Spring Rubber

Wow, never thought I'd see them go with a solo-anchored weekday morning newscast. I always figured that would be a thing that could only be seen at WBBM.

Even with the Cubs and Sox back in action, WGN did not bring back Instant Replay this Sunday. I'm wondering if they decided to either permanently cancel it or if they will make it a football-season-only show. Now that GN Sports is around Monday-Friday. I'm thinking the COVID-19 shutdown was probably a perfect time to just phase out Instant Replay permanently. Even during football season, I assume more eyes are on WMAQ's Sports Sunday due to the SNF lead-in compared to WGN.

I used to have laughing fits like that as a teenager. Haven't had them in a long, long time. Maybe it's time to take a page from Jerry and laugh it up a little when times get a little better. Jerry was the man!

RIP Jerry Taft. A true legend and one of my all-time favorites.

New general assignment reporter at WGN. She's reporting on shootings tonight. I didn't notice any announcement about her hiring. https://wgntv.com/author/bronagh-tumulty/

Who even is the weekend crew now that the weekend crew has become the 4pm crew?

Didn't see that one coming. All the best to her over there. Maybe that explains the recent full-time reporter hirings?

Looks like they planned this return to 30 minutes somewhat in advance, with enough lead time to secure a sponsor. GN Sports now has a presenting sponsor in Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, and they returned to the studio tonight, even more socially distanced than the normal newscast...

They ran a promo stating that GN Sports is back to a half-hour show beginning at 10:30pm starting tonight. The temporary WGN News at 10:30 has gone the way of the Donlan.

I didn't even realize he was on last night. I tuned into the 5pm show and saw Patrick Elwood on. Did Joe anchor the 9pm and 10pm? Was it totally unannounced ahead of time that it would be his last day? I knew it would be soon, but I didn't hear anything in advance.

Much like the Steve Sanders vacancy, I bet Nexstar is required to post all of their job openings to the general public, even if they have no intention of hiring from outside. I still think one of the two Bradleys will get the position.

Are Zonca and Kleist living separately at this point? Or is he still living in Chicago and working remotely? Yeah, it will definitely be nice to put their ancillary programming in a separate space and leave the news desk to...well...the news, if that is indeed the direction they decide to go.

Caught the credits tonight. Is the presence of a director, technical director, and audio operator an indication that they're not in fact using automation? Also, nice of them to credit Weather Producer Bill Snyder. I'm sure it's been many years to date without ever being shown in the credits.

We are here in Location 1. We want to take you live out to Location 2 where Reporter 1 is reporting on Event 1 right now!

Yeah, it very well may be some sort of standard Nexstar system. I think the new time/temp layout is nice. It fits better in the space than the old font did. Not sure how I feel about the lower third fonts. I'll see how it feels after a few days as tweaks may continue to occur.

Ok, I'm fairly convinced that WGN must have rolled out a new automation system. Everything I've seen tonight is indicative of the same type of technical gaffes you usually see when a station has a new automation system. The entire 10pm hour was devoid of the "News at 10" logo on the lower third, instead displaying an empty blank space there. When they went to Tom's weather segment, all of the titles on the triple box were from a story that aired earlier in the newscast; the lower third on the triple box was about police reform protests, and the title above Tom's video said "Wrigleyville". When GN Sports started at 10:45, the opener completely failed to play. Instead we started with a black screen and then abruptly cut to Lauren Magiera's single shot, during which time she had no idea she was on the air. We sat in awkward silence for about 10 seconds. Suddenly, the opener's audio started to play, and Josh Frydman started introducing the show; meanwhile, we were still stuck on Lauren's single the entire time and unable to switch camera shots for a good 30 seconds. Does anybody know what WGN had been doing to date? Were they still using a fully staffed control room, and maybe cutbacks finally forced them into automation? Or were they using a different automation system for which they may have had a reason to switch to a different solution?

Not sure if WGN is using either a new or a backup graphics system, but all of the fonts from the lower thirds to the weather ticker are much smaller than normal today. The fact that some of the lower thirds on live shots are animating in and out from the side rather than fading in/out makes me think maybe it's a new system rather than a backup. They just need to tweak the fonts to be bigger again, as long as its possible.

Does anybody think it's a questionable decision to launch News Nation during the week before Labor Day rather than the week after Labor Day? Especially if Labor Day winds up being the safest holiday of the year due to COVID-19 case decline, I picture a lot of people being out and about and nowhere near a TV set watching WGN America. Just seems like a Tuesday 9/8 launch would be better from a ratings standpoint. I'm sure they have their reasons, though...

https://www.robertfeder.com/2020/06/01/adam-amin-replacing-neil-funk-tv-voice-chicago-bulls/#more-25712 Adam Amin has joined the Bulls and NBC Sports Chicago as lead Bulls play-by-play, replacing the retiring Neil Funk. Quite honestly, I had no idea that on a national level, he had left ESPN and joined Fox Sports a few weeks ago amidst the coronavirus shutdown. Apparently we're going to see him on Fox's national NFL and MLB telecasts going forward as well. Congrats to him on his new position with both companies.

At this rate, we'll have the WGN News at 11pm soon, then the WGN News at Midnight, then they'll just take it all the way until 4am. Edit: According to my Xfinity program guide, this is a permanent addition to the schedule. I'm guessing Feder will have the announcement in his morning post either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Lots of F-word and lots of nonsense...

Despite the cutbacks, WBBM stayed live until shortly after 11:30pm with rioting and looting coverage. Only WLS stayed on later (still going as of right now). Kudos to WBBM on that.

Yikes, that stuff is scary. People are such jerks and things worse that I can't say...

Everyone in the market went live shortly after midnight due to a tornado warning in the western counties of the market. WGN had a very rag-tag broadcast with Demetrius in the weather center for the first time since the mets started working from home. There was no time/temp bug and no lower thirds For whatever reason, he was wearing two separate lapel mics (was one being used for radio simulcast?), and instead of wearing an IFB, they just had Bill Snyder sitting slightly off camera relaying information to him live on the air. Bill was clearly audible to the audience as he provided information to Demetruis throughout the segment. I guess this is the nature of overnight storm updates, especially in this COVID-19 era.

Sad to see. Anyone know why TV stations would be hurting? I would think viewership should be up, not down.