Weeters

That's not a "mock", it's an actual graphics package offered up by our very own @cxd7346. It is NOT the new O&O graphics.

While the package is well done, this thread is not the appropriate place to talk about it.

The article to me reads like they're only building a "state-of-the-art weather center" in the space and not trying to replace the current news set. Weather is something that wasn't given much attention on the current O&O sets, so that makes sense. 

The St. Louis Business Journal is reporting that Gray has purchased an office building in the suburbs at 77 Progress Parkway, previously the office for a company called Biomedical Systems. They expect to be moved in by late summer or fall 2023.

The brochure for the property can be found here.

Via the Discord, we discovered that NBC has moved Telemundo Orlando (WTMO-CD) into the old Golf Channel facility and repurposed one of the old Golf Channel sets for local news.

https://www.facebook.com/65370841311/posts/10159282616506312/?d=n

The studio is the old Jack Morton PDG set for Golf Channel's "Morning Drive" program, installed in 2013. They've just stripped it down and replaced the floor. They also took one of the desks from the larger Golf Channel studio (the one with the wraparound dot matrix LED tickers built into the base, though the tickers no longer appear to work)

Photos from the original launch in 2013:

https://www.golfchannel.com/media/new-morning-drive-set-photos

On 6/10/2022 at 10:52 AM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Funny you should say that. The outgoing graphics were created by Ruth Dial, former partner/cofounder of Giant Octupus' and Nexstar's graphics creator (at LinearDrift) Rey Rodriguez.

 

These new graphics have been 3 years in the making, created by Vivid Zero, a subsidiary of the clueless media consultants SmithGeiger who have no business owning a graphic design firm.  Principle: Michael Vamosy (formerly of Stun Creative)

The contract was originally awarded to Stun in 2019 (Yes, folks, sometimes graphics do take three years to develop).

I firmly believe the de-emphasis of the call signs and channel numbers is 100% intentional, and the "white box" on some of the websites is a temporary thing to tie a few of the stations with "legacy brands" to the new brands. Why? Because it doesn't matter if you're "CBS 2 WXXX" on the internet, which is where the audience these groups are going after is. People say "won't this confuse viewers?" while the same viewers are the ones who can't understand that KDKA-TV and KDKA 1020 are owned by two different companies. The viewers who might be "confused" are not the viewers the stations want.

I predict that, sometime in the near future, these "legacy call sign" stations will simply brand themselves on-air like "CBS News Pittsburgh on KDKA 2" for a while before dropping the calls/channel number entirely. 

It's not a "temporary" set, it's a permanent secondary set. "The Georgia Gang" uses it weekly. 

And since the secondary set is designed to look like the main set, and is practically brand new, I doubt there's a lot of desire to replace the main set. Maybe a refresh in progress at most.

https://www.facebook.com/TheGeorgiaGang/photos/4558208764297598

Hopefully, the money will be spent with a little more discretion than it has previously. New sets, graphics, and fleets of brand new live trucks that they got for some wild, unknown reasons (they rarely, if ever, do live coverage, let alone live remote coverage) do not contribute to the stories being told. That said, I'm not going to hold my breath that the $50 million isn't thrown away on a massive Clickspring set, a custom SAM music package, and other flashy stuff for their 19-year-old "anchors" to read CNN Newsource wire copy in front of, because the one thing NewsNet does well is look like it's a big name news outlet while operating like it's a Cadillac, MI local station.

While looking at their website because of the new graphics and branding, I came across their "Contact Us" page, where, to my surprise, there were new names listed as "CEO" and "COO".

Vince Bodiford and Chris Anderson are the CEO and COO of "NewsMakers Media", which appears to be a PR firm. From their website:

Quote

Media Relations

We have established, proven relationships with journalists to earn positive coverage in trusted media outlets. We don’t just drop press releases, we tailor our message for relevant outlets at the local, national and international levels. Our services include a wide range of proven tools and techniques, to include: press releases, press conferences, media training, press kits, media tours, and exclusive interviews. We produce tailored and custom media and news assets in all forms – for print media, broadcast television, social media platforms, and live events. 

Vince's LinkedIn also lists NewsNet and "NewsMakers Media" as a subsidiary of "Golden Media, Inc"

So, uh, is NewsNet (sorry... NEWSnet) now just a PR firm wearing a "News.... AS IT USED 'TA BE!!!" mask? This makes the purchase even weirder imo.

Austin posted in the comments of the Studio 31 video that the music is totally licensed and we can contact "Mark Agent" about it, or somebody named "Gary".

I'm just curious how they managed to license all these themes.

I'm inclined to agree with @Myron Falwell.

INSP has no clue how to run a terrestrial television station. It's not part of their current business model. They exist to broadcast a single "socially conservative" cable channel that's chock full of cheap westerns and the leftovers of the old PTL Satellite Network. What on EARTH would these people want with network affiliates? Occam's Razor leads us to the simplest answer: They don't, they want the spectrum.

