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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

I think the hyper-fixation on brand and music changes being some kind of driver for viewers to "get upset" and stop watching the station is kind of absurd, when you consider all the other things that can change in a TV news broadcast that the station really doesn't have much control over. Talent is a more important draw for viewers than music and brands, and retirements don't often move the ratings needle much. WPVI didn't see a massive ratings drop after Jim Gardner left, despite his status in the market. The same is looking true at WGN after Tom Skilling left, and I can't imagine a music change or branding would actually lead people to change the channel permanently. It's not 1996 anymore. I'd also like to point out that a lot of these old 90's era "people were MAD!!!" claims come from newspaper columnists at the time. We cannot know for certain what they embellished on to make their column more interesting. "People were upset" that a station changed their branding the same way people get upset that Judge Judy was interrupted for severe weather. This doesn't mean the whole market was "rioting in the streets" like people around these parts like to think would happen if WPVI modernized MCTYW. On that subject, the 1996 orchestral MCTYW was arguably just bad and was an abrupt, noticeable change. WPVI has been using new cuts of MCTYW from different composers for years at this point (there have been some new ones since the graphics debut!) and I have a hunch nobody but people involved with this community have noticed, largely because they don't sound as wildly different as the orchestral package did.

General reminder that the "Action News" trademark is owned by Cox (and "Eyewitness News" is owned by CBS!) and stations have to pay to use them. Why should Scripps keep paying for a brand name for a format that hasn't been properly used in decades? I know folks have a weird affinity for these two brands, but come on. This is, by far, a better logo than some of the other Scripps rebrands over the past few years. Why should they pay Cox for this name? Why should they pay Nexstar for The CW? These are all competitors. People love to think talent at these stations treat each other like this is Anchorman, and while that's not true, there's no good reason to give your competition money for a tired old brand or a second-rate network affiliation.

Thank you for bringing us back! Even though I"m done with TV (for now), this site is still a daily one for me to keep up with what's going on in the crazy world of TV.

Sister stations are stations that are owned by the same company as them. For example WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids is the sister station to WLNS in Lansing -- both are owned by Nexstar. WNBC in NYC is sister to KNBC in LA -- both are owned by NBCUniversal... etc etc etc

Even though this was kind of an "emergency" rebranding, that was a purposeful little nod to the site's history. That, and the fact that the media we talk about is growing beyond "TV" in the traditional sense. I think there's something wonky going on with the caching (we're behind Cloudflare now, something else I've wanted to do for a while) that is causing this, I'm going to look into it further.

Thank you for your hard work in getting this site back up and running.. I agree the red is a nice touch

FCC order is here (it boggles the mind that some websites paywall documents that can be found in two minutes) It feels like the FCC is doing a case of malicious compliance by allowing the sale under these conditions. And I love it.

Why? Because they are dropping a name that hasn't really meant anything since Bill Bonds got fired 30 years ago? Good lord, this fandom is so unbelievably out of touch with reality.

Unfortunately, I think the rumors about NBC have something to them. David Zaslav, in a rather idiotic move IMO, went on record to say “We don’t need the NBA.” In other words, they need us more than we need them. Not only is that an extremely foolish and arrogant thing to say in public; it’s patently false. TNT’s entire sports division is built around the NBA; their plans to start a streaming service w/ Fox and ESPN revolve around having the NBA. It would be disastrous if they lose it. Source: https://awfulannouncing.com/nba/david-zaslav-nba-rights-deal.html If TNT doesn’t pick up a package of games, I just hope one of the other broadcasters picks up the Inside guys. It would be a shame to lose that show like this.

In the scheme of things, losing a heritage brand to a corporate one these days is just another letdown of what local TV has become. And Scripps' rollout of stripped-down playlists of packages masquerading as newscasts take even more out of it. I dont know what Scripps has up their sleeve for their soon-to-be independents, but from what they've been putting out, it's a far cry from ever being able to be a dominant player in TV.

If stations have these "fans" who are concerned about their branding, music, and graphics, then it stands to reason that the less popular (at least around here) newscast formats we've seen lately also have fans. Somebody's watching Scrippscasts, somebody is watching Tegna stations. Maybe that's because they like what they see. If viewers "cared about tradition" the way some of us like to think, we wouldn't be seeing 45% of the news audience disappearing into thin air.

My lord...Bill Bonds is probably drunk cussing from his grave about this....

I’m loving the red on the website. Please keep it even if you do migrate back to the old domain.

