tyrannical bastard

Paxson was especially destructive in both Akron and Canton in terms of putting their programming in the Cleveland television market. To do this, they pretty much destroyed the local television that was serving the Akron (WAKC) and Canton (WOAC) areas. Paxson's first target was WOAC, a locally run indepdendent primarily targeting the Canton Area. In 1993, they got carriage in Akron on Warner Cable (thanks to the new must-carry rules). I believe the station was sold to another owner who LMA-ed the station to Paxson. Entertainment programming and local operations (and all of the staff were fired) in the fall of 1995 and inTV began running infomercials 24-7. While this was going on, Paxson was working on acquiring WAKC from ValueVision, who had acquired WAKC from the Berk Family only the year before. The initial plans were to put home shopping on 24/7, but due to existing commitments to ABC until the end of 1996, was forced to run the station as is. After Paxson took control in February 1996 and let the ABC affiliation lapse at the end of the year, they added the same inTV programming WOAC was already running. Somewhere along the line, WOAC was sold to Shop At Home, and they dropped the Paxson programming and went Home Shopping 24/7. Scripps ended up buying WOAC several years later (with the Shop At Home network) when duopolies became legal. Still, I don't think any operations were ever integrated with WEWS. Scripps then got out of the Home Shopping business with the wind-down of SAH, and their SAH stations were sold to Multicultural Television, and infomercials came back. WAKC morphed into WVPX and went with the full transition into a PAX station. WEWS did weather cut-ins for them before the NBC (and WKYC) partnership began, leading to an Akron/Canton newscast that lasted about 3-4 years before PAX changed to "I". Years later after WOAC morphed into TCT-owned WRLM, TBN sold their spectrum of longtime O&O WDLI , merged their license onto WVPX's spectrum, and sold the WDLI license to Ion as well. For some reason, both WDLI and WVPX were both sold to Inyo, and not to Scripps when they purchased Ion. Likely, the dual license of WDLI and WVPX would be better to be kept to themselves, for must-carry purposes.

Most channels are turn-key jukeboxes these days. Look at virtual OTT providers like PlutoTV. You have entire "channels" of old shows. Trying to watch the 24-hour look of "A Christmas Story", both TBS and TNT are basically barker channels for the latest Superhero movies and HBOMax. Aside from sports and news, the entertainment channels are useless since all of the content can be watched without commmercial interruption and visual cluttter promoting some program they want you to watch. I can see why Scripps wants to focus on news and sports. In terms of channels, Ion is like the "Ollie's Bargain Outlet" of TV shows. Just off-network runs of mediocre TV shows no one else wants anymore.

The sad thing is, Media General and Tribune had really good streaming platforms through their use of Livestream (now owned by Vimeo) and Media General even had many of their stations on the NewsOn service. Nexstar has stripped much of this away with a very web-centric strategy, making their streams confined to websites and phones, and not easily translating to OTT. Fast forward to now, and the major broadcasters have pretty much put their stations news products on air 24/7 with their existing newscasts, re-airings, and other exclusive content that seamlessly works into its own virtual channel. It allows for new and targeted revenue streams that can reach viewers down to the ZIP code. And Nexstar is taking what they have and making it less valuable, all in the name of shaking down every Cable customer and cable company to squeeze every penny out of what should be a free service to the local viewer.

That right there is the fastest way the networks are going to pull their affiliations off of Nexstar. NBC is a big one. Nexstar had better behave or they're going to get what's coming to them and quick. Then again, what would this world like had Meredith gotten their way with Media General and Sinclair absorbing Tribune?

It appears Nexstar is taking two steps backward in their "digital first" mandate. Live streams of their newscasts are apparently coming to an end next month. They will be delayed at least 2 hours. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2022/12/21/nexstar-to-end-live-stream-newscasts The endless quest for retransmission money appears to be the reason. If they keep this stuff up, they'll end up like Bally Sports, and price themselves out of existence when the pay TV providers kick them to the curb and the networks begin pulling their affiliations.

