CircleSeven

Longtime owner of Salisbury, MD's CBS station WBOC Thomas Draper passed away yesterday due to injuries sustained from a bicycle accident. Draper was 76.

I thought they'd carried The CW since August 1st (I think it aired on 10.4?). The sister station in Lafo, WLFI is also carrying it (18.2).

The FCC has greenlighted the WZRB/WRBU & KTRV deals to Ion on Friday (9/1).

After nearly twenty months, the KJWP sale to the owners of WFMZ was closed on Thursday (8/31).

Shouldn't be that long before CBS moves its Morning News to the 3:30am slot. Wonder if WSTM (who's been airing news @ 4am for a few years, pre-empting Early Today) would move the program from their CW subchannel to the main channel, since the live feed move to 3:30.

Now I'm wondering whether KIAH in Houston would acquire This TV, since they're only a handful of Tribune stations that don't carry it along with WITI and WJW. From KPRC's FCC ownership report, it looks like their carriage deal expires next month. Not sure if they've renewed it with the station or not.

So follow-up. The assignee of the KVIQ app is not Redwood. It's a name we have not seen since the Hoak deal nearly four years ago. Brady is selling KVIQ to Prime Cities Broadcasting (former owner of KNDX/KXND) for a measly $10K. It also says on the purchase agreement that they have to apply for a new callsign by the deal's closing. This makes me think that CBS programming could be moving to either KIEM's sub or on an LP.

New M&A. Our lovely Eureka station is about to get a new owner. KIEM 3 owners Pollack/Belz is selling the station to Bryan Brady (Redwood Television Partners) for $3.5M. But wait a minute. Don't they currently own CBS station KVIQ? But I find this interesting at the bottom of the paperwork. So could this mean, they're going to "refile" a KVIQ app and apply for a failed station waiver? This would be a first if this happens.

Former ABC News correspondent Diana Alvear is now the new weekday evening anchor of Charlotte's Fox O&O, WJZY.

GM appointment #26. Former WOWK sales manager Sean Banks has returned to the station to serve as a new VP/GM.

Pretty much. At one point, WLS did carry the Thanksgiving Day parade (not sure when they started carrying it, but sister-station KABC aired on a tape delay), while WGN carried the Lights Festival on Michigan Avenue. That was before they switched coverages in 2007. WLS was the original station to carry the Lights Fest, before WGN took it in the mid 90s.

WGN stop carrying the Bud after the 2011 broadcast (it was also simulcasted on WGN America). WCIU actually carried the 2012 and '13 broadcast. But since 2014, its been exclusively on WLS.

I don't even think she'd ever filled-in "solo" when she was at 'SVN. Anywho, she was paired with Karen at 10pm. Also unrelated to this, is this the first time 7 is not having its annual Air & Water Show special after the news? They're showing 190 North instead.

This is nothing new. Baca has filled in on the weekend evening, but only when she wasn't anchoring the morning show (which she did today). The question is will she be on tomorrow morning?

Not only layoffs, but they're consolidating KYTV and KSPR's news operations. Many of its shows will be simulcasted on both. _____________________________ Lawson gives a brief video update about his progress, days after surgery.

Here we go. Another (Ugh!) news expansion. Nexstar's WDTN in Dayton is adding an hourly 4pm, starting September 11.

WFLD's 10pm program was just "The TEN".

Looks like WFAA is pulling a "Nexstar" and grounding its BIRD. Could other Tegna stations follow suit?

The deal was cleared by the DOJ today. Scripps is expected to close the Katz deal by October 2.

Some anchor replacements were announced...... WKRN's weekend morning anchor Nikki Burdine will replace Davenport as new weekday morning anchor. The article didn't say when she will start. From McGuff, Spaulding is leaving next Friday (8/18). And replacing her will be former WPIX personality and current KRIV reporter Kaitlin Monte.

I strongly doubt they'll rename the top-2 MyNets (WWOR and KCOP, at least not immediately). I think what Fox is doing is rebranding its "news-intensive" O&Os into a similar branding and offer more news on its MyNet channel. Despite having a long weekday morning offering, KTTV (and WNYW) aren't as "news-intensive" as the markets that already have rebranded its MyNets like KTVU, WTTG and KSAZ. TTYTT, I personally like the "My9" branding. And to me, it's probably the only branding that's "clever-sounding" among all the other local MyNet brands.

Yeah, basically the WLWC's network and syndie programming will be move to a subchannel of either 12 or 64 (so example, 12.2 or 64.3 or whatever). All OTA has to do is turn off WLWC and "that's all she wrote" with the license.

A settlement was reached. The terms weren't disclosed. It is now disclosed that Disney paid $177M to settle the case. Remember that meat company was seeking more than $5.7B in damages.

Some GM moves. Meredith appointed former WHO GM Dale Woods to be the new VP & GM of Nashville's WSMV. Woods replaces longtime GM Doreen Wade, which she'd retired back in June. Also former LIN/MG executive Jay Howell is the new GM of CBS's Sacramento duopoly KOVR/KMAX. Howell suceeds former GM Kevin Walsh, which he's been appointed to replace the retired Bruno Cohen as the new GM of San Francisco duopoly KPIX/KBCW.

This is somewhat of a comeback for Nexstar. It had "operated" WLWC and the rest of the Four Points stations from 2009-2012, before Sinclair bought the group. They'll just operate the linear CW stream, and place it on either WPRI or WNAC spectrum.