tyrannical bastard

Paxton Media Group (WPSD) is openly courting ex-Allen employees.

https://mediajobcenter.com/job/attention-journalists-laid-allen-media-509943769?utm_source=www.jobiqo.com&utm_medium=jobwidget&utm_campaign=launch

You know it's bad when a rival company is ready and waiting to scoop up laid off employees.

17 hours ago, TheRob said:

It looks like the same thing happened in Wisconsin this week, with Madison providing select newscasts for La Crosse, Eau Claire and Wausau under the name "Wisconsin News Now."

Here's a Reddit thread on the Allen cuts:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Broadcasting/comments/1h6nia1/the_bloodbath_in_wisconsin/

Maybe Allen sees Lafayette as being a "cool" place to set up a hub, especially since Coastal runs the other stations in town that way.

I totally get WFFT being turned into a spoke.  Allen has done little to the station ever since it was spun off from Nexstar in favor of WANE.  It still even has the old Nexstar set and graphics package.

And lest we forget how Nexstar lost, then regained the Fox affiliation after they complained (of all companies) that Granite/Malara was too much for that market.

I don't see these as long-sustaining moves.  It's a way to stave off the inevitable bankruptcy or auction of Allen's assets.

3 hours ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

I wouldn't be surprised if WLFI is one of them.  Lafayette is an "in-between" market between South Bend and Indy. 

The other Allen stations in Indiana are in Terre Haute and Evansville.  Of those, WTHI is the more-established one and it may make sense for them to do news for Evansville while Lafayette does news for Fort Wayne. 

Of course, the whole shebang could come out of Lafayette as well.

Allen is joining the newscast consolidation movement.  The first victims are WFFT in Fort Wayne, which will now get their news out of WLFI Lafayette. 

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/11/25/allen-media-to-hub-news-in-indiana

And a "slightly" bright spot in this.  WAAY in Huntsville will be producing a primetime newscast for WCOV in Montgomery with two reporters based there.

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/11/26/allen-media-merges-newsrooms

Seeing as this is another voice in the market, it's a little win.  But the market may be better served by the current WAKA newscast that they've put on for the last 15 or so years, and before that, WSFA.

This may now shift WAKA's efforts over to their WBMM CW station to compete against Allen at 9pm.

21 hours ago, MidwestTV said:

That's not a Nexstar decision, it's a Fox 56 decision.

These kind of pre-emptions are bad news these days.

It's not like it was 20 years ago where a CBS station in a non-SEC market pre-empted the game for a J-P (Raycom) Sports Network ACC game of the local team.

Ouch:

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/11/21/producers-will-punch-the-shows-at-tegna-stations

I can see this happening in Huntsville and Memphis, but it could be a bad move in the other markets they want to pilot this in...

10 minutes ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

After watching a newscast of WKEF, this anchorless format is just awful.  The constant "New Tonight/New Deatils/Etc" titelcards & music between each story is annoying as hell... And listening to someone record the 30 second story in  an echoed room is just tacky.  2 thumbs way down... At least Scrippscasts have 25% personality vs. 0%

I have to wonder if Sinclair has been building up to this LONG before it was a reality.  Newscasts have become more video & graphically oriented.  Talent intros have been systematically eliminated.  It just seemed like newscasts just appeared on the air like they came back from a break.  You don't know if something is live or not....the list goes on and on.

It doesn't take much to set up a camera shot somewhere, so these shows are becoming so mundane, someone with little to no experience could direct a show just by hot-punching the right buttons on a switcher.

Here in the US, Fox News, Fox Sports and the Fox Network are all using the FOX name under license from Disney, correct? 

Or did they keep the right to "Fox" and the Disney side is "21st Century"....

"Spinco" was used before as a company that would have taken over the cable systems that would have been divested from the failed Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger.

An update from FTVLive.

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/11/19/fired-by-phone

In addition to all of Creative Services/Promos, some sports, sales, photographers, and production personnel all got canned...by phone.

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/11/19/are-tegna-directors-next-on-the-hit-list

Spokane and Memphis may be the markets these moves take place in.  Supposedly, they're still production markets with a full crew of operators and directors.  Usually in an automation setup, directors run the show.

With the Directors worried about their future, could producers be taking over shows, supplemented by forms of A.I.?

My goodness, what a world we live in now...

The irony of MSNBC now being a useless acronym now that it's not only separate from Microsoft, but also NBC.

And the timing couldn't be any worse, given the "changes" that could take place next year....

30 minutes ago, Howard Beale said:

I saw a post from someone on LinkedIn who claimed that KREM in Spokane got rid of its producers in favor of AI.  I can't verify that but I wouldn't put it past TEGNA to do that.

My understanding is that as a test, certain stations are replacing their production teams (directors, audio operators, camera, etc...) with AI.

And you think Scripps is bad as a stitch-cast....at least a human is putting that together most likely.

Aside from the "centralization" of Creative Services, are there any other layoffs going down at Tegna?

(from what I"m reading, some production teams are being eliminated, in favor of AI)....

11 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

 

Also, you may have noticed that WTVY has switched over to First Alert Weather, which now creates a conflict with WDHN, which goes by the First Alert StormTeam.

