tyrannical bastard

For a company that's so worried about big tech, maybe they shouldn't have hitched their entire future to retransmission consent of pay TV and playing catch up supplying their content to newer platforms. Big tech isn't going to be their demise, they did this to themselves.

More BS kool-aid from Nexstar. Sure, they can expand newscasts until they're blue in the face. But when the content pool diminishes from reporter layoffs, cutting news feeds, and reliance on "old" news to fill the time. I've noticed a marked increase in "regional" news on Nexstar stations (and others like Gray that have taken over large swaths of the country). Basically, the stations are feeding each other and less and less is devoted to covering the actual news in their area. The result is a watered-down product that everyone loses from because it's the same thing across a large swath of stations, making the very concept of "local news" a farce. It's very well possible that a local station could not have a single LOCAL story on a very slow news day.

It's getting that way. Technically, "NBC 15" is now WEAR 3.2, since Sinclair played the shell game last year, moving ROAR to WPMI 15.1. Believe it or not, they've actually hired a replacement anchor for Darwin Singleton, Asha Staples, who was a reporter for WALA several years back. And they recently hired a replacement for Kelly Foster as well. Still, it's very light on Mobile-centric content and is largely padded with stories from WEAR in Pensacola and the usual Sinclair garbage.... The weekends have been done by WEAR since the massive layoffs 3 years ago. And even if NBC 15 is short-staffed or having technical issues? WEAR to the rescue!

Kelly Foster, a longtime anchor and meteorologist at NBC 15 in Mobile who left the station earlier this year, has resurfaced on WALA Fox 10 as a meteorologist working the midday shows.

Since WSRE is no longer a PBS station, a new group has emerged that could be the area's next PBS station "Emerald Coast PBS" emeraldcoastpbs.org It's unclear what this organization is, or what their plans are, but it may have plans to bring PBS programming back to a station (or even a virtual one) in the near future. They are soliciting pledges, primarily for former WSRE members who benefited from having access to PBS Passport programming, a standard feature for those who donate at least $5 a month to their local PBS station. Going forward, their best option may be a brokered spot on WPAN-TV. Their entire station is brokered content, including a full-powered repeater slot for WFBD-TV, a TCT station with a fringe transmitter. Does PBS even have any stand-alone low-power stations, or virtual affiliates that lack a broadcast signal? In WSRE's absense, there is a large part of Northwest Florida that no longer has access to PBS programming over the air.

This seems to be the M.O. for Nexstar's weaker stations going forward. WIAT CBS 42 in Birmingham has done this with both their morning and noon newscasts.

For us Simpsons fans, this merger carries a terrible curse .... We can call it Froku!

my goodness. And I've lived and worked in Central Time for over 20 years now....

Emily Leonard, longtime WTVA anchor is leaving to join former co-worker Matt Laubhan's online venture, which is now adding news to their Mississippi Live Weather channel and will be known as Mississippi Live. Even though Gray now owns WTVA, the damage Allen Media has already done still lingers and this venture can be seen as a way broadcasters will have to compete with the internet when enterprises like these become powerful enough to hire broadcast journalists away from TV stations.

Gray is purchasing Fox affiliate WHPM-LD in Hattiesburg, MS from Coastal Television. https://rbr.com/a-pine-belt-pluck-for-gray-media/ It will certainly be an improvement to put a WDAM newscast on at 10pm instead of the hubbed one that Coastal uses from their Waypoint/INN hub they bought. And much of their operations were likely hubbed out of Meridian, where they own WMDN (CBS) and WGBC (FOX/NBC).

MTV is a dead brand in its current form since music videos are all over the internet and so many FAST channels do it way better.

Good. This merger should have never happened in the first place. In saner times, Disney should be next, at least with Hulu & Fubo being under their total control now.

Basically, a virutal un-doing of the 2011 merger of NBCUniversal into Comcast. Comcast will keep the tech, wireless and delivery enterprises, and NBCUniversal (including the theme parks, networks, Peacock, etc...) will comprise of the rest. https://apnews.com/article/comcast-nbcuniversal-sky-5dc27c2e6fe45eb78eae4336e025b4e2 (mods, feel free to delete or merge this thread into the other one in General TV)

It's sad that we've come to this where the ABC O&Os have been vilified by our current FCC. Maybe in a saner time, the same should happen to Sinclair and Nexstar, who have done far more egregious things in front of our eyes, often on a daily basis.