They're going to get all their affiliations yanked the moment they tell the networks that they refuse to broadcast half of their programming over "moral objections" over LGBTQ matters or something. Most of their markets have "friendly" companies already there. Gray/Nexstar/Sinclair/etc will happily gobble up those affiliations, and the networks will defend it if the FCC starts making a deal about them having two or all three of the "Big Three" on one channel. "We had nowhere else to go!"

The business model of INSP is threatened by cord cutters, what better way to turn that around than by buying up a bunch of full power, OTA, small-market network affiliates, gutting them, and setting them up to pass through the cable channel ION-style?

The BEST case scenario with these stations is they sell off the IP to another existing group.

On 3/7/2022 at 4:41 PM, jbnews said:

I’ve never heard that one before. Are you being serious? 
 

I thought the goal as an artist was to come up with something new and original. Am I missing something?

I was going to write something out defending the concept of TV graphic artists copying each other, but it's really not just a problem there. The whole industry copies each other's work. Look at how many stations just blatantly copied WSVN's format in the 90's and early 2000's. The whole industry functions by taking what works in one market and either improving on it or just straight up copying it.

Given the group's new focus on the CBS News Streaming stuff, and that other stations had dedicated CBSN studio space, perhaps they plan on turning it into a proper studio for CBS News Chicago, or a kind of "hub" for the entire CBS News Streaming operation.

If you look at WMAQ's old setup, it's not like you need much to accomplish this. Basically a desk in front of the windows and some lights. They might have to buy some new lights, though. I know they've been holding on to and using fixtures from McClurg Court even on the current news set when it went in.

The TVNewsTalk.net On Your Side I-Team Investigators have been working night and day, on a mission to "figure out what the hell is going on" with this transaction, and can report the following:

According to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs online filing system, the registered agent for Bridge News, LLC is also attached to the following relevant business registrations:

Cypress NewsNet LLC (Registered 12/16/21)

FTB Operations LLC (Mentioned in FCC paperwork, registered 1/13/22)

NewsNet Operations LLC (Registered 1/13/22)

Presumably, these are subsidiaries of Bridge News LLC.

Additionally, Eric Wotila registered/modified the following companies as well:

Lakeline News Operations LLC (Formerly NewsNet LLC, changed 1/19/22)

Lakeline News Inc (Registered 12/29/21)

The FCC Paperwork

The FCC paperwork has a number of attachments, including an Asset Purchase Agreement, and a Time Brokerage agreement.

The Asset Purchase agreement, entered into on 1/13/22, is between Freelancer Television Broadcasting, Inc and Eric Wotila personally. The buyer of the assets is "FTB Operations, LLC" which is the new company registered above. The purchase price is $20,000 and "assumed liabilities".

The Time Brokerage Agreement, entered into on 1/13/22, is some legalese to allow FTB Operations (which now owns all the IP/contracts/etc) to program the OTA stations that are still technically licensed to Freelancer Television Broadcasting, Inc until the FCC approves the sale. There is an exception in the agreement for two hours on Sunday mornings, likely for EI programming. As part of the agreement, FTB Operations pays Freelancer $250 a month plus "reasonable and prudent station expenses associated with the fulfillment of Licensee's obligation to transmit Broker's programs."

Summary

So, basically, the entire NewsNet Empire is now in the control of Manoj Bhargava/Bridge News LLC via MBX Wyoming Inc, with Eric only owning 10% of Bridge News.

The Speculation

Mr. Bhargava is Gray Television's #3 institutional shareholder, through his company MBX Capital LLC (Not to be confused with a similar company MBX Capital Inc which seems to specialize in healthcare investments), owning 5.3% of their publicly traded shares. This transaction was made in July 2021, at the cost of around $100 million dollars. It is unclear what the intentions are with this acquisition of NewsNet. Only time will tell, I suppose.

On 11/22/2020 at 11:30 AM, caliwxdude said:

just let NewsNet die; the money has to dry up at some point.

It might have just dried up, because word on the street is Wotila has sold majority ownership in his two OTA stations. This comes about a year after some construction permits Freelancer Television had in Colorado since 2016 were transferred to Major Market Broadcasting (a group that has several stations running NewsNet).

EDIT: The Paperwork. The stations are being transferred to "Bridge News, LLC", a company owned 90% by Manoj Bhargava (a Conservative who owns the company that produces 5 Hour Energy and owns 5.2% of Gray Television) and 10% by Eric Wotila (founder of NewsNet/WMNN/etc). It's not clear if NewsNet is part of this deal.

It looks like a re-creation of the mock-up made by the new logo designers that was included on Page 1 of this thread.

I am told that the local station group was not involved with this project and that any mock up local logos included in the design documents leaked are not official new logos.

