mre29

On 4/18/2024 at 10:24 PM, H-Town TV Fan said:

Bumping this thread after almost 2 years, but one of the new Hearst-ers in WZVN got the WMUR Hearst package and Hearst Classic theme music today.

"We're finally not alone!" -- WMUR 

Good to see the site's back, even if it's undergone a few changes in the process. Definitely not the first online community I've been a part of that's undergone changes over the years, and unlikely to be the last.

(I'd have chimed in sooner, but I moved from NH to CT and am cheerfully buried in things that need to be done.)

6 hours ago, JTT said:

I don't understand why some of the digital channels like METV needs to be on more than one subchannel.  For example, I can find METV, Heroes & Icons, and Catchy TV in the Los Angeles area on more than one local subchannel.  Why is this the case? 

Looks like it has to do with signal strength, at least for MeTV. Via Wikipedia:

Quote

Before a signal upgrade in late 2018, KAZA's over-the-air signal was not available in much of western and southern Los Angeles County, due to its channel-sharing agreement with low-powered Class A UHF station KHTV-CD, which necessitated the continual co-affiliation through KDOC.

I should note that here in the Boston-Manchester market, MeTV is on subchannels of both Hearst-owned ABC affiliates, WCVB and WMUR, with identical schedules except for the stations' 10pm news and a 10:30pm repeat of Chronicle on WCVB 5.2. Xfinity carries both feeds, likely because of those newscasts.

1 hour ago, Recovering Producer said:

So, the answer is variable, depending on their strategy to get as close to the cap as possible,  but if they divest from the smallest markets they own, it would be a decent number.

Just what is Nexstar's current coverage percentage, anyway?

How many stations would Nexstar have to sell to get back under the cap?

Of course, this does bring up one good question:  Where the heck is Al Jazeera English? It's already free, so...

YES! I've been hoping this would happen for a while now -- either this or more cable providers grouping BBC News with the other news channels. (You shouldn't have to pay extra for one news channel when you're already get three or more as part of basic cable.)

6 hours ago, HSV cheesehead said:

Rhetorical question: Why am I simultaneously surprised and not surprised about this?

Because the BBC has been missing from the FAST news channels space for far too long. Besides the American news-focused channels (ABC News Live, CBS News, NBC News Now, and LiveNOW from Fox), BBC News's direct competitor, Sky News, has been there for years, and there's also Euronews and other channels.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in WBDland....

Warner Bros. Discovery to Overhaul TruTV With Sports; Sets Nightly Block for Games and More

Quote

 Warner Bros. Discovery wants to bring one of its “zombie” cable networks back to life with a big jolt of sports.

 

The media company intends to create a new nightly sports block for TruTV, the reality-series cable network that has largely been left to show endless episodes of the popular prank show “Impractical Jokers” and the caught-on-camera serial “World’s Dumbest.” In doing so, Warner no doubt hopes to create new value where there has only been a little. A new sports schedule would likely draw broader viewership and new ad dollars to the network, and might even spur cable distributors to accord the outlet more value in future carriage contracts.

TruTV isn't the only "zombie" WBD needs to deal with...

On 2/28/2024 at 10:48 AM, ATLNewsExpert said:

Huge bombshell out of New Zealand this morning (evening over there) as Warner Brothers Discovery announced proposals to completely SHUTDOWN "Three NewsHub", newsroom, all newscasts (6pm and late), everything, putting up to 300 employees at risk of loosing their jobs.

 

[...]

Aside from the WBD connection, why not post this in the International News forum and then link to it here?

On 2/28/2024 at 11:13 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

If Scripps does decide to sell, who in their right mind would buy them with what they've done to their stations?

 

It would have to be some kind of private equity deal to keep things running, but if that ever happens, what's left to cut to make a profit on their investment?

Or the stations could be sold to multiple owners who are established broadcasting companies.

So, how are local newscasts on various CBS affiliates (not the O&Os), anyway? How are the newscasts on Hearst's KCCI and WLKY? What about Graham's WKMG? Scripps's WTKR, WTVR, WTVF, and MTN stations? Tegna's WBNS, KHOU, KFMB, etc? Weigel's WDJT? The many affiliates owned by Sinclair, Nexstar, and Gray? (I'm particularly interested in Gray's WFSB and Sinclair's WGME.)

So, is everyone only interested in talking about the CBS-owned stations? The original poster never specified that...

WGBH.

43 minutes ago, patlovestv said:

At some point in recent days, the website has been revised with an updated launch date of April 2.

Five weeks and a day is a notable shift. I guess they didn't have enough content ready to merit sticking to the original date.

On 2/15/2024 at 6:48 PM, mrschimpf said:

Will this set up yet another reboot of Geraldo at Large where he'll get a half-hour to do whatever he'd like?

Geraldo Still at Large.

9 hours ago, 24994J said:

Morning Express on CNN would be a square peg in a round hole. There's a reason it co-existed with the flagship. They want to do a show on CNN that has panels and politics, and that is the polar opposite of everything HLN was airing. IF 'Morning Express' and its former anchor were brought to CNN, it would be in name only, and Robin Meade would be terribly miscast.

