CircleSeven

At least how I see it: Chicago's #1 News - YES Chicago's News Leader - NO People Make the Difference - NO Your News Starts Here - NO Your News, Your Way. - NO When Idler showed up, he brought WTVD's "Keeping You Connected" slogan. That's been used from time after time in recent months. Before that it was a promo of "Stay Connected", promoting their news through the use of social media. The "Chicago's News Leader" was used from a promo (and it was one of the first appearance of current VO Roger Rose) when WLS showed their objection, after the announcement of that LNS was being formed by the four other Chicago stations. But I haven't heard it since then. I don't think they ever used the Your News Starts Here slogan, but it was used during those using the slogan "Your News, Your Way". And we all remember those 2003 "People Make A Difference" promos profiling each of 10pm anchor personalities. This was made after the departure of Diann Burns. But that slogan was carried on even after the 2005 graphic change. As those other slogans been used, the "People Make The Difference" slogan have been used less.

Well it's about time for this station to start a 5pm. Hearst's WMTW in Portland, ME will have a new 5pm newscast, starting Sept 9. Dr. Phil will be moving to 3pm, and Ellen DeGeneres will keep its 4pm slot leading in to the new 5pm news.

FCC greenlights KYMA's sale today. Will the KSWT app follow?

New Retrans Fight!!!!: And this is already a battle between Disney & Dish Network. The Daily Variety states, if there's no deal by September 30, there will be no ABC in eight markets, ESPN, Disney Channel and other cable networks. Disney is one of the broadcasters has already filed a lawsuit against Dish for its Ad-skipping DVR service Hopper.

I'm not sure but I'll make a heavy assumption based on this ratings chart of KDBC's TOC app from Cunningham to Sinclair, you don't see any Mexican stations. So I don't think it includes stations east of the border.

From a recent filing, the FCC approved a STA for WHTV to operate from where appears to be that tower you've mention in lower power while they're hooking up the maximized facilities. Here's WHTV's coverage area for the folks to see, and its similar to certain stations in other states where they are in the far fringes of other coverage areas (Flint, Battle Creek & Western half of Wayne County). It's almost like TBN's WWTO in LaSalle, IL, it serves the far-fringes to many Illinois markets, including some western sections of Chicago, yet Chicago proper can't get the signal (and who would want to watch that channel anyway?). To me its kind of a gray area because, even though it does have a huge coverage area, would the objectors would argue that this is consider WHTV as a "Lansing Station"? Even though it the majority of that coverage area greatly serves areas south of Lansing, almost close to the Ohio border (in tip-toes to Toledo). I'm still stunned that the Trib would use one of those Illinois side stations, since I really thought they would've have to use a shell to acquire KTVI, since that have this much full-powers in St. Louis. So if Fox wants to pursue to get WMYD, and they include WHTV on the voices chart (even if viewers in Detroit or western Wayne county probably can't view the stations), good luck trying to sell that to the FCC. Now I wanna get my two cents on WKBW & MCTYW, as I am a heavy proponent of that theme. I was thrilled almost five years ago when they brought back that theme song in tandem of the station's 50th anniversary. It was 2003 when they drop the theme they've used for 30 straight years, for some generic contemporary theme made by the folks at "Casa Quarter-Past-Six" in Nashville. To me it was all fine and dandy, until those horrendous in-house graphics and the HD launch. The use of the theme as a bumper & open to fit their nasty graphics is just look right. I love MCTYW and I don't want the station to drop it the second time, but I don't think its right for them to just use that one cut for the opening and the bumper. Hell, there not even using the proper right, assuming they too lazy to edit that bumper cue or whatever. Let me go over there at KB, or anyone else can carefully select the proper MCTYW cues to use for them, instead of using that same cue for open/bumper/close. But before they even do that, they need to tear down that set they've been using and throw those graphics in the garbage, or give them to some damn university, and those folks could compose better graphics than that. I would love KB to bring back the pre-2003 circle 7 logo, and hire a good firm (Hothaus, GO, etc) to compose them decent graphics. It's very safe to say nothing is going to happen, until a new owner take place. Granite is all but done in the TV business. Although you've seen Nexstar having Arnold themes left and right throughout most of their portfolio, I've seen them honoring some stations that have used non-Arnold material (at least for now), including WSYR with News Station (which used updated themes left and right since they'd first picked up the theme two decades ago) & KLRT with the Fox O&O theme (but I think they'll shove an Arnold theme in the non-too-distant future. Should Nexstar acquire KB, they'll probably do some heavy lifting, not like WPTY's transformation, but maybe similar to what they're doing for KSEE/KGPE in Fresno. And even if they do change their set and graphics and/or either Nexstar or whoever new owner would do the dummy and drop MCTYW for a 2nd time, for some new junk theme, I still think WKBW will stay a status quo, in terms of ratings, because no one will break habit from the market leader WIVB or 2nd place WGRZ. If they want to be competitive, they can put Mike Randall back to the evening shows. The dumbos that thought of bringing a weeknight personality to the mornings would get their ratings up was just plain dumb. Whoever runs WKBW will have tons and tons of work ahead of them. Good luck tackling that.

