tyrannical bastard

Because ratings are even more irrelevant than ad revenue. It's all about the retransmission payments they are getting from Pay TV providers lining their pockets.

Unless there is some SERIOUS deregulation that is to take place, I agree with @Rusty Muck. Apollo is stuck with Cox unless someone comes along with either money and or cap space to support an acquisition. Even TV stations don't have a savior in the wings like the radio industry does with EMF. Even Trinity Broadcasting Network cashed in a lot of their stations during the spectrum auction, and as evidenced by Imagicomm selling out, the market is slim pickings.

You would have thought they would have rebounded after WJLA was tanked by Sinclair, but Tegna's gonna Tegna....

Would WUSA even hire him....if he even wanted to work again? That would be his third station in DC after WJLA and WRC...

Well, Sinciair not only wants the FCC to abolish the current ownership rules, but end ATSC 1.0 as we know it.... https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/sinclair-urges-fcc-to-abolish-station-ownership-rules-sunset-atsc-1-0 I sort-of agree that 3.0 is a superior standard. But if only Sinclair is behind it and other broadcasters are using it as a way to restrict viewership (through encoding and datacasting), then it sort of defeats the purpose of broadcasting as we know it. Streaming has proven to be a method where they hold the control. It's there one day and could be gone the next. If broadcasters have the same control, then consumers lose out as well.

Being a savvy mom & pop operation, this actually makes sense. No corporate directives to use "their" platform. Just use their absolute dominance to send their signal every which way because everyone is watching to begin with! And FOX gets a willing affiliate who wants to make their news product part of their national offerings, on their own accord, not a forced clause in their affiliation agreement.

Perhaps FOX is plotting a hostile takeover of WRAZ? Raleigh/Durham could use another voice in the market, and WRAZ could stand on their own. Even WRAL operated them independently for a while in Durham before finally consolidating with the mothership in Raleigh. More likely, FOXLocal is beginning to sub-license affiliate stations in other markets. It's slim pickings because the other large groups are FOX affiliates in most cases, unless they are tied with their affiliate agreement to stream local newscasts on the app going forward.

As long as they can slap a sponsor's logo on it... pretty sure they don't care what it's called. Any outreach event Nexstar puts out has a "insert logo here" mentality to sell to the first willing client. Whether it's band-wagoning a major sporting event with a special program or running their "Remarkable Women" promotion, everything has a dollar sign attached to it.

Nexstar has entered the must-run game. Why? So they can try and own more stations. https://thedesk.net/2025/04/nexstar-fcc-must-runs-ownership-caps-deregulation/ No thanks. They have enough stations as it is. And their tactics of delaying web streams and shaking down viewers for a dwindling pool of retransmission cash is bad enough.

and WICZ in Vestal/Binghamton as well. It was an early Gannett station when they were headquartered in Rochester. Doubt Tegna would ever go for it...especially now!

We'll see if this is a real company or just another disguise by Sinclair to own more stations. Rincon is the company headed by Todd Parkin that just agreed to "buy" several Sinclair stations including WICS/WICD, KTVO, KHQA and WVTV. It may be a legit sale since there are strong operational ties between all of the Sinclair divestitures except WVTV. I know KHQA's news was coming out of WICD's building and that's since shifted to KTVO. But we'll see...

Jessica Foster has moved up from morning anchor to primary anchor at WJHG in Panama City, replacing the now-retired Neysa Wilkins. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1040227587922954&set=a.151923240086731

Lee Peck is now one of the morning anchors at WALA in Mobile. He was an early evening anchor before, and filled in as primary anchor after Byron Day's departure. Eric Reynolds is apparently still at the station, but his whereabouts are unknown. He was a longtime morning anchor at the station, even anchoring with his wife at one time. I'm hearing that it could be health-related, so I send my best wishes to him and his well-being.

