CircleSeven

WOFL is tweaking with its 11pm broadcast. Beginning April 17th, WOFL will air NewsEdge 11@11, that will feature news & weather for 11 minutes commercial-free. Then at 11:15, the station will air a 15-regional sports highlight show Fox 35 SportsZone.

That's a strange M&A, giving its only big-3 affil station is Delmarva's WMDT. But I'm not surprised that Max was ready to unload WNKY. It was only a matter of time. Would've vision groups like Lockwood or Heartland getting WNKY (although Prather has yet to get a station in a Gray market). EDIT 4/7: The paperwork states the purchase price for WNKY is $5.6M. Another Media M&A. MGM is acquiring Lionsgate & Viacom's controlling stake in premium channel Epix for $1.03B.

Alrighty. New GM appointment #21. Former WAKA VP/GM Jesse Grear has been appointed as new VP & GM of WKRG/WFNA.

Big news out of Baltimore tonight. The Baltimore Sun states that longtime WJZ anchor Denise Koch, will step away from anchoring the 11pm broadcast on the final week of this month (that's the start of the May books). She will still anchor the 4:30pm & 6pm shows. The station didn't announce a replacement. Also, there's been a heavy slew of layoffs at the Univision stations.

I actually like how they modified that "Nexstar set" with those solid colors (instead of multiple bright colors that went all over the place). The modifications is a vast improvement than what they had last year, in which they started its in-house news operation (4/1/16). [MEDIA=twitter]848982717920403461[/MEDIA]

New Media M&A. John Malone's Liberty Media is acquiring Alaska's telecom company, GCI for $1.1B. Also the Lilly TV stations are blacked out from DirecTV. This occured over the weekend. And Verizon is planning on merging the assets of two "franken"-internet companies Yahoo & AOL into a new subsidiary, entitled Oath.

Yeah, but how long though is the question.........

The long-awaited KFQX deal to Mission is finally OVER! Parker. And it appears the they'd tweaked with the existing set. All the Nexstar-styled gfx were replaced with different gfx package. Their newscast is under the News 15 branding. https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1897605650480019 [MEDIA=twitter]848935201069817858[/MEDIA] https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1897424867164764

Eric Horng filled in this morning. So what's up with these fill-ins this week? Whenever Pathieu is not at the desk & is on the field, its been Baca solo. Unless we're getting closer to finding out who's Bradley's replacement going to be?

Former host of WYES's news-in-review program "Informed Sources" Larry Lorenz, passed away today at the age of 79.

THANK YOU!!! Your content won't be any different from the previous broadcasts. Quantity over Quality will lose every time. The station is already clocking in at 64 hours on Channel 2 alone. That would be 66 1/2 hours once they add the 11pm. And add 10 hours a week that air on TV 36, that totals altogether 76 & 1/2 hours!!! That is insane! Something has to give with these crazy news expansions. Just like I said about sister station WFLD's expansion of the 5pm and their upcoming 4am, its just a complete waste. #TooMuchNews Follow up. Monday, April 17th will be the date. The 10pm repeat on 36 will air at 11:30pm.

Ugh! It appears that the news expansion express just keeps on rolling. From Lieberman's blog tonight (if this sticks), KTVU will be adding an (smh) 11pm, by around the May books. Shame.

So. It shouldn't stop stations from putting something else on in lieu of news. That's bullshit. I don't care if they want to avoid paying licensing fees on syndie shows. There are other options. Hell, it don't have to be a syndie show, put a local show that's not related to news. Endless hours of news is a complete waste. No viewers are going to watch your station if you're just going to put news on all day. That's not how you program your TV station as a whole. And if the viewers ain't watching, how a station going to make money? And if they're not making enough money, how they're going to sustain all those newscasts then? Just a complete waste. Next week, WGN will have the same amount of hours of news each weekday as WHDH (12 & 1/2 hrs). That's a damn shame!!! That's #TooMuchNews

I don't care how cheap it is. It's still a complete waste, nevertheless.

I'm saying these crazy news expansions has gotten way out of hand. Stations can't air other sort of programming, so they're taking the easy way out of adding yet another newscasts. Where is the balance? Where is it? There's absolutely none when you replace a show for another half-hour (or hour) of news. There's no room to breathe. I'm suffocating with these endless hours of news. It is not good for non-news viewers (and I'm not talking about cable or subchannels or over-the-top). You just can't ride on airing endless hours of news and nothing else. I do admit however, before this sudden announcement, the only station I thought would expand to 4am before WFLD was Channel 7.

That's not my point. WFLD basically don't have viewers for their 4:30am, so why add another half an hour of dead air? Now three stations with a 4am? There's no need. #TooMuchNews

And just when news is not enough, Channel 32 is adding a (Ugh!) 4am, beginning April 10th. What a waste.

I guess you mean kadn.com.

It looks like WISH-TV in Indiana has shot down its BIRD. Who's next?

......And here's GM appointment #20. WBOY's sales director Jim Dodrill, has been promoted as the station's VP & GM.

Follow-up. DCRTV stated that Fox will be carrying MeTV on WTTG's subchannel 5.3. The MeTV website has already have the updated listing.

Follow-up. The MeTV affiliate change from WSB 2.2 to WGTA 32.1 happens Monday morning (3/27) at 9am. That means OTA viewers in the immediate metro Atlanta area won't be getting MeTV. But WGTA's signal will be carried on U-Verse, DirecTV & Dish Network in the Atlanta area. WSB hasn't publicly announce a replacement to MeTV, but looking at the guide past 9am tomorrow, it looks like its programming from the Escape diginet. Also, KSAT 12's new 9am newscast starts tomorrow. And the major shift in programming that follows.....

Here's GM appointment #19. WAVY/WVBT's sales director Carol Ward, has been promoted to VP & GM of the Hampton Roads duopoly.

FTVLive posted that WJLA's morning anchor Jummy Olabanji, will be the new weekend evening anchor at WNBC. Her last day at WJLA will be on April 21st, and will start at Channel 4 on the 26th.

Pitiful.