So, basically, Morning Express was meant to compete more with Today and Good Morning America than with Morning Joe and Fox & Friends?

22 minutes ago, atlnews2 said:

They could have saved so much headache if they just moved Robin Meade to CNN instead of letting her go. 

If I remember correctly, Morning Express was often beating New Day in the ratings. Too bad Licht was focused on cloning CBS This Morning.

What's Meade doing these days, anyway? Maybe she's available...

From the Variety article:

Quote

Warner Bros. Discovery was running “CNN This Morning” on HLN, now largely devoted to repeats of the series “Forensic Files,” as a replacement for that network’s own long-running A.M. program, “Morning Express,” led by anchor Robin Meade in one form or another for more than two decades. Now there is no signature morning-show format on either network.

This would be a damn good time to finish killing off HLN.

18 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Another longshot possibility....take the NBC affiliation from KSL.

 

I know KSL has fallen in line after years of selectively preempting NBC content, but if they hint at any reservation of paying for NBC, Gray maybe more willing to....

 

More likely, Gray could set itself up to air Utah Jazz games.

Could KSL go independent or even merge with BYUtv? Remember, KSL is owned indirectly (via Bonneville) by the LDS church, while the latter is owned by an LDS-affiliated university and includes a broadcast channel (KBYU). They're like corporate cousins.

On 1/31/2024 at 3:51 PM, CircleSeven said:

IMS does this so they can "so-call" boost attendance. They want seats to be filled at IMS for the big race.

 

This "put the race on TV, no one will come to the stands" mantra is so backwards-thinking.  Why you want to hinder the local viewers from watching the race live on TV? NFL use to do this (if there's no sell-out 72 hrs before the game).

 

 

The only message that likely sends is "We don't want local fans to be interested in our [race/game]."

23 hours ago, T.L. Hughes said:

David Smith is financially involved in a lawsuit accusing Baltimore City Public Schools of defrauding taxpayers filed in 2022 by Jovani Patterson, chairman of People for Elected Accountability and Civic Engagement, a PAC funded almost entirely by Smith promoting ballot initiatives seeking to reshape the Baltimore city government.

 

Apparently though, WBFF's news staff had no knowledge of Smith's involvement when it ran previous stories concerning the suit; the station now plans to add a disclosure notice to stories concerning the suit.

Maybe they should also add a disclosure notice to all of their newscasts.

14 hours ago, Nelson R. said:

Why wouldn’t the CW have it on Memorial Day weekend? EDIT:  Oh I see. They wouldn’t televise Indy.
 

And yes. NBC feeds WTHR that night’s primetime lineup while the race is being broadcast to the rest of the country (noon-4pm Eastern). ABC did the same for WRTV I believe.

And then WTHR shows the race during primetime while the rest of the country gets the primetime lineup?

On 1/25/2024 at 9:53 PM, AmericanErrorist said:

They could take away new J!/WOF, Drew Barrymore, and the news magazines, but that's about it.

Oh, what would we do without our daily dose of 48 Hours?!?

7 hours ago, NowBergen said:

I look at KDNL in St. Louis, which supposedly ABC has not been happy about yet they keep agreeing to affiliation agreements with Sinclair in the end.  

 

The issue becomes how does a network drop an affiliate?  If there is a strong independent station, that can work or if they plan to start their own station as NBC did in Boston (which probably would not happen anymore, especially outside a top 10 market).  If there was a whole affiliation switch in a market, then some other network gets stuck on a Sinclair station, just maintaining the actual problem.

Prior to Nexstar buying a majority stake in the CW, I'd have said the easiest solution would be to take ABC for KPLR and send the CW to KDNL, but that's not likely now that Nexstar has a good reason to keep the CW affiliation. Maybe Weigel could be convinced to make room for it on KNLC or Scripps could take it for WRBU.

9 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

I think the only way that they would start selling is if they start losing network affiliations.

 

Most of their stations rank dead last in markets in news ratings.

Could the networks threaten to pull affiliation to get Sinclair to invest in their stations? Or require certain affiliates to be sold to new owners? I'm thinking of KDNL in particular.

4 hours ago, Rusty Muck said:

Absolutely no sane person, no person with a shred of mental competence, would willingly allow themselves to be made a target like David Smith has. This is worse than your typical delusions of grandeur that the likes of Elon Musk have.

Or a certain orange-skinned individual.

4 hours ago, Rusty Muck said:

This has a good chance of not just killing the Sun outright, but coupled with the $500M in legal fees from Diamond's bankruptcy case, could damn well be the death penalty for hundreds of television newsrooms across the country, if not a financial death penalty for David Smith and Sinclair as a whole.

This would be a very good time for Sinclair to sell some of their stations, and not just small ones, either. But something tells me the company's response to that would basically be, "If we can't control those stations, NO ONE CAN!"