Neysa Wilkins is retiring from WJHG in Panama City after 32 years as a main anchor there. https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/neysa-wilkins-retiring-from-wjhg-in-panama-city-after-32-years/

Which begs the question why companies are unloading THEIR content on THEIR streaming services. They can't afford to pay royalties/residuals on it? Streaming is only as good as the content that's available to anyone. It's not like buying a box set and owning it perpetually until the medium degrades to being unwatchable....

I believe so. But network TV has fallen so hard that game shows like these are all over prime time of virtually all of the major networks.

What @nathannah said. It's not because of this move but all of the other bloodletting Paramount is doing in recent months. Almost like when the 1980 Summer Olympics was cancelled in the US, NBC's future as a network was put into question because they were already in deep trouble back then. And then the genius Jeff Zucker thinking out loud that NBC could never be "on top" again with all of his idiot moves. Paramount is in it for the money right now. If an affiliate balks, they'll go to the next willing station, or cut them loose when the time comes. The O&Os are a boring mess, CBS News is irreparably damaged from all of the changes, and any goodwill it has left has been stripped away with every cut they've made. The most stinging was the end of the Christmas specials they've run for DECADES. If Stephen Colbert goes away, CBS is done for, IMHO. And on the streaming side, there's little reason for me to ever get Paramount+. The only way is to give it to me for free from one of my other services. They've gotten Warner Brothers stupid and started cutting classic Nickelodeon content you can't get anywhere else.

I don't recall a network that has been pushed to the brink like this. The closest may be either the Fred Silverman or Jeff Zucker eras at NBC or Laurence Tisch's reign at CBS in the 80s....

No big loss. It seemed like a placeholder program that was on the level of the Byron Allen repeats that filled the time before it right after The Late Late Show ended. I doubt that CBS News would try and rebroadcast their Evening News during that time, or that affiliates would use it to rebroadcast their 11/10pm shows. NBC getting the 1:37/12:27 slot for that seems ideal after Later ended.

Congratulations to Kym on this move! A major win for WBTV and Charlotte and another major loss for WPMI and Mobile. Back in 2008, Lenise Ligon left WBTV and later ended up as the primary anchor at WALA Fox 10 in Mobile, a job she's held since.

Friday and Saturday are the weakest TV nights of the week, so that does make sense to use the "B" team then as opposed to the standard M-F and weekend teams. Some ABC affiliates tended to do this in the past when they had strong shows back then...

The nice thing about syndication is that it's scheduled and it doesn't preempt news programming. However, with all the crap sports that Fox (and CW) are introducing to their lineups, It's pre-empting newscasts that are pretty much exclusive to their time slots. It's expected on the weekends with the network affiliates but with these it's becoming commonplace on Friday nights.

We're getting closer to the days when the local affiliate is no longer necessary for network television. Case in point, my local CBS and CW stations are not on YouTube TV at the moment (but still on the air otherwise). YTTV just pops up a network feed that fills in the local slots with CBS News programming and PSAs, and on the CW, their eastern feed. Given the garbage that passes off as network television these days, I'd prefer a hyper-local station that doesn't have to pre-empt things for whatever crap sports or garbage programming is being sent to the affiliates to run.

I'm just going to throw this out there..... With the current state of our government and it's concentration of the financially elite (and the maxed-out state of our current TV ownership situation with their regulatory and financial limitations) Billionaires tied to the FCC could go after TV stations and groups to start pushing out state-controlled propaganda, or through "favorable" companies despite any past indiscretions? It's a potential disaster that could very well happen at this rate. Once they weaken the FCC or bow to their demands, it's all over folks.

It's the sad truth. It's very apparent with Fox and CW going all in on sporting events at all hours. I'm getting tired of Fox putting crap sports events on a Friday night simply to drive viewership because it's consistently pre-empting newscasts that haven't usually been touched before, aside from events like the World Series. Don't even get me started on the UFL... It's literally a league invented by the networks to put crap sports on TV.