tyrannical bastard

This is thread-worthy in itself. While it's not the end of PBS and NPR, it could very well be unwinding the network of stations through the elimination of federal funding and oversight of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/corporation-public-broadcasting-begin-shutting-operations/story?id=124284902 Basically the result will be any surviving "Public Broadcasting" stations that rely on viewer and state/local support. PBS will likely survive in name only and through their ongoing member stations. Are we great yet?

This is potentially devastating to the Louisville market, especially for the folks at WDRB, or WAVE if Gray decides to "trade up" if WDRB is truly outperforming WAVE. But knowing Gray and the draconian moves they made this past fall, it's going to be ugly as an inferior voice takes over a stronger one, and opens the door to cutting more local content in favor or regionalism for all of their stations in the region. And WDRB is a great station in it's own right, and has a lot of experienced talented people both on and behind the camera. Where else would a station revere their news director who decided to move on to another role with a standing ovation from their newsroom? (He later returned to WDRB, and if I'm not mistaken, is still there). Getting WLIO will give them a "big 4 monopoly", unless Marquee wants to play with the full-powered license they acquired from WTLW. And in Central Illinois, WAND is just another Gray station, unless they decide to pick off anything that Rincon controls now that they've "separated" from Sinclair. In the scheme of things, I have to wonder how Gray is going to pay for all of this, and what it will cost their existing stations in the future?

More Gray moves...this time it's two SagamoreHill stations they already manage. They plan to purchase WLTZ in Columbus, GA and KJTV in Lubbock, TX with the old "Failing Station Waiver" trick. https://tvnewscheck.com/business/article/gray-media-to-buy-two-tv-stations-from-sagamorehill/ With the rumored stripping of the CW from Bahakel's WCCB in Charlotte, and other rumors of Bahakel cashing out, it could be a future out for WNCF in Montgomery if Gray decides to shack them up with WSFA...It's a third wheel that a future buyer of WAKA/WBMM would love to get rid of.

For all we know, they may have entered into a (shelled) outsourcing agreement where Sinclair provides services to Rincon to evade ownership rules. Sinclair's gonna Sinclair. Prove me wrong.

Sooner or later we'll be like Canada where the (remaining) networks will decimate local content in favor of strong regionalism or outright national delivery of most content. CBS and their O&Os have gone the furthest in this direction in terms of their branding. I just await the day when the networks tell the NFL to pound sand and they start suffering. Time and time again, I say that it's a tax on the American TV consumer, and it needs to stop NOW.

Isn't that retransmission consent to begin with? But there's stuff that's going on much worse than the KYW/WKYC trade, RKO General, and probably even the things that cost WLBT and WJIM (WLNS) their licenses back then. Retrans is out of control, but NBC/Comcast is probably the most cooperative out all of the networks in terms of the partnership between affiliate and network.

How much longer is WISH in Indianapolis affiliated with them? Had Nexstar been in charge back then of WTTV/WXIN, they would have probably kept "Plan A" to move the CW to 4.2 after getting CBS. That's probably the plan once their contract with WISH is up.

Sooner or later, Nexstar is going to put the CW wherever they can in the markets they serve. And if it's not a large company like Gray or Sinclair as the station owner, the contract will be toast when it's up. Here's looking at stations like WFMJ 21.2. An easy move to put the CW on "My YTV" and send MyNetwork packing or off to midnight. And in the markets where Nexstar has O&Oed them as duopolies, they promote the HELL out of CW content during news and sports coverage. Probably worse than Sinclair trying to ram tennis coverage down our throats. The question is, which "other" network is going to walk first? CBS seems the most likely once Skydance finishes driving them into the ground. Perry Sook is turning more into George Newman by each passing day. When will Stanley Spadowski get his own kids show? All they would have to do is sell off WJKT in Jackson, but it's probably in "Failed Station" territory since it's a low-rated FOX affiliate that simulcast's WREG's newscasts. Montgomery would be complicated since they're already a virtual triopoly with WAKA, WBMM and WNCF with SagamoreHill owning the latter.

Mark Johnson, who was dumped from WEWS, has accepted a role with Tegna as a contract meteorologist... https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2025/07/29/mark-johnson-hired-by-wkyc-parent-company-tegna-meteorologist/85418856007/?tbref=hp We all know how this story ends... Once the non-compete expires, cue Mark on WKYC in 3, 2....

If this comes to fruition, WCCB is well-suited to become a news-intensive independent station. Somehow, Bahakel soldiers on despite the likely overtures that Tegna or Gray could easily swallow the station as duopoly bait and subsume their news operation.

I'd love to see Alan Sealls as a part of this covering South Alabama, but he could probably start one on his own. It would be a great tool for the University of South Alabama to educate and train future meteorologists through their meteorology program which he is a part of.

More like the cancellation of Talk Soup!, end of original True Hollywood Story episodes and whenever the Kardashians got their own show.

It's been the 7th place station there since the beginning of time. And it doesn't help matters to be so close to Detroit, Lima, and even have CBET pumped in from Windsor with some things the CBC carries that NBC carries as well....

Has there been any mention of the future of WANF's carriage on services like YouTube TV and Hulu? WUAB is another question mark since WBNX will be the CW station once again for Cleveland come September 1st....

