Spring Rubber

What did I miss? I assume this is in reference to something.

Hmmm, guess we should keep an eye out on Sunday and see if they play Rich King's talent open.

Tonight, Dan Roan did sports, and they played the talent opener featuring him despite it being Friday. Do they always do this when he appears on Friday, or has he been permanently moved to Monday-Friday?

Aww, no more back-to-back Robs.

Cheryl Burton is filling in for Linda Yu tonight. I think Stacey Baca usually does it the other days of the week, but I'm guessing they're keeping her off tonight since she's gotta do the morning news tomorrow.

They've changed the 10:26am news update during the Today show. Previously anchored solo by Stefan and Zoraida on alternating days, today it was anchored by Stefan and Marion together as a tie-in with the 11am news.

It's 2015. WMAQ really needs to start showing recorded video in at least 1080i. Showing all recorded content in 480p, including their big "NBC 5 Investigates" segments, is just ridiculous. Seeing that blurry and pixelated "NBC 5 Investigates" logo in the corner throughout the entire segment is such an embarassing eyesore. I'm trying to make WMAQ my go-to station at 6 and 10 pm, but their refusal to go beyond 480p is making it hard.

During the 7:30 toss to the weather segment, they used a Blizzard of 2015 double box. Oops, holdover graphic from last week!

Something's wrong with WMAQ's SD feed. Normally, all programming should be letterboxed like it's been since the debut of the new graphics in December. This week, however, WMAQ keeps switching between letterboxed and 4:3 cropped based on the program. Today, Days of Our Lives, and Meredith Vieira are 4:3 cropped while local news, Steve Harvey, Ellen, and NBC primetime shows are letterboxed as they should be. During the shows like Meredith Vieira where the NBC 5 time/temp bug is on the screen, almost the entire bug is cut off on the right side, so clearly this constant aspect ratio switching isn't intentional. I wonder why it keeps switching between shows. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it since some network programming is cropped while some is letterboxed, and some syndicated programming is cropped while some is letterboxed.

The NBC 5 logo on the glass has been removed as of tonight. I think everybody realized how out-of-place it looked.

I agree with everybody else. It gets the job done. Not bad.

Don't they alternate who goes first every other day?

Well, that's one way to make sure that the hashtag on the bug is out of the way of the weather graphics...yeah, um, no.

I like bobblehead Ravi!

They didn't even stick Tom out on the weather patio tonight; they stuck him all the way out in front of the WGN building. I'm sure Tom is rushing back into the building after that liveshot he just did.

Wouldn't it be even cheaper (or no difference) since they'd only have to send every cable and satellite provider one feed instead of two? Or do the networks that do letterboxed SD downcovert to 480p themselves before sending it to the cable/satellite providers on a separate feed?

WGN just announced that they're bringing in Tom Skilling to cover the winter storm (possible blizzard) tomorrow.

Kathie Lee returns to the 4th hour of Today tomorrow (1/29) after taking pretty much the whole month of January off. Let's all drink some wine!

Ummm, did they change the weather format on the Sunday 9pm show? Instead of showing the 7-Day with the rest of the weather segment as they usually do on Sunday, Mike said to stay tuned until later in the newscast for that. Edit: Grrr, I lost focus and never noticed if they actually did the 7-Day at any point.

Was talking to my mother tonight. She wants to know why Tracy and "that new girl" wear nothing but skin tight dresses, often with cleavage hanging out. She asked if that's "All channel 7 is about these days?" She said she can't trust a weather forecast when the main goal seems to be about getting you to stare at their body rather than giving you an accurate forecast. I told her that she might want to stick with WGN on the weekends, in that case.

Wait, what would the old news director have done if Jim Ramsey is off? I thought they sometimes used a CLTV meteorologist and sometimes (albeit rarely) called in Skilling.

This comment plus the earlier comments about only needing one evening meteorologist brings up the point that I was thinking about last weekend: It doesn't make sense that every time Tom Skilling takes a two week vacation that Jim Ramsey should have to work 16 straight days with no time off (well this time around, Jim did 15 consecutive days and then took off the final Sunday before Tom got back, and they called in Tim McGill to fill in). It just doesn't make any damn sense that at least once a year (usually twice, IIRC), Jim, at his age, should be working 16 consecutive days because the station only has two evening meteorologists.

Yeah, while it looked interesting, it clashed with everything else on the set. Also, while I get where they were going with the design, it was hard to execute in that tiny little studio they have. The camera shots would always be so tight (because of the small studio) that it didn't really look good on the air.

I thought the goal was to have Demetrius eventually take over for Skilling, especially considering that as long as Tom's health holds up, he'll probably keep doing his job until he no longer can. By that point, Demetrius should be seasoned enough to take over, especially if Tom keeps working for another 5-10 years. If WFLD was my only option, I'd be on the next flight out of town.

What's next for Mike? I would think that he's gonna be a chief somewhere. It seems that Chicago is pretty saturated right now, so I assume he's gonna be moving to another market. Pretty much the only play he could have in Chicago is trying to become Steve Baskerville's eventual replacement, but I just don't see WBBM picking him up at this juncture. Oh well. I'm gonna miss you, Mike.