Mrtraveler01

Considering that he's the Republican front-runnner, I can't say I'm surprised. Setting aside the fact they're basically a propaganda outfit for the Republicans, you do have to give WBFF credit from turning itself from an independent station with no news department into a major Fox affiliate with a growing news department. Congrats to WBFF on 45 years. According to FTVLive, it sounds like they tried to get interviews from the other candidates in order to give it some sign of "balance". You can tell that they haven't been a Sinclair station for long because balance isn't a 4-letter word to them like it is to the corporate folks in Hunt Valley.

Compared to the 90s they aren't. KSDK and KMOV always used to be neck and neck in the ratings and usually KSDK was the winner more often than KMOV was. That changed in the mid 2000's as mismanagement drove the station further down in the ratings allowing KMOV to establish a more solid foothold as the dominant station in the market. Now that KMOV is starting to be mismanaged, both KSDK and KTVI are taking advantage of the situation and now all 3 stations are in a deadheat. From what I heard, Mike Bush was also eligible for the buyout. Some reason he didn't take it, I guess since he's the lead anchor he feels he's in a good spot there. BTW: Here is video of the announcement they made during Friday's 6pm newscast: http://www.ksdk.com/weather/announcement-from-cindy-and-mike/135678263

They're jumping the sinking ship that is KSDK. TEGNA knows how to run decent stations but KSDK is not one of them.

International Edition: I stumbled on this discovery on Youtube. Apparently it looks like someone at TV3 in Malaysia really likes RTL in The Netherlands because not only did they copy their open, they also copied their graphics and their set. Credit to Bintro on Youtube for first noticing this.

Makes sense, that does seem to be the standard cookie-cutter set that Nexstar uses for their stations in small markets. I will give them credit though for building an actual news department at WZDX similar to what they did with WFXR (actually they're pretty much carbon copies of each other). But I will say that RocketCityNow is a pretty cheesy name for a website, even by Nexstar standards.

KLAF really did debut their local newscasts yesterday. Here is a tour of their new studio and newsroom. http://www.cajunfirst.com/news/local-news/cajunfirst-studio-tour Looks pretty standard for a Nexstar station which makes sense since Lafayette is a small market.

Looks like Sinclair thought it was a good idea as well. The new deal will make WWHO the flagship station while still simulcasting the games on Time Warner Cable SportsChannel. Time Warner Cable is still handling the production of the games as well. This means that ASN won't be involved. http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/sports/2016/02/26/0225-crew-tv.html

My bet is on Nexstar. Turning from a small-to-mid market (leaning towards small) TV company to acquiring stations in large markets (Tampa will now be their largest after Salt Lake used to be their last biggest market, not include the CW affiliate in Phoenix) is probably going to prove to be disastrous for Nexstar one way or another. Either they're going to bleed money or run these stations into the ground AND THEN bleed money as a result. As much as I give Sinclair crap all the time, at least they have experience operating stations in mid-size markets. Las Vegas is a good example. Nexstar got rid of KLAS's news helicopter the second they acquired the station while Sinclair kept the one KSNV has and started airing more promos about how Sky3 provides covers Southern Nevada "like no other station" a result (an obvious dig at KLAS). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bauoczXT7G8

The one I really don't get is WFTV having a noon newscast on the weekends when their isn't any sports programming. Can anyone explain the logic on that one?

I'm going to miss him. When I go down to visit family in NOLA, I always like watching Fox 8 when he's doing the weather because he always makes it so entertaining. Amazing to see how a transplant from the Midwest became as much of a part of New Orleans as the locals down there.