I hope WALA doesn't make the same mistake in Mobile.  WKRG has been the First Alert Storm Team as well.

WALA's StormTracker branding is pretty well established, and if there's no licensing to deal with, I don't see them switching any time soon.

And over at WTOK....
https://www.wtok.com/2024/11/18/wtok-creates-expanded-partnership-with-wlbt/

Aside from the 11am newscast coming from WLBT, the weeknight 10pm newscast will be regionalized with them as well.  I'm not sure that means a straight simulcast, or a hybrid of some content coming from Meridian, and other content from Jackson.  Weekend newscasts will be at 10pm from Meridian though.

It sounds like what WHLT used to be under Media General, originating some content from Hattiesburg while beaming the rest in from Jackson and WJTV.  Eventually that was abandoned in favor of a watered-down WJTV newscast "from the state capitol" from Jackson, watered down with some news from Hattiesburg to proclaim their existence.

If that's the case with WTOK and WLBT, Jackson is the real loser since you have two local stations watering down local news to cover someone else's. 

And WAPT stands to be the winner since they can fully cover the Jackson market for their own viewers.

More on the partnership of WTVY in Dothan and WSFA in Montgomery:

https://www.wsfa.com/2024/11/18/wtvy-creates-expanded-partnership-with-wsfa/

As stated above, Today in Alabama will air for an hour on WTVY from 5a-6a with WTVY having local news from 6-7am.

The new info is that the 4pm show will be shared between WTVY and WSFA.  It sounds like WTVY will simulcast WSFA's 5pm show as well.

WTVY will keep their own 6 and 10pm newscasts.

Some of this has happened before back when Raycom owned WDFX.  They simulcast WSFA's 4pm newscast and aired a 9pm show that WSFA produced.

EDIT: They will simulcast WSFA on the weekends.  That's a big one.  And quite a 180 from the days when WDHN didn't even exist on the weekends, yet alone weekday mornings.  

10 minutes ago, Dave Lampstein said:

TEGNA joins the ranks of other local station groups who have decided to try to hub their station promo marketing. An announcement came down from outgoing COO Lynn Beall today. More industry layoffs ahead, just in time for the holidays.

 

 

Classy move Tegna, even better to leave the task to your OUTGOING COO.

Hopefully this will be a temporary move like it was with Meredith before they got sucked into Gray.  They literally had to rebuild all of their marketing teams after Meredith tried hubbing them.

For promos and image campaigns, well, that's one thing.  But hubbing local commercial production is a mistake as the task is taken out of the community where this knowledge is useful, and done in some random place (any idea where the hub will be?)

I"ve heard rumblings of something like this going down at Sinclair, but that's still to be determined.

Once MSNBC and Fox News go (away from cable & satellite), along with ESPN, you can stick a fork in that industry. 

Fox has Fox Nation, and all MSNBC (and CNBC) have to do is add their linear streams to Peacock.

CNN is already a lost cause, even after adding a feed to Max.

And Uncle Perry is going to battle it out until the very end with NewsNation, thinking that delayed streaming on a website is going to be their end-all-be-all to digital delivery.  Maybe in the next wave of deregulation, their stations will be put up for auction to the highest bidder(s).

7 minutes ago, MidwestTV said:

To be fair to Tegna, they've really backed off of the edginess compared to when they first came into existence.

Sinclair's just late to the party though.  Their only idea of theirs they didn't steal from another broadcaster is the whole crippling propaganda thing.

On one hand, it's like a TV show going into repeats.  They just don't want to watch it...again.

On the other hand, once Trump takes control and things go off the rails.....

So Sinclair is trying to be edgy like Tegna and cheap like Scripps as well?

Same garbage just wrapped up in a new package trying to chase a demographic that won't watch it.

Over in Meridian,  WTOK's midday newscast is gone, and replaced with WLBT Today at 11.

Looking at the TV listings for WTVY in Dothan, Alabama.

Things seem status quo until this Friday.  Local 2 hour morning show (5am-7am), Live at Lunch (12:00-12:30) Half hour newscasts at 4,5,6 & 10.

However, the 10pm show is listed as "Nightly News".

Starting next Monday, "Today in Alabama" is on at 5am & 5:30am.  WTVY's morning newscast is from 6-7am.  Everything else remains the same.

WSFA is probably doing the piping in of the newscasts.  They were once the de-facto NBC affiliate in the market before Gray started WRGX.  And when Raycom owned WDFX, they provided news for them as well.

So Gray finally said they're laying off people, and that more could be coming....
https://thedesk.net/2024/11/gray-media-layoffs-q3-earnings-report/

I'd be curious to see which markets will be serving whom when content has to be piped in.

Even before, in places where Gray has almost TOTAL control of a given state (Mississippi, Alabama, etc...) there have been lots of out-of-market stories making their rounds.  They can play it up as "from the state capitol" but that can only go so far when it doesn't have to do with state issues and becomes another rip and read of a car wreck on an interstate 200 miles away just because the road is in the same DMA.

And if there's a football game going on upstate.....same idea.  Roll something and War coverage of someone's seat getting hotter.

Even the lifestyle shows send cooking segments to each other across the country.

With a unified graphics package, it gets harder and harder to tell where something comes from.

We'll see how things progress over the next year.  I'm not holding my breath.