The future is getting clearer, and The Gates will open fully. The Talk will complete its conversation. The chat show will end with its 15th season, and the final episode will air on December. https://deadline.com/2024/04/the-talk-renewed-15th-final-season-ends-december-2024-1235883079/

Weigel is launching another diginet, MeTV Toons, on June 25. Pretty much an outgrowth of MeTV's existing Monday-Saturday cartoon blocks (Toon In with Me and Saturday Morning Cartoons) and a broadcast equivalent of Boomerang (both its original all-classic cartoon format and its current daytime-only classic block), it will feature shows and shorts like Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Popeye, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Woody Woodpecker, Casper, Betty Boop, and Speed Racer. Bob Bergen, the voice behind various Looney Tunes characters (like Porky Pig, Tweety and Marvin the Martian), will be the announcer for the network.

He's writing this as if the industry isn't already a revolving door of talent. Has he watched the news at all in the last decade? Even in big markets, it's pretty astounding how much attrition there is on and off screen. I don't think I could name more than a handful of reporters on competing stations. When I turn on Denver TV, there's barely anybody recognizable to me on there. This is nothing but great news for the media industry workforce, and employees can now more freely vote with their feet and escape bad employers who don't pay enough. Not that we have much choice anyway with at most a dozen station groups now. Of course, noncompetes have been watered down quite a bit already. Most stories I hear these days of people breaking their contract involve the station group threatening to sue them, then the employee gets a lawyer to point out all the ridiculous claims. Then, the station group is too cheap to go through with the lawsuit anyway and they back down immediately. There are so many other new laws at play too. Noncompete clauses are already unenforceable in California, but a new law that went into effect in January makes all contracts with noncompetes void *altogether.*

As a spry 134-year-old crackpot, I am still personally offended and outraged that those whippersnappers Huntley and Brinkley replaced the beloved Camel News Caravan. Even more than Actions and Eyewitnesses, we want our news delivered on drab sets in glorious black-and-white by chain-smoking anchors. That's the sort of tradition that will bring The Kids These Days back to broadcast television in droves.

Branding is important in every industry, but there is such a thing as overthinking it. Of what viewers we still have, I think all they really care about other than the news content is that the branding isn't distracting. I think all that most viewers care about is that the news content is of quality, that the anchors and reporters look decent, that the lighting in the studio is crisp, and that the newscast isn't riddled with production errors. Viewers no longer care or have any attachment to anachronistic branding devices. I'll never forget a conversation I had with two acquaintances in Los Angeles a few years ago. They were musicians and did not watch television and thought that "KTLA," "Eyewitness News," and "Good Day LA" were all the same station, and they assumed that local TV news was still stuck in those 70s-era trappings.

I'll back this up with a line I heard repeated in research presentations at TV stations across the country under multiple ownership groups in an era when viewership was higher than it currently is: The most reliable viewers in the key demographics stations target watch one or two quarter hours of a newscast a week, across all stations and all dayparts. I am sure that time spent watching has only decreased since I last heard a research presentation just before 2020 turned all 2020.

Thank you Weeters for in a way bringing us back to our roots. (Early 2000s) If we all remember correctly this forum was originally born from an AOL or Yahoo Geocites page haha. if I vaguely remember and it was called Local News Discussion lol. So in away the new name, Local News Talk brings us back to our roots! Glad to be back!

It wouldn't surprise me to see Morgan Murphy move ABC and/or CW to WJMN. It's a far better station to be broadcasting on than both WBKP and WBUP. Also, merging news staffs would be a benefit, since WBKP and WBUP don't have that much to begin with.

It will truly suck for TNT to lose the NBA. It would be worst than NBC losing it back in 2002 because at that time NBC outside of the Olympics and Golf were to me feeling like the sports department was “mailing it in”. They had Arena Football as football filler for losing the NFL in 1998 and they had NASCAR to fill the void of no NFL but IMO Dale Earnhardt getting killed in 2001 started a slow death (no pun intended) for NASCAR ratings wise. TNT (Turner as a whole company really.) is still going strong with all of the high profile sports and events they have outside of not having the NFL. And they have the hottest studio show in North American Sports TV with Inside the NBA. TNT losing the NBA would be up there probably 3rd with NBC losing baseball in 1989 and behind CBS and NBC losing the NFL in 1994 and 1998 respectively. ESPN has their priorities. Have blank check in hand for the following sports 1. Monday Night Football 2. College Football (sans Big Ten) and the CFP 3. The NBA and the Finals 4. NCAA Women’s Tournament and Final Four As much as I and many others hate ESPNs coverage of the NBA, they do whatever it takes to keep it unfortunately and their daytime shows are heavily influenced by it when it’s not football season.

