to Channel 62... This is an operation built on a "streaming first" mentality. The fact that it airs OTA is just a bonus. CBS appears to be, by and large, moving towards "streaming first". This is exactly how I've publicly predicted TV will move over the coming years. Channel numbers are an outdated concept in a world where more and more people are watching OTT where those precious numbers mean nothing. Traditional TV viewers are not bumbling morons and will figure out where to watch. Millions of senior citizens have figured out where to watch Fox News without it branding with channel numbers.

The meltdown of this forum over this whole thing is just absolutely sad.

A warm, charismatic, 60-something Black woman, a hard news guy with a long European name and a great head of hair, and a cool, younger, former NFL player who also appears on a Sunday morning football panel show, all broadcasting from Times Square, in a studio with gaudy exterior signage, but seemingly doesn't like showing off the iconic views. Don't know where you got the idea that they're ripping off GMA.

I worked with a news anchor who battled an alcohol addiction. It's not just about someone having too much fun and getting carried away, there sometimes are much deeper issues we don't know about. My co-workers and I tried to build up a strong support network around her, but she still ended up losing her job and eventually her life due to this addiction. When we're talking about on air talent on this website, I don't think it's a lot to ask that you try to have some kind of respect for the person - as we have no idea what they were going through when they made the decisions they did.

Let me keep it real: Some of y'all upset WCBS's newscasts was handled by KCBS/KPIX for three days? "Woe is me I didn't see Maurice for a few days, I can't go face the world if Mary ain't on, why does Lonnie have them fancy graphics behind him?" Give me a break! Be lucky you got several newscasts, you could had none at all for a few days! Moving on, don't forget the entire CBS Broadcast operations in New York was affected meaning DC, Boston, LA & SF was handling everything for a few days including Inside Edition, Last Week Tonight, CBS News and if March Madness was still going on, they would've relocated elsewhere.

Like a major news story, I thought this deserved a SPECIAL GRAPHIC, but in light of recent debuts, this is all we're gonna get...

EDIT: Can we all take a collective pause and assess the culture of this website. This is one of the only online discussion boards I've been on where several members regularly feel the need to be sarcastic, condescending and nasty in expressing disagreement and offering corrections. There has to be a way to articulate disagreement or correct others respectfully. Our super interest in news is esoteric enough, so this should be a forum to connect with people of similar interests. This shouldn't be a place the one-up each other with industry knowledge or belittle others.

Let us all review something we have heard James Spann say over the years: Know your landmarks. Most people will not remember many roads, unless you drive them or they are a major one, like an interstate. What does Spann always do? Name off places people know: schools, churches, BBQ restaurants, that one gentlemen’s club one time. Here in Evansville, many of the Mets will say a number of the schools, major businesses, the airport. If a tornado is on the ground in a rural area, someone at TWC might say, “It’s in a rural area, not much to worry about.” Someone local will say, “This is on the ground just one mile west of XYZ High School.” Yes, we have a number of schools in corn fields around here. Our Doppler radar sits in the middle of a corn field. Everyone here knows if that radar goes down, we lose data that can help save and protect lives and property. Nothing against the folks at TWC, they are great people, but they shouldn’t be doing something this local.

I’m sorry, but that pee-stained Spirit Airlines vibe looks awful. They should have been forced to use the same colors like everyone else.

Put baseball back on local broadcast stations again & add a streaming partner. Broadcast worked for years before the RSN's, it can work again.

Broadcast primetime TV is a mix of stale sitcoms, tons of stale and stupid reality shows, the same washed-out crime dramas (i.e., CBS's THREE FBI: "Insert Here" shows, multiple NCIS shows, multiple CSIs) and the same washed-out medical dramas. Then they jump the shark, add relationships to the shows instead of focusing on the premise of the program. The Good Doctor used to be about an autistic savant doctor. Now, it's about his relationships with women and the relationships between other doctors/nurses at the hospital. Grey's Anatomy - same thing. The Goldbergs keeps going even though the 'kids' are now in their early-to-late 20s. I don't know how they do, the show has jumped the shark since the loss of George Segal and Jeff Garlin's departure. Abbott Elementary isn't that bad, on the other hand, and nor is Ghosts on CBS, but sitcoms for the most part have no life to them anymore. And yes, political messaging has destroyed many of these primetime shows. They just can't seem to have an unbiased plot on a drama or sitcom anymore - it has to show activism in some way. Game shows - you can't seem to find any contestant on any primetime or daytime show (except maybe Jeopardy!/Wheel) that isn't on five energy drinks' worth of caffeine. The Price is Right is one of the biggest examples, but even the last few primetime shows (The Wheel, Beat Shazam, Press Your Luck) are like this too... Late night TV shows have also declined to new lows. Same jokes about former President Trump EVERY NIGHT on every single show. We get it, I can't stand him either, but he's no longer POTUS. Surely is there anything else to make fun about? Segments are mundane and cookie-cutter compared to previous hosts (Leno's Headlines, Craig Ferguson, Geoff and Secretariat, Carnac on Johnny Carson). They have little to no creative value to viewers. I love Bill Maher, but I don't watch any other late night show. That ship sailed when Letterman, Ferguson, and Leno retired. Even the soap opera fans are noticing extremely poor writing and the lack of nuance on Y&R, B&B and General Hospital, compared to 20-30 years ago. Days already went to Peacock (to die, probably). It looks as though the rest of the soaps are also on life support. Do NOT get me started on cable TV. What was entertaining (Cubs games and Bozo on WGN, great movies and Night Tracks on TBS, Cartoon Express on USA etc.) has become a wasteland of binge-watching repeats, zillions of commercials (of which Limu Emu gets at least 1/3 of the airtime), and reality shows that keep getting worse by the year. TruTV aired 'Jurassic World' last night. The channel for live, rolling court coverage and analysis is now running not just hours of Impractical Jokers, but also MOVIES. What gives! Nickelodeon = zillions of SpongeBob repeats with oodles of commercials. Food Network = tons of food competitions, very few how-to cooking shows. Where art thou, Essence of Emeril, Barefoot Contessa, etc.? TWC spends all night running Highway Through Hell repeats (and all day on weekends) and once in a while, they will shove those away if there's major tornadoes. The ghosts of Dr. John Hope and Dave Schwartz haunt the studios, I bet. What was Chuck Roberts and Gordon Graham on Headline News 24 hours a day has turned into WEST WING repeats. Oh, and a zillion Forensic Files showings. Might as well call it TNT2 at this point. TLC's constant reality garbage, same with Bravo, USA, MTV, Discovery Channel. GSN's constant Harvey Feud repeats, too! Isn't he on a few other cable channels...TVLand maybe? Honestly, I'd be fine only getting ESPN, ESPN2, and a few other sports networks a la carte. The rest of cable TV is garbage. Yes, that includes CNN/FOX News/MSNBC. Honestly, I stopped watching TV for the most part after the start of the pandemic. And for the most part, except for some sports, and maybe the local news, I haven't come back. I would rather watch a classic movie or Seinfeld repeat than 95% of what's on TV nowadays. RANT OVER.

