TSSZNews

How is Lansing, the 110th DMA, capable of supporting a new news operation from Scripps, but we continue to wait for WSFL in Miami to get their act together for now almost a year?

Michelle Grossman, I believe, still occasionally freelances for NBC10. She was definitely on a couple weekend mornings ago.

1 hour ago, hmaxhanson said:

Huh. In between Scott Chapin and Nick Michaels, WBBM had Vic Caroli do the opens:

 

Holy crap.

Caroli makes Chapin sound like Erik Thompson. That was a sign they dug DEEPER into tabloid, not a regression.

 

Really interesting that these changes are happening in the absence of a VP of News at the station.

And WCAU is carrying IndyCar Racing and NHL Playoff Hockey tomorrow anyway.

(EDIT: I saw the promo too. I guess they mean as a PKG after Sunday Night Football?)

"What will our new set look like?"

Gee, I wonder, newly minted Nexstar station.

I'm guessing any need for Tammie to fill in on KYW would be either from her home (looks like she moved back to Chicago), or pre-taped from WBBM.

20 hours ago, ctmajka said:

Thank you very much! I figured it would be fun to try to create a credible update.

If it's credible you were aiming for, you nailed it. The work really does sound like a old-school Gari update. And I like the little nod you have to the Newschannel sig in some spots.

58 minutes ago, JRogotzke said:

I couldn't agree more, the CBS News devision needs a complete reinvention. I know the idea of moving the Evening News isn't a popular one but I really think CBS should move it to 10pm for every timezone (11pm for some stations), rebrand it as the CBS National News or keep it as the Evening News branding if you want, but mainly follow the BBC format of serious stories and a strong world focus.

Honestly, if the pandemic keeps delaying production of prime time shows, I expect someone somewhere's going to try a regular proper newscast in a 9 or 10PM slot.

Getting lost in all of this: A couple of alarm bells about the health of some of the media companies in smaller markets.

1) GCI is *the* cable company in Alaska. They provide telcom and other services to a vast majority of the state's residents. They should have the cash flow to continue operations...

2) ...Especially when you consider that GCI is a subsidiary of what was formerly known as Liberty Interactive--of John Malone/Liberty Media.

GCI should be healthy enough to own television stations in general, let alone a competing, news producing station in the market. So what's changed where they're tossing it all?

16 hours ago, jase said:

This is why I’m hoping News Nation (WGN America) is successful. Having an unbiased news source (which they plan to be) is key in shifting thing towards unbiased news coverage overall. 
 

Granted, this is wishful thinking, but hopefully, things won’t get any worse than they already are.

In fairness, if News Nation stumbles out of the gate, given all they've invested into the operation and the current operating climate in general, there's no guarantee they don't "pivot" to the current cable news style others employ.

I don't know what the art/creative staffing arrangement is at the legacy Gray stations given the hub, but at least in some of what were the Raycom stations, you typically have, or had, an art director (or equivalent) and a subordinate or two. That is still the case at WAVE if I'm not mistaken, and at most stations these days, that's enough to do a lot.

PIX is officially going back to Nexstar, for all intents and purposes:

Quote

E.W. Scripps said today that it has been informed that Nexstar Media Group Inc. has transferred its option to purchase Scripps’ New York CW affiliate WPIX to Mission Broadcasting and that Mission has exercised its option to purchase the station.

The option price is $75 million plus accrued interest, to be calculated on the period between the Sept. 19, 2019, purchase date of WPIX by Scripps and the option sale closing date.

Scripps seems to be doing a lot of selling of late, between this and their podcasts. And while most would concede this was probably the end game for Scripps and Nexstar/Mission, $75M still seems abnormally low for a station in the top media market.

16 minutes ago, froyo49 said:

You do know that Universal Music broke away from Universal Pictures in 2004 when GE bought them so they’re actually not subsidiaries. 

 

NBC makes their own graphics packages in-house, as well as several other companies, so how would that be different than production music? 

My mistake on UMG - I must be thinking of another production company I'm pretty sure NBCU does own, just not UMG.

RE: Graphics - different universe. Also a fair bit more complicated than it would appear on the surface.

2 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

What anti-trust issues? A company can have one of their subsidiaries do work for the parent and not get accused of anything illegal because they own them. 

If you need, say, production music, as a service, and you buy almost all the production music companies to perform work in house, and leave other consumers little options across the free market, that by most definitions is anti-competitive.

14 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Ergo, why are the Scripps stations using Stephen Arnold Music when they have their own composers in-house?

The same reasons the NBC O&Os shop around while having Universal Music as a subsidiary, or Disney shops around having several music publishing labels under its fold - because they can, and because there likely are antitrust issues to consider.

1 hour ago, groupwfan said:

Where's the "6"?

You could say it was....











































































Deep-sixed.

What could Sinclair possibly want with a couple of LPs? ATSC 3.0 test stations?

I believe this has happened only once before in Norah's tenure - and when it did, the weekend show was properly branded as CBS Evening News.

So WTSP's new look, retro logo and all, was farmed out to an ad agency, per FTVLive.

They also did WXIA.

2 hours ago, Weeters said:

They've since then, what, doubled (?) their portfolio, mostly in smaller markets, where, let's face it, neither the talent nor money exists to expect the stations to render their own 3D. They needed something that could be done on a normal computer, with as little extra software as possible. This looks to be 100% After Effects. It's also easily ported among different CG systems. Viz, Chyron, maybe even the Tribune in-house system and whatever else their newer acquisitions have. You could probably run this look on a first generation HD Chyron if you wanted to.

 

I think that's a situation where you consider 2 packages - one for small markets and another for the larger ones. You sort of see hints of that with the 4PM opens in some of the larger markets (Tampa, Detroit, San Diego, Cleveland). Scripps's hub may not be large enough for that, but it can be done - FOX is moving back toward a single look on its stations but its last-gen look afforded a lot of options for stations.

CBS, in general, is not having a good night. WBBM's OTA signal is down.

https://twitter.com/EdCurran/status/1262893209979621381?s=20

Quote

Our over-the-air signal has been darkened due to the unprecedented flooding of Willis Tower. The tower, and ComEd are working hard on it.

29 minutes ago, DENDude said:

It's amazing to me that they wouldn't have a backup plan for something like this

 

How can you in this climate?

CBSN is the backup plan, as seen today - but they're all working from home. It would have a better chance than not they could have done it otherwise. After that, were EN still in New York, I guess maybe WCBS--also impacted by the Broadcast Center's shutdown.

After that--I guess KCBS? That (really most situations outlined above) is only feasible with a couple hours' notice--this is something that looks to have impacted the control room minutes before air.

Believe this: Almost everyone, everywhere right now is on the "backup plan."

58 minutes ago, TheGuru said:

Someone remind me, has an issue quite this catastrophic hit a network before? I can't think of anything in the 2000s that has knocked a national nightly news off-air. 

 

edit: A quick google, and it looks like there's some power outages in and around Washington D.C. 

And I thought the down branches around my home from the wind today were an inconvenience.

In fairness, last Saturday's NBC Nightly News got perilously close to this.

The CBSN segment just Briefly repeated holy moly