At least one blackout got lifted tonight. Raycom & Dish Network settled their carriage dispute. The Raycom stations will return on Dish within the overnight period.

WTMJ has been off for the past two weeks and now the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel states that three TWC customers have filed a class-action lawsuit because of the lost of Channel 4. With the retrans fights getting so fierce, the consumer is the true losers in all of this. Even if they get the deal done, the consumer is going to see a rate increase. So that's a double whammy.

Right now, Well, before 11am today, Jeopardy was aired at 11am on 11 & 6pm on 21. I assume the double Jeopardy run is temporary, until the new schedule comes in the fall.

Good!! I dunno how many folks watches Jeopardy on that early 11am timeslot, after TPIR. But kudos to KTVT for returning the midday news. Follow-Up on the WCWG/Lockwood deal. The FCC has gave its greenlight earlier today.

Another new M&A tonight. This time we go to the Delmarva. B&C states that WMDT is being sold by a new firm Marquee Broadcasting for $9M. EDIT: 1:07am/EDT (8/9), Here's the paperwork.

If Nexstar passes on WMYD & KOFY, what I don't want to see is them getting gobbled up buy a "Spectrum Speculator". Those two stations are too good to be sold by a company that they only care for is to cash-in at auction time. Those stations will go bye-bye post-auction, if that's the case. I wished Fox would acquire WMYD, but it can't happens because it has to keep the eight separate owners rule. I think the question is why would LIN want a low-rated station in a sub-100 market, like WAOE. Many of these groups would want a leading station. Yes LIN own 7 sub-100 market stations (2 involves using its shell card, Topeka & Youngstown), but most are among the top rated. It would be stupid for LIN to just have a low-rated MyNetworkTV stated and have not have one of the bigger stations like WMBD, WEEK or WHOI. AFAIK, WAOE is basically shell bate.

Brady would probably have a baby and file a complaint, if it does come to fruition. He owns WICZ. On earlier post, I speculated that Media General would acquire the Granite stations, because it wouldn't have any sort of conflicts. The overlapped markets (Duluth & Fort Wayne), one of them would be assigned to that Galloway shell (I think he holds the Sheild). The article states that one of the deals may include Granite. Should they acquire Granite, I don't think that it will include KOFY or WMYD. That would be just too big for them. Should Nexstar goes ahead and acquire Granite, several things need to be sorted out, not only the situations in Peoria & Syracuse, which I think there's several issues in itself, but the current LMA in other existing/new Sinclair/Nexstar markets. It looks like Sinclair will win another Big-4 duopoly soon (like in SA with WOAI/KABB) in El Paso (KDBC/KFOX). If both are going to move to a new facility in 2014 like they said they were going to do, where are going to move to? Or are they going to build it from scratch (which is very unlikely). Other markets include Harrisburg, Rochester. I think, the Rochester one basically be done after it expires. I don't think Nexstar will lose any sleep if WUHF move to WHAM, because there busy hubbing the other NY stations anyway. Harrisburg could be a real tricky situation since Sinclair will operate both WHP and WHTM, while they still have that LMA with WLYH. In other words, 7 years ago when they both partnered to do the LMAs in Rochester, Peoria & Harrisburg, and while both have more then one shell I think they have all the capital that they don't really need/continue to have an LMA. Peoria will be one hot mess. Should Nexstar acquires WEEK (and they would no doubt have come with a Mission), you know what they're going to do. I'm not sure if WMBD's building is big enough to occupy two stations and two master controls. I would love to see WHOI having an in-house news operation. If Sinclair was smart enough, they would probably think about the spots to where they could build a facility, and yes they would have to recruit personnel and buy sets and HD equipment and such. OR, should WEEK move to WMBD, WHOI could have the WEEK facility all to themselves, and move WYZZ to join WHOI. But whatever the case maybe, this would be one of the most complicated moves I've ever see in regards of move of station operations. If the LMA in Peoria & Syracuse never happened, this would be an easier pill to swallow, I tell you.

I don't think the speculation shifts all that much. Let's remember eleven days ago NPG formed a shell to get KIDK from Fisher. I still have a strong feeling that Gray and Raycom could form something together. But at this rate, anything can happen at this point. And what do you know, this is NPG's first divestiture of a TV station in two decades. Here's KJCT's release on the news.