This is a pretty Sinclair move. But not too surprising, they seem to want their viewers either afraid or outraged over something (even their Town Halls are politicized), even more so than other members of the "mainstream media" which really aren't that much better. Just another example of what a joke Sinclair is when it comes to journalism.

https://changingnewscasts.wordpress.com/2015/11/01/kyou-adding-local-news-900-pm-tomorrow/ The bigger news (at least for me anyway since I lived in the market) is that in Market 200, there is now a competitor to the previous monopoly Sinclair-owned KTVO had on the Kirksville-Ottumwa market. Starting yesterday, American Spirit/Raycom-owned KYOU has a 7-minute long newscast at 9pm. Plans are to eventually expand it to a 30 minute long newscast in the next couple of weeks. I am trying to get more details but it looks like that a portion of it (at least the weather part) will be based out of Cincinnati's WXIX. The irony in all of this is that Raycom used to own their competitor KTVO until they sold it to Barrington back in 2006. Hence why KYOU is owned by American Spirit instead of Raycom itself. Here is the new logo. If it's the standard Raycom production quality, that will probably force Sinclair to finally bring Curves and the new graphics to KTVO. I never thought I'd see the day that KTVO would have a competitor but I guess with Iowa being such a political battleground state these days, a news operation in Iowa is too difficult to pass up.

So basically they took the Fox Rochester logo and replaced it with "Chattanooga". It's also worth noting that with the new rebrand, the newscasts on Fox Chattanooga got the new graphics.

The choice in colors for those graphics remind me a lot of the Scripps package. Obviously it's not the same package but you can tell they were trying to base the colors of the package off of that one.

Looks like Tribune and ATT U-Verse are heading into a retransmission dispute. This showed up on their webpages today. They have until October 1st to sort it out. http://fox2now.com/keep-ktvi-on-att-uverse/

KING 5 is doing a town hall after the football game this coming Thrusday about traffic in the Seattle/Tacoma area. Sinclair is well known for their town halls but usually the topics are more political. Are there any other TEGNA stations that have down Town Halls before? I don't think KSDK ever did one before unless they did one during the Ferguson crisis and I just missed it.

Just noticed that WKTV got some new graphics and the L3's they use look pretty similar to the Sinclair package. (Actually I think it looks nicer than the Sinclair package)

WOIO has finally switched to the new graphics/branding. They're not using CBS Local either which is very surprising. Here is the stream. http://www.19actionnews.com/category/291914/19-action-news-live

It's not even in use yet in their newscasts and already that logo looks horrendously dated. Did I step back in time and it's now 1995 all of a sudden?

Stuff like this are why so many people are deciding to "cut the cord" so to speak. So both parties are shooting themselves in the foot anytime they go through this. If you guys haven't already taken a look at that website, I would suggest it. It's quite an entertaining read. I thought this was the best part of that website: Gee thanks Sinclair, I didn't realize I was too stupid to understand what re-transmission content was. Otherwise I would've just realized what a money grab this whole scheme is. Another part I liked: Unless I live in Baltimore, Sinclair isn't a local business to me. And then you get the usual "we should get money for cable companies carrying our OTA signals because ESPN does it so why shouldn't we" spiel:

Coincidentally there was a radio station in Pittsburgh that was called The Point back in the 90s.

Looks like based on this promo for a new show featuring a local sports talk radio host (Mark Madden), the new branding is "22 the Point" https://www.facebook.com/my22pittsburgh?fref=photo I'm not a huge fan of Sinclair but I will say that they do seem intent on providing a lot more local content for WPNT compared to before.

Wow, this is big news because the Y&R have been on KMOV at 4pm for a very long time. But since KSDK and the KPLR/KTVI duopoly both have 4pm newscasts, it was inevitible KMOV would join in too. My guess is that they're trying to copy their sister KCTV and start an hour-long 4pm newscast and have TPIR and Y&R air at their regular timeslots (10am for TPIR and Y&R at 11am). Then the question is where will they move "Great Day St. Louis". A lot of people have left KMOV lately, first Robin Smith retired earlier this week, Craig Cheatham left KMOV to take an assistant ND job up at KSTP and now this. Gotta wonder what is going on at KMOV.

Don't forget that Detroit is a NFC market. Even with the lackluster economy of the market, I don't see Fox selling WJBK unless the Lions join the AFC or something.

Now if they would only stream their newscasts.