Here's a look at WSRE's programming schedule starting on July 1st.... https://www.aol.com/articles/heres-wsre-tv-station-lineup-090919000.html (Article is from the Pensacola News-Journal but reposted by AOL)

This seems to be an extension of the "Digital First" initiatives that have been commonplace for a while now. I just wish stations would do a better job of updating their own websites instead of relying on Facebook and other social mediums. I've tended to not follow stations but instead their anchors and reporters because of all the "crap" they post in their feeds. Another thing i've started to notice is that severe weather cut-ins are beginning to look podcast-ish or self made. They basically use the online feed which they broadcast OTT or online, and when it's severe enough to warrant breaking into programming, just simulcast that on air rather than relying on the more traditional methods involving production crews. In fact, some stations have been wired in a way to where a meteorologist can put themselves on the air. Basically this involves hooking into the weather computer or chroma key camera, and all the meteorologist has to do is notify master control or the broadcast hub to take them live. We've reached the point in the industry where this is becoming the norm. Viewers aren't coming back, so out goes the traditional product and in comes the "digital" means as a side effect on the TV side.

I posted about this in the corporate thread, but it looks like Nexstar is rolling out the podcast format going forward. In this case, it actually replaces newscasts and may be a side effect of their recent bloodletting. Podcasts simplify the production process to the point where the hosts can literally run the show themselves.

I know that one's been around for a long time, but how long has it been simulcast on broadcast? Way back during Hurricane Michael, they picked up the slack for WMBB in Panama City when they took on a direct hit from Hurricane Michael. They should have embraced OTT way back then, only doing so in the past year or two and even going as far as REVERSING some efforts. Another one I caught on to...KRQE in Albuquerque doing "Fox 505 Feed" in place of their morning newscasts. A lot of these efforts may have been going on a while, they've just been squandered by being limited to the web and facebook, only now they're going all-in with them, sadly at the expense of staff and existing content.

Has KODE always had separate(ish) newscasts since they consolidated with KSNF? These shows are much more efficient and cost-effective than full blown newscasts. Hosts run their own graphics, roll their own video, etc. And the components are likely a fraction of the cost of traditional broadcast equipment. (PTZ cameras, podcast mics, Elgato controllers, etc...) The cost is high for what they blew up to replace them with. But the return on investment may be just enough to be a second voice in an ecosystem Nexstar created for themselves through relentless cost-cutting and consolidation. It's not prime time, but it's certainly better than simulcasting or giving up local content altogether...

Another reminder that vertical integration is alive and well these days. How long until all of the Warner Brothers FAST content is pulled to be added to HBOMaxParamount+?

This is not meant to be a list thread, but it seems like Nexstar is **finally** embracing the internet and OTT apps, and has taken a deep dive into podcasting. The catch? These shows are not only being broadcast on air, but are pushing out traditional newscasts and recent layoffs seem to corroborate this. The ones i've seen so far are WKRG's weekend sports show morphing into their "Southeast Sports" podcast, a joint venture between several Nexstar stations in the southeast. Any other notable ones?

KIMT is one of those poor stations that has been passed around for decades. It was one of two stations that the Schotts sold (including WBTW) to Spartan. After Media General bought Spartan, KIMT was one of the stations they divested so they could buy 4 of NBC O&Os. New Vision, who bought them, merged with LIN, and then Media General owned them once again when they merged with LIN. Then KIMT was one of the castoffs during the Nexstar merger, not because of cross-ownership in the market, but with cap space. Heartland bought them, sold out to Allen Media, and here we are. At this rate, Gray could own them as a failed station if Allen keeps cutting...

Unless a white knight steps in, WSRE is still slated to lose PBS programming on June 30th. As far as I know, the WSRE foundation is still fighting for independence from Pensacola State College, who owns WSRE-TV itself. They could realistically resurrect WSRE's PBS programming on another channel if they had the ability to do so. Another possibility could be Florida State University stepping in to run/buy WSRE and relay the programming from Tallahassee's WFSU that's repeated on WFSG in Panama City. That station only reaches to Fort Walton Beach, while WSRE picks up coverage from there all the way into Mobile with their transmitter located near the others in Baldwin County Alabama between Mobile and Pensacola.

Is the ad sponsored? Then there's your answer. Just a promo the sales department needed to slap a logo onto because the client was sold the time.

60 Minutes II was doomed because of their unverified and later debunked report on Dubya's military service. It cost producer Mary Mapes her job and led to the removal of Dan Rather from the Evening News and later the network itself. Today, a story like this may as well go on as planned because Bari Weiss and Skydance aren't willing to do the proper safeguards to verify the authenticity of their sources, putting their very credibility in question.