I’m aware of that, I live in the market. Point is, they don’t identify that way now, and I don’t think there’s anything indicating that Nexstar is going that route with their legacy stations.

Bring back Eyewitness News at 7 on The U, you cowards.

Ginger and Somara Theodore can handle 90% of what the network needs, with frequent calls to the affiliates for weekend fill-ins. They call up Sam to do a little weather & a little entertainment stuff, but there's zero need for him to return to the network, full-time. I like Sam, but he can't (won't) commit to 5 days a week at his current job, so why would anyone expect him to commit to a hard schedule at the top? Frankly, if the network's 2 meteorologists (which Sam is not) were men, I don't think we'd have this constant conversation, pushing for Sam's return. Just saying.

Talk about full circle. It was WGN and Tribune that held out 8 years ago sending The CW on a soul-searching journey in Chicagoland through WPWR and WCIU, and now with Nexstar in charge and in control of the CW, it's back on WGN. As long as they don't rebrand WGN as CW9. I don't think the folks at WGN could ever live it down. I wonder now what WCIU will do with their current "U" subchannel? Change it to U-too?

It will be interesting to see how fast traditional TV declines now that so much of the sports coverage has gone streaming. I'm sure most of the MLB & NFL games will be exclusively streaming in the coming years as the contracts come up.

I think as long as it makes money CBS will be happy. Sounds like they may have a solid financial footing. The stars will likely not be commanding the same amount of money as “The Talk”. Nor the more establish soaps.

This is probably a tough one to answer because a lot of stations would do some kind of "news" broadcast (definitely nothing like what we'd call a "newscast") shortly after signing on. WFMY claims the "oldest and longest running morning show" so it's not necessarily the first. That credit probably goes to whoever decided to sign on at 7am or earlier first. I know a lot of stations wanted to try and duplicate Today locally after it debut in 1952, so WFMY in 1957 also seems quite late in that regard. I imagine other stations tried something, it didn't work out very well, and they just focused on other things and the attempt was forgotten. On that note, a lot of stations have this internal lore that they did something "first", and it's almost always inaccurate or with an asterisk. I feel like there's a good half dozen "first television studio"s out there because they're simplifying a more precise claim like "first building with a room converted for television use" or "first building built from the ground up with a television studio" (I think WTMJ claims this) or "first building built exclusively for television use".

I'll respond. First off, welcome aboard since I can tell this is your first post. And second, no. I believe The Good Morning Show from WFMY-TV Greensboro is the first early local morning newscast in the United States. That program has been on since December 1957.

I mean, he is 92 years old. He still is quick as a whip with his wit and understanding and I think it was a good segment. They had to honor Dan Rather in some capacity. They say that time heals all wounds. Good on CBS News and Sunday Morning doing this. And he still wants to be a journalist. Dan Rather has quite a history and I applaud him still doing what he does. -- Matt

Everything looks great and thanks for keeping the faith and going the extra length to keep the forum going. There isn't anything like it elsewhere.

One of the biggest rationales for non competes in journalism is safe guarding intellectual property. From my time in a newsroom I can tell you that photographers and digital writers (who aren't under contract) are privy to just as much intellectual property and "company secrets" as reporters/anchors and producers (who were under contract). So, IMO that doesn't hold up. This might be a radial leap but contracts should be abolished for all LOW WAGE employees. It's one thing to lock in Hoda Kotb or Robin Roberts for two years when you pay them millions. But small to medium market MMJs/Reporters making around $20 an hour should have the freedom to leave if necessary, especially because companies do not care about living expenses etc.. Aside from wanting your face exclusively on their channel, contracts are typically a mechanism for stations to curb high turnover. They lock talent in rather than improving the working conditions (and pay) that cause the turnover to begin with.

Yea, how much times will they have to mess up their TV stations before the FCC catches the idea? I mean, ending news departments, making KTUL and KOKH's newscast basically almost the same thing. Yet 'PIX is the problem? The Federal Communications Commission, they JUST DELETED LOCAL NEWS at WNWO in Toledo and STILL did nothing about KDNL, is you not understanding what's going on?

Because Disney only treats WPVI as a budget line item that generates a boatload of money in revenue without any effort. Disney is only focused on Disney+ and the soulless meat packing plant that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's it.

If you're an hourly employee and have to sign one, that is downright criminal. The only way they should ever hold up is if if the employee is important enough and compensated handsomely because of it.