12 hours ago, JosiahCubed said:

And according to NewscastStudio, this new look is being dubbed ‘Look S’. The look debuted on KDEN (Telemundo Denver) last week.

I wonder where they got that...

It just isn't a thread about a Tegna station without complaining about C Clarity. 

Just because something shows up on someone's demo reel or portfolio does not mean they created the entire thing from scratch. If there was some "rule" that you could only include stuff you made 100%, nobody would be able to get a job.

1 hour ago, mrschimpf said:

End of an era in Milwaukee...master control for WTMJ/WGBA/WACY is now at WRTV in Indy (and KMTV in Omaha is now out of WTKR/Norfolk).

 

With the Good Karma Radio stations beginning to plan a move downtown and no more HQ uses, Radio City is going to have the reverse problem from KMGH...too much room, but the space gained is likely way too small for personnel and television studio uses.

The best-case scenario for the old Master Control space (it's a fairly large room) is converting it into a new control room. The existing control room was built in the 80's and has not been updated much. They did move things around a few years ago when they automated, but it's still pretty tight in there (especially since they simultaneously moved the robotics control from the studio floor into the control room).

They might have to wait until Radio moves out, though. At some point, the control booth for the radio networks got moved into the TV MCR, in a small closet-sized booth partitioned off from the rest of the room. 

Transmissions is also in the MCR, but that could probably be moved elsewhere.

On 2/21/2021 at 3:58 PM, DENDude said:

I would think yes, the building was set up for 1960s TV,  plus I've read in the past that due to the building limits that is why McGraw-Hill installed "Parker Vision" the computerized master control system, because they didn't have room to add equipment to KMGH's master control.  Plus now they have KCDO3 there with them and all of that master control equipment.

And I think it might not get knocked down very fast, esp if the city has already filled for historic status.

 

The KMGH studios aren't nearly as big as the 9NEWS/My20 studios down the street or the FOX31 News & Technology Center.

I'm pretty sure the reason they're relocating has more to do with space for people than equipment. Most stations technical cores are surprisingly empty these days - where you'd once have three racks filled with VTRs (which take up the space one 2" VTR took up 50 years ago)  you now have one rack with two servers doing the same exact job as those tape decks. ParkerVision was a product of the time period in which equipment space needs were peaking. You can now fit multiple switchers and automation servers into a single rack.

On 2/2/2021 at 8:09 PM, JCB4TV said:

I wonder whether Scripps will eventually launch newscasts on the Ion station in Tampa, Las Vegas, Tulsa, Nashville, Utah, and Milwaukee.

They've indicated a few times that they intend to run the Ion stations separate from the rest of their portfolio. I'd be surprised if they tried to do news on them.

They've been using this music for a long time... It's been on the 11pm for a while.

This probably has nothing to do with new graphics, and more to do with their News Director liking this particular style of music (I've heard that he wasn't a fan of Inergy at Scripps, and that's why KTNV didn't have proper news opens until he left for KOVR)

It's worth noting that Congress let STELA expire. They didn't care enough to renew it for the people that needed it. There is zero chance they would reimplement it with some provision to let cable/sat providers just pipe in whoever they felt like during a dispute. The station groups, networks, and NAB would absolutely not support that. Period.

Syndex already prevents this from happening. The local station retains it's local rights even if it's not on the cable provider.

Quote

During an October 2008 dispute between LIN TV Corporation and Time Warner Cable, CBS programming (most notably NFL games, including those featuring the Buffalo Bills) were blacked out in the Buffalo market as a result of LIN and TWC's inability to come to terms on a new contract. Despite this, WIVB-TV (a CBS affiliate owned at the time by LIN, it is now owned by Nexstar Media Group) was still allowed to enforce syndex and prevent other CBS affiliates or CFTO from being brought into the market. CFTO was allowed to carry games in Niagara County, WSEE-TV (out of Erie, Pennsylvania) in Chautauqua County, WBNG (out of Binghamton) in Steuben County, and WROC-TV (out of Rochester) in Orleans, Genesee and Wyoming counties. Time Warner Cable customers in Erie, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties, whose only CBS affiliate is WIVB, were completely blacked out; in the latter two counties, because of terrestrial reception issues, antennas cannot be used, leaving satellite television (which still carried WIVB) as the only choice.

Piping in other stations is a dubious choice and would not hold up. If I owned the out of market station replacing a fellow affiliate, I would immediately order it pulled off. The whole reason the first station got pulled down was because the owners want something from the provider. I'm not going to let them use my station as some negotiation tactic for free, and I'd hope other stations would do the same if the same happened to me. Cable providers do not have some kind of free reign over just running whoever they want on their systems. 

Also, if Comcast piped in a O&O to replace an NBC affiliate, I can almost guarantee you that would nearly immediately be brought to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission as an unfair, monopolistic business practice. 

Sorry folks, but this idea is right up there with the fantasy of another mass affiliation swap or ABC buying Scripps. Not. Happening.