OMG, Gray is about to have a SHELL???!! TVNewsCheck have posted that News-Press & Gazette Company has announced that it has agreed to sell KJCT Grand Junction to this newly formed company, Excalibur Broadcasting, LLC for over $3M. It also states that other non-FCC licensed assets will be sold by Gray proper for $9M. Excalibur is ran by former Gray Regional VP & GM of leading station WSAZ 3. This move will break that longtime sister-station relationship between KJCT & Colorado Springs' ABC station KRDO, since Pikes Peak owned the two stations in the early 80s.

Okay here's the follow. Based on the KOHD's asset purchase agreement, it has agreed to 'have a direct feed of all of' KEZI's newscast for a minimum of 5 years after the deal gets consummated.

I don't think they'll sale the other two markets, and Sinclair is already in one of those markets, and will be at the other once it closes. So Chambers don't have much to worry about. I wonder what Zolo is going to with KOHD. I think they truly wanted some sort of local news programming, since spinning off from KOIN 6's satellite. But since I've last seen it, they still aired certain KOIN 6 news on certain timeslots.

We have another little M&A deal today. TVNewsCheck states that Chambers Communications, which owns the Oregon ABC stations outside of Portland including KEZI & KDRV, is selling Bend's KOHD to Zolo Media, which owns former KOIN 6 satellite station, KBNZ-LD for $2.35M.

Hey 24994J, it appears that they didn't fix that Snowden OTS text. They'd showed it again on the 6am show, just now.

Antonio Mora returns to the national scene. B&C states today that Antonio Mora will host a weeknight panel-discussion, current affairs talk program called "Consider This". This program will air on the new Al Jazeera America network, which will launch on August 20th.

New FCC Approval. And this one was filed seven months ago. WLOV, the Fox Station in Tupelo, Mississippi filed an application of consent to Assign the License from Lingard Broadcasting Corporation to Tupelo Broadcasting, Inc. For $500K. Lingard Broadcasting is owned by Jack Lingard. From this attachment in this application, it explains the interest in terms of the people involved. Lingard is the brother of the majority owner of WTVA Inc, Jane Spain. Tupelo Broadcasting is owned by Matthew Dee, the son of Jane Spain. So basically the stations is being exchange from one next-of-kin to the other. Anyway, the application was posted on the FCC site December 26, and just today, after almost seven months, the FCC has finally greenlighted the application. If we remember back in late January, it took nine months for the FCC to approve WXVT's app from Saga to the sons of the owner of WABG. __________________________________________________ NBC is reorganizing its local TV division. The B&C is posting that the 16 stations from Telemundo Station Group and New England cable news channel, NECN will merge with the 10 NBC O&Os from NBC Owned Television Stations, will merge to form the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations division. NBC Owned Stations president, Valari Staab will head the newly form division. ________________________________________________ It looks like Litton will rule Saturday Mornings. First ABC, Now CBS. TVNewsCheck stating that Litton Entertainment will produce six new E-I compliant shows that will air on Saturday Mornings on CBS. The brand will be entitled "The CBS Dream Team, It's Epic".(I hope they change the name overtime). B&C stated that Litton is expected to announce the lineup of season 3 of Litton's Weekend Adventure, which airs on the ABC affiliates. They're going to think of something because one of the current shows will be moving to the CBS block on September 28th. This will be the second time where a programmer is involved in two Saturday morning programming blocks for two different networks. Remember 4Kids Entertainment with 4KidsTV (Fox) and The CW4Kids (CW)?

DAMN!!!! 30%??!!!! The unemployment rate will not help much once Brady starts consolidating 11 & 13. All Pappas need to do now is to find the who should buy the Nebraska cluster (maybe Sinclair can complete the former Pappas Nebraska chain, like they got KPTM/KXVO). They can give KAZA to that firm that's buying the Una Vez Mas stations. And sell the remaining stations (KDMI/KCWI, WLGA, WIWN) to those speculators who want to see them turn into those wireless broadband towers. And are they even out of the woods yet, as in terms of their debt, even if they sell the remaining assets?

Follow-Up Time. And it looks like Brady didn't want to get KYMA for nothing. It appears that he will acquire KSWT from Pappas for $900K. And will use the 'failed station waiver' card to get it. If this sticks, it would be the third time a true Big-3 network duopoly has formed, after Gannett's WTLV/WJXX Jacksonville & Nexstar's KSEE/KGPE Fresno.

From the Bakersfield Californian today, It looks like the building of Nexstar's KGET was partially collapsed on Saturday. It didn't stop the folks fron getting their 11pm show on time.

Damn. I don't think I ever remember Kemberly being a fill-in anchor. Have she ever filled in before?