CircleSeven

Two consummations this morning. As posted above, The FCC greenlighted the application of Grand Junction's KJCT to Excalibur on Wednesday, the sale was consummated the very next day on Halloween, breaking its longtime relationship its adjacent market sister-station KRDO in Colorado Springs, and become the new sister stations to Gray's in-market sister NBC station, KKCO and adjacent marke sister, KKTV. And KJCT's website now uses the typical Gray's CMS site. Also WMDT's assignment of license application to Marquee Broadcasting, which was approved on September 20, was consummated as of Friday.

The FCC has greenlighted the KJCT sale on Wednesday.

NEW M&A Tonight!!!! B&C states that Duhamel will sell its family-owned station KOTA in Rapid City, SD to South Bend-based Schurz Communications. KOTA has been owned Duhamel family since its inception in 1955. KOTA also operates three satellite stations where they coin their coverage area "KOTA Territory", KDUH in Scottsbluff, NE, KHSD in Lead, SD and KSGW in Sheridan, WY.

Guess which station is short-staffed because of recent turnovers? The Denver Post explains. I didn't know more folks were leaving at an alarming rate.

Is that really necessary? WLS does the same thing, only they use a louder swoosh sfx. New at 10, New at 4, New at 5, New at 6, New This Morning, etc. etc. It's like they want every graphic to fly at a person's face. It's very uncalled for. It's the same as showing the Breaking news graphic, especially when there's no breaking news. Talk about overkill.

So it happened earlier tonight, KSEE 24 went HD. First I didn't notice until I saw it a few times, but the time & temp is not on top of the bug, it's in the upper right hand corner. And when a live shot is shown, the LIVE icon is next to the time and temp. I see this changed in the near future. That's already a new pet peeve. Never place a time & temp bug anywhere other than adjacent to the station logo bug. The station didn't go with The Rock, while some have speculated. Their theme song of choice? Locals Only!! I think that's a good choice for them. Here's the look at both KGPE & KSEE new sets. Photos Courtesy of KGPE/KSEE through their FB walls.

Almost one year since they'd announced the deal, and over ten months after the paperwork has been used, it's been basically all the broadcasters in the state vs. GCI, as they feared a media monopoly. I guess the FCC didn't see that, and sided the telcom company. Ten Months. Wow! Let's hope these other apps don't get prolonged like this. The Cunningham TOC to Anderson proper & Sinclair/Barrington apps is already gone over seven months now. The Nexstar/ComCorp apps is heading to its sixth month in about a week.

KSEE's morning crew announce the last day of their tempo set in the studio's garage. It looks like the changes could be implemented tonight, if not sooner. Update 1:26pm/PDT: Anchor Stefani Booroojian confirms on her FB wall that the new look and HD will start tonight starting with their 5pm show.

It's obvious why Phil can't do the 5am on Sunday Mornings, unless you want him to look like a zombie. But here's an easy question. Why can't Troy do the entire 4-hour Sunday morning broadcast too? Yes, Phil has done the Sunday Mornings since it's inception, but damn. Phil needs a break at least. That makes tons and tons of sense. Yes there are other weather anchors/meterologist at do the entire weekend newscasts morning and evenings in other markets, but when there's a gap between, the late evening Saturday to the very early morning Sunday, something's got to give.

KSEE did their own news report about their new set today. It looks like they'll probably going to launch on the day of the Sweeps, as they said, within a week. Their sister-station KGPE debut their new digs on a Wednesday.

Well I don't give a damn because I don't listen to either one. I only reference the other, only to mean some dumbo wants to chant while a reporter is doing a liveshot.

Oh so we're back to this Opie & Anthony crap again..... I don't find any of that funny.

And it's exactly what he wants to do. He told the B&C that he wants to expand outside of the purchase of WKTV. Again, it's going to be a hard sale, while existing groups are trying to merge into these super-groups.

I guess it's one little approval at a time. The FCC has greenlighted KOHD's sale to Zolo Media today. Now I understand that KOHD still have to pipe-in KEZI's newscast for a minimum of a half a decade, but since Zolo now have the CBS & ABC in Bend, when are they going to pour in some sort of capital to compete with NPG's KTVZ/KFXO and have at least a in-house news ops, instead of showing out-of-market news piped in from Portland & Eugene?

Yeah, The Rock would be the easy, but I wouldn't be shocked if its something other than the Rock. Maybe Third Coast or Signature. Anywho. In Syracuse, the Post-Standard stated that WSYR is in process of selling one of its buildings, while expanding another building. Construction is underway to extend its existing one-story 3,850 sq. ft. facility, while selling its other 15,000 sq. ft. building. The reasoning is to have all 115 employees be under one roof, instead of two, and when several administrative positions were eliminated after the acquisition, they felt they needed less of that space. Now I understand you need more of the space to have everybody in one place, but I have a feeling that there's probably more to it with this expanding one building. I understand prior to the closing of the acquisition, WSYR was centralcasting Newport's Upstate NY station's right? Have they finished unwinding that, and formally move those centralcasting ops to WROC? I'm asking this is because I think its more wise, is that the place that needs to expand is not WSYR, but at WROC, where it becomes a crowded field there.

