mre29

I recommend that this thread be re-titled, moved to the Speculatron, or merged into the Nexstar thread. (Also, I noticed that the original poster is brand-new, so maybe one of the moderators should send them a private message explaining what happened to their post and why.)

Oh, now I'm curious. Which channel?

I just downloaded the app to my iPad to check it, but WRAZ isn't listed as an option. Maybe it was added by mistake?

I would see it as an opportunity to do a show about NCIS's Army or Air Force counterpart. Why should the Navy CIS get all the shows? Personally, though, I've been waiting for CSI: Podunk. "Solving crimes...in the middle of nowhere!"

What does ABC News Live run during the hours that WNN is available? Because what CBS needs is more cop shows.

Oh, how I wish channels here would do that. I could watch British idents for hours. Bingo.

Because crime sells. (See also: "If it bleeds, it leads.")

I grew up during that era, so I watched a number of syndicated shows (mostly sci-fi and fantasy), though little of it regularly as there usually wasn't a TV available in the house when I wanted one. The thing that always annoyed about syndicated programming was that it'd end up in weird time slots such as late at night or weekend afternoons. Even the most of indie stations would do that, saving the 8-11pm hours for movies. I remember being down in Florida one summer and discovering that one station was showing either Hercules or Xena during primetime hours on a Tuesday night.

Instead, they'll live off of syndicated crap game shows or garbage programming. Hey, someone has to push the trash talkers and court shows on the unwashed masses. (Also, are there actually twelve episodes of Family Feud every day?) Scripted programming is not in the past; it just often ends up on streaming services because the broadcast networks generally only want shows that have the broadest appeal. Sports and reality shows succeed at that, partly because they're focused on physical ability (sports), competition (most reality shows on the networks), or relationship drama (the farmer wants a wife? Good for him, but absolutely none of my business). On the scripted side, these means a lot of procedurals, both police/crime-solving (CSI, NCIS, the entire Dick Wolf multiverse) and medical (The Pitt, Doc, House, etc.). The more intellectually-stimulating scripted shows wouldn't have a chance of being picked up by the broadcast networks, and cable channels are not grabbing as many of them as they used to as they themselves are dumbing their content down to widen their appeal. (Why do you think BBC America shows Law & Order repeats?)

But they don't have to keep the radio stations, right?

On the bright side, it's only 13 stations in 9 markets thanks to the sheer number of stations that Coxapollo offloaded to Imagicomm.

Yeah, this feels like a stopgap measure. A bandage, even.

Well, this is certainly a surprise! It'll be interesting to see how WPLG does as an independent (something tells me station management will be chatting with their counterparts at WJXT for advice), how ABC does on 7.2... and whether or not Sunbeam takes the opportunity to go shopping for a duopoly partner for WSVN (with ABC moving to said partner). Didn't that attempted sale also include WVIT? It's on (virtual) channel 25 in one neighboring DMA (WPB) and 26 in the other (Fort Myers), so I don't think being on channel 39 would be that big a deal.

Yeah, WCLE (AM) and WCLE-FM are both also down in Tennessee -- Cleveland, TN, to be exact. WJJW might be available, though. The calls are on an FM station at a small college in northwestern Massachusetts; Nexstar could probably work out a deal that would allow them to use WJJW-DT in exchange for a "modest" donation.

Too bad the WCLE call letters aren't available.