More proof that stations posting to their websites is an afterthought. They're not updated consistently and actual news is sometimes omitted or buried. Instead they waste time posting to Facebook where actual news gets buried in their algorithm and you find out 3 days later that there was a (now long-expired) tornado warning in your feed.

Tom McGee, who anchored several stints at several TV stations in Charleston & Huntington, WV, has passed away at the age of 78. https://www.wowktv.com/news/west-virginia/former-west-virginia-anchor-attorney-tom-mcgee-dies-at-78/ He also worked at CNN in the 1980s, and after his stint at WHCP-TV (now WQCW), left TV news to attend law school and become a personal injury attorney. Despite his past reputation that cost him several anchoring stints at WCHS and WOWK, his post-television career was one of redemption and forgiveness that prove that nothing is impossible.

And for the record, Rincon closed on WICS/WICD, KHQA, KTVO and WVTV on July 9th. So can we expect any de-Sinclair-ing of these stations any time soon? Here's a press release from WVTV: https://cw18milwaukee.com/fcc/rincon-broadcasting-group-acquires-wvtv-milwaukee# Not even a blip on Sinclair's website about divesting these stations. So did they really sell them and still plan on running them from the inside out?

Sad to say, but the UFL is and will always be a league to give football to TV networks in the off-season of the NFL. You know broadcast is in the toilet when crap sports like this are pre-empting normal programming. Even scanning the Birmingham station websites makes little to no mention of the Stallions uprooting from there. There's a blip on WBRC's page, but that's it.

Meanwhile on WPLG (Well, not really...)

Good Lord, what a time when networks used to PAY affiliates to run their programming.... When exactly did the tide shift from actual to reverse compensation? Retransmission Consent and Must-Carry rules debuted in 1993 and the only deals at the time were between corporations and their "sister" cable channels in the few places they overlapped. As companies consolidated, these overlaps became more common. KRON getting bought by Young was the lynchpin of the modern arrangement since NBC enacted onerous demands they did not want to follow. So they took their ball over to KNTV to rechristen themselves as NBC for the Bay Area. Other stations like WJXT and WISH followed because they either did not want to pay for network programming, or balked at the rate that they were being charged for network programming. And then, Perry Sook decided to shake down the cable companies at the source, demanding cash for the carriage of Nexstar's stations. Then the networks wanted their cut of this, and our jacked up form of paying for free TV exists to this day, but for how much longer? And most of the defections in recent years? CBS. Because they wanted more money. CBS shot themselves in the foot in Raleigh to get Media General / Nexstar to pay them more $$$. NBC gets on WRAL and runs with it since it's their best ratings EVER there. And with what just went down in Atlanta, they'll take their ball and go home where they can when it's not working.

I'd say ALL of the stations that pulled Politically Incorrect were that of Sinclair. They would later go on to pull that Nightline episode that read out the 9/11 victims and "almost" aired the John Kerry hit piece "Stolen Honor" around the 2004 election. This was the first time Americans were exposed to their antics as they were amassing more and more television stations across the country. Networks have such iron-clad contracts with their affiliates that there is virtually ZERO deviation from their offerings. 20 years ago, Jimmy Kimmel was delayed and even dropped form several stations, and it wasn't until only 2 years ago when WEAR in Pensacola was forced to air the show "live" at 10:35 after having an hour-long 10pm show for many years. Going back to 1993, rogue CBS affiliates like WJW (mired in bankruptcy under Gillett/SCI) were freely pre-empting shows like half of CBS This Morning and pushing David Letterman back to midnight for some random piece of syndication. They had already pushed Dan Rather back to 7pm to make their 6pm show an hour back around the time they regained the WJW call letters. I have to wonder if THIS was why they cut the deal with FOX (along with the other Gillett/SCI stations about to be sold to New World) instead of FOX getting the NFL and wanting to upgrade their affiliates. Did the other Argyle or CitiCasters (Taft/GreatAmerican) ending up under New World pull the same antics?

The Tonight Show is a heritage franchise dating back to the network's early days. It won't go unless NBC itself is in danger of going away. I'm still surprised Jimmy Kimmel was able to switch places with Nightline, a show that has more history than any attempt at ABC and CBS. And it's faced the most uphill battle of affiliates either not carrying it initially or delaying it (mostly Sinclair, fresh off their "ban" of Bill Maher's show post 9/11) And by some luck of a deal, CBS gets a new soap to replace their "View" ripoff that replaced another long running soap opera. But for all we know, if the orange one is offended by their NFL coverage this season, they'll kill that off too. Because of him, this blackmailed merger is all tied back to HIM.

If it wins it's timeslot and beats Fallon and Kimmel, how much worse off are those shows? NBC and ABC are on much better footing though, at least for now. CBS has been tanked by it's past and future overlords for years.

I can't wait for the day the entire TV industry collapses under its own greed. All it takes when they jack up their demands for a slate of programs that would make Byron Allen's output look appealing. Basically when the NFL pulls their games off Broadcast TV because it won't be financially feasible anymore.

I wonder if we're going to see the "Jay Leno" experiment resurface again by stripping away the 10/9p hour of network shows for a daily show or moving the 11/10p show up to fill that hour. Half of the stuff that passes off as network TV is repurposed drivel. When you're rebooting DAYTIME game shows and putting them on the schedule permanently.... That's one way the networks can reduce their overhead and make their affiliate base able to compete more. Audiences want things earlier and maybe it's time for the (remaining) late shows to do the same.