Surprise! The FCC approved the $75 million sale of WADL to Mission Broadcasting earlier today. But there's a catch: Nexstar is legally prohibited from directly being involved in Mission's operations of the station. I'd argue this is much worse for Nexstar than the WPIX decision, because Mission is incapable of operating a television station by themselves. Moreover, the $75M price tag does not include WADL's current facilities, all of which were retained by Kevin Adell.

At Scripps, nothing is trapped in amber. It's a virtue and sometimes a vice. Television stations are like any other business, especially given that they are facing the biggest change in consumption habits in their history. Scripps knows this. Their hometown headquarters station is feeling it. John Kiesewetter got these figures from Cincinnati: Scripps has very good values, usually, in journalism. They probably have the most value-driven approach to news operations of any major operator (aside from Sinclair, where the values are not beliefs about journalism but often about national politics). The broader problem is that tools originally conceived to make the process of assembling newscasts, or building out news extensions, are turning into tools to reduce headcount, which seems to be causing morale issues at some stations. Ion Media has done okay, but national advertising has been soft. There's a story there. Scripps has higher exposure to the national advertising sector than its peers, and that has been an underperformer because digital has been cleaning TV's clock as advertisers that are not political rethink and retrench their budgets. A decision this big is not done without studying the market. At some point, TV news cannot go on doing the same old things. You would have to assume, and I'd want to hear about this, that research was conducted. Perhaps people identified the Action News brand with an older style of newscast or one that didn't appeal to them. Perhaps adding "Detroit" was seen as necessary for SEO reasons. That said, if "7 News Detroit" is installed without a brand proposition or other points of differentiation from its competitors, then it will get lost in the sea.

I hate to break it to you but all three major stations in Detroit will have now rebranded at least once. It happens. Folks in this market seem to like the hype of WDIV and absolutely nothing 7 has tried seems to work. They have been stuck in second since 2009 and there for 22 of the last 28 years. Even though their newscasts are really well put together now they spent years in the doldrums quality wise and never really followed the format to begin with even in the 1970’s. Their newscasts weren’t so different from KABC or WABC or WLS that we should say they reinvented the ABC local news wheel. It’s not the tradition it is in Philly or something either. If it means better graphic elements and a new voiceover and maybe talent opens and a new style that’s probably a positive on aggregate. Their focus is gonna be on using 7 and Channel 7… they don’t even have a slogan anymore. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Not necessarily, there's always The CW Plus cable feed.

THIS!!! I remember randomly discovering this site and it felt like a safe space and knowing that there are so many people around the country and world who geek and nerd out on TV news. This site continues to Thrive and Grow!

Love the new site. Great new colors and design. A breath of fresh air. Great job all around and thank you for the your work.

It was shut down I was part of the team I got the call while I was on vacation. While I cannot explain the full details it was an abrupt shut down for us.

The Gates is a go. The newest soap has been officially ordered by CBS, and will premiere in January. https://deadline.com/2024/04/cbs-orders-the-gates-to-series-daytime-soap-premiering-january-2025-1235886082/

It'll be the first time since the demise of Qubo in 2021 that we've had a over-the-air digital network largely dedicated to cartoons. However, the only difference is that MeTV Toons will feature shows that many of us of a certain age remember fondly, as opposed to a channel that featured mainly Canadian content and cheaply-produced domestic animation. Also because Warner Bros. Discovery is also involved, this new network will access to a lot of content, between the original Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera studios.

"We're finally not alone!" -- WMUR

Given the hot water Nexstar is in for running WPIX, and Adell's (mis)management of WADL, a subchannel affiliation on WDIV is their best hope. And there's no way one of the Windsor stations could pick it up and retarget their signal to an American audience. That ship sailed after all of the San Diego issues with XETV in their later years. Also CBC's CBET was once CKLW which RKO once had a stake in and used the station to target Detroit.

NASCAR races are launching on the CW ahead of the planned schedule, the last 8 races of the 2024 Xfinity season (final regular season race and all 7 of the playoff races) are moving from NBC/USA to The CW. Will still be produced by NBC Sports with their announcers (seems like they are still contractably obligated to do that part). The original plan was not to start until the 2025 season and that NASCAR itself would produce the races, that will still take effect after this weird arrangement. Really curious what made NBC bail out early, Nexstar cut them some too good to pass up deal? Or did they want to free up space to air something else?

You expect a show to be a go for the next season for other station groups if the largest station group renews and gets the ball rolling, so don't expect many turn-downs for renewals with Sherri at all.