Good old WNEP. For all of the love the music gets across Northeastern and ALL of Central Pennsylvania... They still get the callers who can't stand when the lottery numbers come on...

Yes, yes, because THAT'S the stations' problems. Not the decades of mismanagement, budget cuts, and subsequent poor ratings. Really, most here need to get a grip. I don't want to say that CBS Local is a downgrade from modern Enforcer (though I think it is), but it DEFINITELY wouldn't be some magical problem-solver, either. More than just about any cosmetic adjustment we've ever discussed here, such a theme change across the board might be the most unnoticeable of all time, to the average viewer. Hell, I have no problem saying that neither Gari nor Stephen Arnold have produced the best adaptations of the WBBM signature. They just happened to be the powerhouse music companies of their eras, therefore most accessible for the average client.

Top Ten things we copied from our competitors... 10) Giant video walls 9) location, baby! 8- Giving former Co-Anchors the "Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien" treatment 7) A newfound appreciation for Smooth Jazz 6) Outdated references to bits from retired CBS programs 5) That DJ we found leftover from the TRL days at Viacom 4) Paint everything orange- that got the Today Show 5 points, right? 3) Hey look! We got an couch from IKEA too! 2) Retired NFL players make great anchors! 1) Sure Willard wore a dress, but we gave Tony a fun hat! All possible sarcasm in the jokes is implied.

I just want a circle 7 pin!

Why are we talking about this? The head of CBS News is stepping down, not Norah O'Donnell. There's no indication Norah is going anywhere. Is it a possibility? Sure. But it's not a guarantee. Whoever takes over the news department will certainly want to make changes, but I'm inclined to think CBS won't want to make another anchor change so soon after the last one.

"...To Another Channel!"

Not sure why we're collectively shitting on the World News broadcast... It's pretty impressive for a local station. I'm usually quick to denounce the "more news" mindset that has infected local television, but I understand what the goal is here. Yes, it's "more news", but it's replacing a network newscast and going up against network news. They're trying something that's not just the same local stories from 30 minutes ago run on a loop. It's different, and we should be celebrating that.

Right or wrong on your assessment of NewsNation (you were defintely the former), you were acting like a self-righteous douche canoe then, too. That high horse might be depriving you of some oxygen. Might want to get off.

As a moderator, this thread will be locked if people can't stop repeating long-winded, tired stances. That goes for individuals on both sides of the argument. Failure to abide will result in timeouts. Understood?

I'll summarize my thoughts from the Discord: I don't think this is an attempt at a new OTA weather channel or anything close to WeatherPlus. I think this is a vehicle to enable the hubbing of weather. The press release says "Fox Weather will feature local, regional and national updates... [Drawing] on more than 75 meteorologists across 17 stations and Fox News Channel’s news gathering teams." and makes no mention of affiliate stations. This is a project that involves only the O&O group. Rebrand all the local weather departments under the "Fox Weather" banner (Which would be similar to WeatherPlus) and now you have a unified brand that anyone can appear in front of. Do you really need weekend meteorologists at both WITI and WFLD? Or can you just "regionalize" these markets and do both out of one station from time to time? Oh no! A Tornado warning has been issued on a Sunday morning, and nobody's at the station! Not to worry, the Mothership in NYC has somebody on duty, and they were going to cover the Tornado warning anyways, so they might as well just simulcast Fox Weather on the local FOX O&O. I would not be the least bit surprised if midway through next year, they announce they're "streamlining" the O&O's and are taking advantage of "operational efficiencies" presented with a network of meteorologists and suddenly some stations lose their weekend/fill in mets. I've said for some time now that Weather and Sports were ripe for hubbing, and I think this might be the start of that.