Weeters

January is pretty optimistic if the building currently looks like the photos above. Maybe they start the process of moving in January, but I really don't think this will be ready to broadcast from in 6 months. The HVAC isn't even up yet. My guess is they start the process in January and broadcasts move over in May (at the earliest) for Sweeps. EDIT: For example, the new WMAQ/WSNS newsroom/studios looked like this in late June of last year and didn't show up on-air until mid-January, and that was only moving the newsroom within an existing building. The idea that the WSVN facility will advance from a concrete shell, to something close to what we saw from WMAQ last June, in the next month is unlikely.

Locking this thread as it is essentially becoming a list/database thread.

NBC NewsChannel vacated that facility in early December 2023. NewsChannel is largely a remote/work from home operation now (though still "based" in Charlotte,) from what I have heard. NBC's Mark Barger posted photos of the empty newsroom at the time. If you look at that building on Google Earth, the last time the parking lot had any significant number of cars in it was 2019, with some improvement in 2023. StreetView shows it empty in 2025 after the June 2022 pass. They probably went WFH for the Covid pandemic and never looked back. There was some rumors circulating that they re-purposed the building for the Tegna Stream Center, but I find it unlikely that they replaced the existing facility that opened in 2021 already. Perhaps a combined Nexstar/Tegna would use it for some kind of mega-hub.

This whole ordeal has taken another wild turn. On April 4th, the old WMNN-LD/WXII-LD/NewsNet studio building was sold to a "Greenwad, LLC". This appears to be a holding company registered to a lawyer. There is not any information about what "Greenwad" is. This part of the transaction is not particularly interesting itself, but read on... On April 27th, with the sale of WXII-LD and WMNN-LD to Lowcountry 34 Media still pending, the FCC ordered Bridge News to file license renewal applications for all of their stations, alleging this is part of an investigation "for possible violations of the FCC’s prohibition on unauthorized transfers of control of the station licenses." The weird thing about these two transactions? The studio building was not sold by Bridge News. It was sold by Lowcountry, who apparently took ownership of the property from Bridge News on October 1st 2025, nearly four months before the paperwork to transfer control of the stations was filed. It will be interesting to see what the FCC thinks is going on here.

I wouldn't get my hopes up that the divestures will go anywhere other than Mission. There is a two-year timer on them that started when the deal closed, that gives Mission plenty of time to come up with the cash needed.

That is basically the whole point of the deal, I'd imagine. WISH can now get network prices on advertising on news they were already producing. It's the reverse of a network affiliate buying a My/CW/Indy station.

There are some discrepancies between all of the documents in there. The structural plans show a second studio and control room (and one of the Structural Narrative documents dated 9/05/2025 states "Footings have been updated at the new Studio B addition.") while the G and AI sheets show the second studio area as offices for Deco Drive and Sports, and the second control room as edit bays for those two teams. There is an audio console mysteriously sitting in the walls of one of those edit bays, which lines up with the second control room's audio booths in other drawings. The G and AI sheets do show the second floor space of Studio B as "void space", and the landscaping plans also show Studio B (slightly larger than the structural plans!) and second control room, but are dated 10/7/24. It looks to me like the original plan was two, then they scaled back to one with provisions to build the second in the future, then went back to two. One page of the G sheets show what appears to be a couch and coffee table in the "Team/Safe" room... so I'd imagine it's exactly the type of "safe" room you think it is. At least everyone who works there can sleep soundly knowing that the CEO and GM will survive comfortably in case the worst happens.

This. When you stop to read how Congress went about "setting" the cap, it becomes as clear as mud. This will end up in front of SCOTUS, and they'll go "we have to assume that 'national audience reach' assumed everyone watched broadcast television, but now less than 25% of the population watches broadcast television. There's no way for any owner to reach 39% of the population, because that many people don't watch." It won't matter if people are watching on streaming services or cable, because those aren't regulated by the FCC.

They'll try to demand more. That more will become less as cord cutting continues. The cycle continues, getting a little faster each time.

Nexstar basically states they are expecting the cap to be gone before they have to divest the handful of stations they committed to.

NBC News Daily replaced Days, because Days was doing very well on streaming, to the point that since the move, the last couple seasons have charted viewing minutes in the billions and often one of Peacock's top shows. Streaming is the natural home of soap operas, considering how frequently they used to be recorded on VHS/DVR for later viewing. It made sense to move it streaming-only and free up the linear time for even lower-cost programming. Basically, Days is a draw for Peacock, so I doubt they will be reversing that anytime soon. I could see NBC just expanding NBC News Now programming and making that available to local stations. MSNBC's departure from 30 Rock has left them with several studios and control rooms sitting idle, so the resources are there to just come up with some podcast-format show that they can produce for cheap.

Sinclair (or anyone else for that matter) isn't going to cancel a show unless it's not turning a profit. It's not "cheap" to not want to flush money down the toilet on a broadcast that barely anybody is watching. Weekend morning newscasts aren't big draws, which is why the latest round of Nexstar cuts targeted them, too. Nexstar is trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic, while Sinclair is being realistic. I suspect we're going to see this trend continue through the year, and probably come to a peak at the very end. Everyone will try to make it through election season before, I strongly suspect, weekend morning newscasts become increasingly rare.

Isn't GrayOne using Barlow (another open source font)? If you don't like it, you're definitely not going to like what the NBC O&O's are using... (It's a modified version of Barlow)

He retired at the start of the year. Good Day Sacramento did a fantastic farewell interview with him:

Broadcasting and Cable has a December 2021 article that states WABC has long claimed "#1", even though that sometimes has an asterisk on it. I know there was a Comcast press release from 2019 stating that WNJU was the #1 newscast (across key demos and time periods) "regardless of language" in the market at that time.