Spring Rubber

Huh, weird. Tonight's edition of Banfield features the June 21st-July 18th light blue graphics. It's being touted as a new episode, just like last night's show, so I'm assuming that Banfield is produced way in advance and then aired new at a later date? That said, I bet the new white graphics will start showing up in the coming weeks on that show.

NewsNation seems to be at a loss for what to do with their graphics. Just 4 weeks ago on June 21st, they moved away from their initial dark blue and white look and switched to a light blue and white look, including a new bug. June 20th: June 21st: Now today on July 19th with the new programming revamp, they've switched to a mostly white look with dark blue text and red accents, while keeping the same bug. This seems to take cues from other cable news networks, where it seems like white backgrounds with red accents is the typical standard. I assume market research has determined that it catches eyes more than dark blue and other more muted colors. Also, with that new bug seems to have come a modified NewsNation logo where the text is more spaced apart. It looks weird seeing the old version of the logo (in the form of the NewsNation Prime logo) stacked right above it on screen. Edit: While every other show on the network has gotten the new white lower thirds, it looks as though Banfield is still on the original dark blue lower thirds. Interesting that they decided to keep one show on the old look.

Looks like Rush Hour is taking place in the newsroom instead of the main studio.

I see on weekends that NewsNation Prime runs from 7-9pm ET and Banfield at 9pm ET. Has it been like that the past few months, or did they bump the weekend lineup an hour earlier?

Life after Maury sounds like a good thing to me. I used to work in an office where we'd have a TV in the waiting room. We would have loved to keep WGN on all day, but thanks to trash like Maury, we simply couldn't.

Chicago's Best cancelled; GN Sports to air 7 nights a week: https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/07/16/robservations-wgn-drops-chicagos-best-expands-gn-sports-weekends/ You have to wonder, why now, after all of the restaurants are starting to reopen, are all of the food shows getting cancelled, and food critics losing or stepping away from their jobs? Are they planning ahead for possibly yet another situation where restaurants get shut down due to the delta variant?

I'm sad that Doc Emrick didn't get to call their final season, but I'm glad they let him do the final closing montage speech.

True, I remember when I first got interested in sports in the early 2000s. I opened up my DirecTV guide and saw all of the "Fox Sports <Region>" channels. I was blown away at the time by all these FSNs that I had no idea existed!

Ah yes, because we all want a total conglomerate of RSNs owned by one company!

I agree with you; always very disjointed, too. Every time I've tuned in during storm coverage, it seems like they're scrambling to discuss map and radar source logistics to the point where it's impeding coverage. WMAQ and well as WBBM and WLS seem to be much more prepared.

I didn't catch WLS breaking in during the 4pm hour when the end of the UEFA match was getting intense, but maybe I didn't tune in at the correct moments. I know both WLS and WMAQ were wall-to-wall earlier in the afternoon during their less important sports coverage.

We're starting to see the difficulty of sports coverage now. WMAQ and WLS both won't break in for tornado warning coverage now because NBC has Olympic trials, and ABC has UEFA. Everyone else is breaking into their current programming.

Because here we go with tornado warning coverage for the second time in a week, looks like the Tornado Warning graphic in the lower right hasn't been updated to Look S yet.

This happened shortly after WGN went live last night. The camera was stuck on this view with Mike Janssen just talking in the background (not on cam), so a crew member was seen walking across the live camera shot. I assume they were using that emergency feature where the meteorologist presses a button to go live and override master control, and by doing so, it just takes a single camera shot live in the weather center until the station has time to assemble a team in the control room.

Hmm, ok, I must have caught them at bad times. I tuned in around 10:50-something and again around 11:50-something, and they were in regular programming both times. I didn't get a chance to check between those times because I was taking shelter and just kept it parked on WMAQ during the middle of the threat.

So we just had what appears to have been a confirmed tornado come through DuPage County, and it looks like WFLD was the only station in the market that didn't do live coverage of the event. Not sure if the fact that it's Sunday was the biggest factor or if the fact that it happened after 10:30pm was the biggest factor, but everyone else was on live to provide coverage.

Nice to know that they were still interested in filling that position. I was concerned that they were never going to fill it due to cost-cutting measures. Welcome to the team, Tim!

The flat ABC logo next to the 3D Circle 7 logo seems a bit odd. I have to wonder if there would ever be a consideration to flatten the Circle 7 to match the design.

Funny I was just thinking about this last night at random, and here we are with this announcement today.

Probably the first platform in which WGN has delivered the weather without a meteorologist. Speaking of which, who has been doing the weather on weekend mornings for the past several months? Are they doing the classic strategy of having the weekend evening meteorologist (Mike Janssen) work all day every weekend, or are they rotating people in and out?

RIP Dick Kay

Wow, seeing a throwback from only 10 years ago is something I didn't think I'd see, but either way, it's nice to see those graphics again!

I haven't been following the business side of streaming. What happens if the streaming bubble collapses? Where does the business model go if that happens, if both cable and streaming collapse?

Yes, thank you to both! The Fox 2008 look was the main thing that was on the tip of my mind, that I couldn't think of. The 2016 TBS look kinda gives that vibe too. I think it was mainly the color scheme that was making me think of the Turner Sports look from 2007-2010. I also wonder if the new bosses will make all of their booth talent wear full suits for every game like what Marquee is mandating. It looks so odd to see that on a local telecast; although I think some Fox RSNs may have already been wearing suits on a daily basis anyway.

That score bug reminds me of something I've seen before, but I can't place my finger on it. It gives me Turner Sports vibes circa 2007-2010