Well, guess who's next.... Could it happen next week? Looks like from that background, they might be using the KARK/KXAS package.

No, Heartland Media has nothing to do with Gray Television.

The first Monday since the reopening of FCC site and we have a NEW M&A Tonight!!! Anyone thought that Bob Prather was going sit out after he left leading Gray Television, you have another thing coming. Hell, I didn't see this coming. Through the paperwork, Prather through his firm Heartland Media, LLC, is buying Smith Media's last station, Utica's WKTV for $16M. The APA was made out on October 1st. I knew Boston Ventures weren't going to hold that sole station for long. And I did state that Gray should've gotten it. But I never thought a former Gray leader would even come close to acquiring a station after he left from a company that had a massive chain of stations. Now I'm not sure if he's going to even try to acquire more stations, as it's getting even harder to form a new group, while many groups that are already here are trying to merge with each other. It's going to be a very hard sell.

:rofl!: :rofl!: :rofl!: Do an average Joe Schmo really care who owns them? Let's just say it's owned by some sort of Deathstar that no longer exist. Anyways they'll probably bring that tag within other pages on the site. But I first say that same design when I link Rochester's Democrat & Chronicle article about WHAM taking over WUHF ops over a week ago. That's when I saw WBIR test design, that was the same one, plus what USA Today is using. Yeah that's a lovely way to be original Gannett. I'm hoping that their live streaming software be like the current Gannett TV sites. But I was hoping the Belo sites be more like Gannett's current TV sites. And anyways, I still think we're going to have to wait until anything would probably come from both DOJ & the FCC. Because if we don't hear anything prior to the Holidays, i'm speculating this thing will go in past the start of 2014 before we hear anything from them. And the MG & Tribune deals might see the greenlight before Gannett does, despite all three having denial petitions.

So they can look exactly like the USA Today and Gannett's local newspaper websites. Great! *sarcasm*

Feder wrote about Hugh this morning. It includes Feder's 1988 Sun-Times interview with Hill about his thoughts about the business. I thought it was very interesting.

Wow. That's really sad. I remember the days as a child seeing his reports. He will surely be missed. RIP Hugh. As for what Feder said, this is not the first time he said that statement on the first paragraph. He's been critical when the morning numbers dwindled several weeks back. As for the last paragraph, I strongly agree with Feder. Who's watching the 5am news on the weekend? I always that its too early to have the weekend news at that timeslot. As I stated when I first posted my statements after Channel 5 announced its start of the 5am weekend show: So what does that mean, will the ABC O&Os out east are going follow WLS's mantra and add a 5am hour on to their weekend news, so they have a three-straight hour news block before GMA? WNEP already have a three hour block from 5-8am/ET. Remember back like a decade ago, when ABC didn't have any news AT ALL on Saturday Mornings? Wow times surely changed.

And not to forget to mention that this is the first time an Arnold theme is used in Hawaii!! What an incredible start.

I'll let you be the judge. Listen here.

I can't say I didn't see this coming, and the obvious reason behind it. But hey 24994J? I think you called it, Psychic. As for the evenings, while many ABC O&Os out east air news for 35 minutes during the college football season, since it ends way past midnight, WLS airs have the news for a full hour anyway. They probably have a full month of college football left in November but I can't see Phil doing the hourly late news (even when it goes back to 10pm when the college football regular season is done for), get a brief snooze at the station, wake up and get ready for 5am. It's a no brainer that Christensen duties need to added on Sunday Mornings. To me it's way better that way. Having Phil doing that even heavier weekend load, as the Saturday overnight gap in between those shows tightens, is nothing short of an overkill. Also Baca's field reporting on Friday Nights at 10pm need to also cease because of same reasons I'd explained about Phil. Makes me wonder how much sleep do they really get, if they get even enough? As for the EWN name coming on that date, I'll wait until the station make that confirmation. And..... So I make my stance on the stance on the station's music and my reason why the music shouldn't cease, while many others here have made their own "speculation" that the current music might ceased upon the rebrand. While he speculated that the EWN name could come on November 2nd, while there's no confirmation on the article that stated the EWN name would happen on that date. So you can't call that speculation? So in other words, whether y'all call it a soapbox, whether y'all tell me to lighten up, "relax" and "dial it back a little", everybody has speculated so what I stated here, I'm not going to backtrack what I said, whether anyone like it or not, specualation or not. So Take it for what it's worth. ..And take that to the cleaners. LOL.