CircleSeven

The WCAX deal has been greenlighted.

Continuing with this wholesale cleaning....... Chief Meteorologist Jim Kosek is OUT. Also, a noon producer, a news administrator, a managing editor, and an operations manager & chief engineer was also fired.

So after forty-three months of sitting idle, the FCC has finally greenlighted WPFO's deal to Cunningham. This deal was sat idle, after former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler issued a guidance to scrutinize deals that had sharing arrangements. That guidance was removed by current chairman Ajit Pai. Because of this approval, I wouldn't be surprised if that other idle deal, KRNV/KENV to Cunningham, get the greenlight as well. Unrelated to this, it appears that Sinclair proper wants to buy KOMO-FM from South Sound Broadcasting outright.

So it's Calkins for real this time. They're now selling its remaining newspapers. GateHouse Media (which already own a slew of papers across the county) will acquire the Bucks County Courier Times, The Intelligencer in Doylestown, PA, the Burlington County Times, the Beaver County Times, the Ellwood City Ledger and Calkins Digital. Ogden Newspapers will acquire the Uniontown Herald-Standard, the Greene County Messenger and SWC Properties. The terms of these deals weren't disclosed. And it's expected to be finalized on June 30th.

I'm watching the live streaming of their AM news, and its not geoblocked.

That shit blows! It would be really sad if all stations did this.

Remember, WBIN will be channel-sharing on WUTF's frequency, which was mentioned before here.

That is exactly where she's heading. She'll be anchoring the afternoon/evening broadcast. They didn't state the specific times she'll be anchoring. And no telling whom she'll eventually replace. Joy, Audrey or Shannon (who's currently on maternity).

Status Quo, Status Quo. Just like that, WGCL's News Director Frank Volpicella is OUT after only eleven months. Rodney Ho from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said that he was the six ND of Channel 46 in nine years. Volpicella was the former ND of Austin's KVUE.

And that is exactly what they're going to do. Ion is also buying Boise's former Fox station KTRV from Block. Terms of these deals weren't disclosed.

McClatchy shrunk theirs from 15% to 3.8%. Make me wonder why Apollo didn't just took their remaining interest, instead of leaving the three with the crumbs.

Tribune Media is selling its interest in that website to Apollo as well. Their interest will shrink from 32% to 8%.

No, you're right. A switch took place between the two. Butler replaced Avalos on the weekend spot. Caplan took Taft's AM spot after Taft replaced Deshler on the evening spots (Taft was already at 4pm). Not sure when they Caplan & Butler switched though (could've been '95?).

When they first mention those bureaus (in its public interest statement during the MG transaction), they'd planned on launching in Nashville, TN, Austin, TX & Albany, NY, with possible additions in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Alabama & Indiana. I'm surprised Indiana became the first one of the seven.

Looks like Nexstar kept their word regarding statewide bureaus. It launched its first one in Indiana.

Here we go. Another news expansion. WISH-TV in Indiana announced that it will expand its 24-hour News 8 Daybreak to the 9am hour. That will move its local lifestyle program Indy Style to the 10am hour. The release also says that News 8 will also be aired after Indy Style on the 11am hour. Now the release did not say whether if this newscast is being moved from 12pm to 11am or if this is another expansion (I hope not). Their midday news is currently airs from 12pm to 1pm. Anyway, the changes go in effect Monday, September 11th.

They're doing it again. The 2nd year of Founder's Day of Caring with an even expanded footprint from the last one. My gripe is this. Shouldn't stations be doing this kind of stuff on a regular basis, instead of just doing it on the day of the company's founding? I feel they're doing this on a corporate mandate, instead of doing it just for the sake of helping their communities.

Replacing Oquendo will be former WPLG/WSVN personality and correspondent of The Insider, Louis Aguirre. He'll return to PLG in September.

So four years ago this morning, was the announcement that shook this board up like wildfire. The Gannett & Belo deal. There weren't any pre-preesed rumors about a union related to these two groups, until the announcement. This came after Sinclair announcement of Barrington & Fisher; Nexstar with ComCorp, and Media General's first M&A after selling its papers to Birkshire Hathaway, the MG/Young deal. Local TV & Allbritton even announcing that they were selling their groups. But this specific deal came out of nowhere. No one, including me say this coming. This was a likely the biggest shocker in 2013 for me. For one of the best station groups in the country, you would think Belo would be around for years to come.

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.