Spring Rubber

Looks like they're wasting additional room for extra padding for no reason.

I have a feeling this might have been in the works when they hired Paul Deanno. I wonder if Alicia will take back both weekend mornings and evenings or if they'll just use Pete or a rotating cast on weekend mornings now.

11:30pm? With essentially no lead-in? Are they basically trying to kill off the show at this point?

Ugh, that's so annoying. If they want to play it that way, they should just fold all their RSNs into a single channel and air whatever game is local to your DMA.

Same thing I dislike about their previous set...the lack of depth behind the desk. All of the depth is off to the sides.

For whatever, reason, Feder seemed surprised that they were hiring a 5th meteorologist. I mean, WGN and WLS already have five. I assume Pete Sack will be utilized a lot less or almost never now.

I almost got a little teary-eyed at the end.

I remember back when the 10pm news first launched, Julie would have a lot of long-form pieces on the 10pm news. The anchors would meet her over in the interview area to introduce and conclude her segments. I have no idea if that's still been in practice for the past few years, but maybe they are planning on making her a formal addition to the newscast.

And apparently they're not sure if they're going to replace him. I guess they'll just take the lean approach and have the anchors read the traffic?

Maybe they'll even work The Weather Channel branding into weather updates on live games like NBC used to do when they owned TWC...

Awesome. I was just thinking lately how Julie hasn't gotten many anchor opportunities ever since they moved Lourdes to evenings and started using Dina Bair as the third-string anchor when neither Micah or Lourdes are available.

They've launched a sort of "Last hurrah" advertising campaign for the "WGN September to remember", advertising the last month of Cubs/Sox telecasts, the Monday Night Football simulcast on September 23rd, the WGN Morning News primetime special, and the Friends 25th anniversary celebration. There's not going to be much notable content on WGN after this September aside from their news product, if Nexstar doesn't tear it apart, that is.

I like it. It feels as satisfying as the 2010-2012 NBA on TNT graphics the way that the teams/localities are presented.

Back with the 2011-2013 graphics package, I used to notice that even if the game was between two teams that didn't have an FSN affiliate, like Giants/Phillies, and the game was on Fox, it would still have the same crummy graphics with a lack of animation like you would see on the FSN affiliates. In these instances, were they using the CSN production trucks to produce the telecasts? Or were they bringing in FSN trucks from other nearby markets? Or was Fox using their own network production trucks and just using the crummy graphics because that was the standard that existed for MLB telecasts at the time?

Do they have any obligation to keep their broadcasts integrated with FS1 for a period of time? I know that this summer under Disney ownership, they still had to integrate select Saturday MLB broadcasts with FS1 and also advertise FS1 programming.

I hope they don't hold onto the brand for much longer. It doesn't feel right having another media company using the Fox name as their public brand.

I have to wonder what the timetable will be on the transition, what might change with the names of the networks, and if they'll tie programming, content, and/or on-air appearance into the Cubs Marquee network that Sinclair will also be operating.

Wow, I didn't realize she was that far along. They just announced that Lourdes Duarte is going on maternity leave after today. She's due in about a week/week and a half or so. They actually did a whole montage about Lourdes's career at WGN, narrated by Ben Bradley. Few anchors in TV are lucky enough to get that special of a maternity farewell!

Well, the staff continues to cut itself ahead of the Nexstar acquisition. Wonder if they'll see any need to replace her position, either. She was mainly in a supplemental news update role that the anchors could just as easily handle.

That shocked me, to say the least. I would have to assume that WGN will eliminate the afternoon traffic position, right? I don't think they had an afternoon fill-in for her whenever she was off or when she would fill-in for Sarah in the mornings.

Does anybody know if these teaser graphics are new? I haven't watched their 4pm news in a long time. Is this part of a different graphics package?

Nope, NBC 5 terminated their lease on the streetside studio (it wasn't in their own building) back in 2012. ABC 7 is the only one in the market still using a streetside studio.

According to Feder's post this morning, ABC 7 will still utilize him here and there when needed. I assume it will be a lot less often now. Besides, he never "left" Milwaukee anyway, right? His main job has always been there, as I understand it.

I'll actually miss the 7pm newscast on WCIU. I've watched it more than I've watched any other weekday ABC 7 newscast in the past 3 years.

Did they wrap production way in advance of the cancellation? Is that how they were able to reclaim the set for CLTV? Or were they still filming Man of the People up until this past week, I wonder?