CircleSeven

Sinclair has renewed its agreement with CBS in four markets (Austin, Gainesville, Salt Lake City & South Bend). The agreement would also expand to six other affiliates currently owned by Tribune, should they complete that acquisition.

So the Tegna departures just keeps on rolling. Looks like Vanessa Ruiz is not the only one who's leaving KPNX. Scott from FTVLive stated that Investigative reporter Wendy Halloran, Meteorologist Matt Pace, and a producer who've worked at channel 12 for five years also gotten the boot. But the station has hired former KGTV personality Kristen Keogh as their new weather anchor/general assignment reporter. Also Kim Christiansen will replace Adele Arakawa at KUSA's 10pm broadcast when Adele retires. The date of Adele's departure have not been announced yet.

From Feder, Lionel Moise is out is AM co-anchor. His last day at the anchor chair was today. In his place is current weekend anchor Marissa Bailey. She will take the role June 26. And returning to the weekend morning anchor chair to replace Bailey is Suzanne Le Mignot, in which she anchored the broadcast from 2006 until the station yanked it in 2009 (it returned three years later with Bailey as anchor).

The DOJ/FTC has cleared the deal of any antitrust issues. They still have to wait for the FCC greenlight to finalize the deal.

GM approintment #24. Former GM of KOHD/KBNZ Julie Brinks. has been appointed as new VP/GM of WOOD/WOTV in Michigan.

Follow-up. From the Arizona Republic, Ruiz is taking a position at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. There, she will be the director of broadcasting for its Borderlands coverage team at Cronkite News, as well as leading a new Spanish-language newscast entitled ''Cronkite Noticias''. She'll also be involved in special productions for Arizona PBS. Ruiz will leave Channel 12 in next month, and start her new position August 1st.

Last weekend, Nagy fill-in anchored the morning shows with Pathieu. This morning, Nagy is anchoring again, this time with Baca (isn't it a first for this pair?)

The spin-off of Cars.com is completed. Dave Lougee replaces the retired Gracia Martore as President & CEO of Tegna.

Nexstar renews its affiliation agreement with ABC through 2022.

Another new affiliation launch is about to launch in just a few hours. WSOC is launching Telemundo Charlotte @ 6am this morning on subchannel 9.2. Laff moves to WAXN 64.4. Here's a channel & newscast lineup. The 5, 6 & 10pm are simulcasted on NBC/CBS, while the 5:30 & 9pm airs on Fox. The morning show is simulcasted on all three from 5:30-7am, then its Fox exclusively from 7-8am. Weekends, its 5 & 10pm on NBC/CBS and 9pm on Fox.

SagamoreHill was assigned to acquire KASW after Sander spun-off KTVK & KMOV to Meredith (KASW would eventually go to Nexstar). SagamoreHill had nothing to do with St. Louis.

They're the same folks that lit-up the NBC & Fox affils there as well.

Channel 9 is airing more live local news than CLTV these days, if you look at this lineup.

CLTV will FINALLY air an HD channel on Comcast systems, beginning June 1st.

Fox 29's local program The Q hosted by Quincy Harris will have a four-week trial in the month of June, airing on seven other O&Os including Fox 5 in NYC & Fox 11 in LA. The other stations are WAGA/Atlanta, WJBK/Detroit, KUTP/Phoenix, WFTC/Minneapolis, & WMYT/Charlotte. The Q is one of seven shows that will be aired under a trial basis on selective Fox O&Os throughout the summer.

On top of that, Tom filled in for Demetrius on the 4pm tonight.

What do you expect when their only other major TV station is a station in the Delmarva (WMDT)? They're just exchanging one small broadcaster for another to keep things a status quo.

It's been greenlighted.

Follow up. A communications VP at ABC wrote an email stating that the info relating to a hiring freeze was not true. But according to Scott, he said that two people who were looking for work at two separate O&Os, management from both stations said that they can't make any hires until the fall.

They move the desk and the video wall from the old set, into a different studio (across the hall?) as a temp spot. While their main studio where the old set was is being gutted for the new set. This is almost a similar practice that WLS & KABC did as well. WLS moved its old 2006 set to a different studio, but they had to first use a smaller replica of their old set (in another studio, that desk was small as hell) until the move of their "actual" old set was completed. Before KABC moved portions of its 2006 set to a temp spot, they used the station's newsroom (only for one morning). And I think (non O&O) WSB did it with their old set as well.

Erika Martin handles the weekend evenings, unless she's leaving (which I doubt). It took a while to fill that weekend slot after Brittney Shipp left and went to Cali. Who's handles the weekend mornings?

The 23rd GM change since the MG deal ended.

And guess who came back today? [MEDIA=twitter]866646011929931777[/MEDIA]

She'll be doing real estate segments on KPRC's weekend morning shows. Out of all people, why would they want to pick her to replace Tamica? I guess it's alright to put an annoying bimbo on to get viewers right? I'm hoping they'll find a true replacement soon. Tegna is blowing up the WWL morning team. First it was Buchtel, then Hoss and now Tamica. I wouldn't be surprised if Paulsen and/or Sally-Ann be next out the door before its all over.

The deal has now been approved. No word on when they'll move H&I & Retro to KJWP. Marantha should've bought WJLP while they're at it.