Well, Fubo has offered to carry the Bally Sports networks on their service. https://www.nexttv.com/news/sinclairs-bally-sports-networks-gain-carriage-on-fubotv Don't think it's going to make much of a difference, aside from providing a lifeboat to the sinking ship that the former Fox Sports RSNs have become under Sinclair and Diamond.

Sources say that not even the leagues are not willing to save Bally Sports in it's current form. Bankruptcy and liquidation of the rights could be imminent....the takers? Tech companies. https://nypost.com/2022/12/18/mlb-nba-and-nhl-unlikely-to-save-tv-regional-sports-networks-sources/

WHEN the other networks drop programming at 10/9, it could be a sea change, basically putting any network that does so on an equal footing with FOX & CW, and giving them a chance at that local advantage during that time slot. Once all the networks fall into line, that's when the 11/10p news could be history, and the late night programs move up to that time slot, or even earlier. 10/9 then becomes a universal news time across ALL of the networks, and established independents. FOX may keep 11/10 them in the markets that do them, and they would get the advantage of having news on at that time, like they would have had before, an hour earlier.

At one time, Mobile/Pensacola had 4 stations doing news at 9pm CT. Longtime OG WALA FOX 10 with their 9pm show, WEAR started one for WFGX in Pensacola, WPMI started one for WJTC in Mobile, and finally, WKRG in Mobile started a Pensacola-centric one for WFNA. The first shoe to drop was the WJTC 9pm show which ended up moving to 7pm (since it's an independent), and WFGX's later gave way for the evening version of The National Desk. Only WFNA's version remains along with WALA's today. It's been mentioned before, but getting another news hour out of WPMI would not be possible, unless they get "subsumed" like the other Sinclair shells, or sacrifice another hour of news. When it finally happens, they may even have to relax the rules for stations like WPMI in the same boat. Wheeling was mentioned earlier. All WTOV would have to do is simulcast their Fox 9.2 10pm show on 9.1. And WFMJ may as well start a 10pm show on the CW to compete with the WKBN one. All they would have to do is either simulcast or move it over to NBC when the time comes....

Jym Ganahl was probably a bargain. And his "retirement" from NBC4 was probably a win-win to cut his payroll there, and just wanting to get back into the swing of things at ABC6, he took whatever they would give him. Initially it was a midday weather slot, but it's probably grown in recent years to include fill-in work. Marshall also worked at NBC4 and even did mornings at WKYC in the 90s. Even after his flap with the NLGJA (National Association of LGBTQ Journalists) after his comments made at their conference, he's still going strong at ABC6.

The tables have turned in Columbus for sure. Once upon a time, talent would move "up" to 10TV, like when Chris Bradley made the jump years ago. Nowadays, (even before Tegna) you have ex-WSYX talent resurfacing at 10TV. The turning point seemed to be when Kurt Ludlow left 10TV, and eventually found his way to ABC6 and FOX 28. Even Jym Ganahal "retiring" from WCMH only to resurface at WSYX because he was "bored". WSYX has finally built themselves as the leader of Columbus TV, bolstered by their treatment by Sinclair as their "cash cow", and having control of 3 stations in the market. WCMH suffered greatly under Media General (and Nexstar is trying to make something of them) while 10TV has slowly declined and was eventually torpedoed by Tegna.

Some markets are more affected than others, I wonder if Nexstar/Mission is even aware in the possible instance if they choose to run one of these ads in a market where Comcast/Xfinity does not provide service.

It just keeps getting better between Nexstar and Xfinity....and even Mission is involved as well..... https://www.cablefax.com/distribution/retrans-rumble-comcast-files-bad-faith-complaint-against-nexstar-at-fcc And the stations are scheduled to go dark THIS WEEKEND. I don't normally cheer for a blackout, but Nexstar has had this coming to them for a long time. They invented this game, and if they don't play by the rules they're about to lose big time.

A few WBNX updates..... Decades (and WBNX 55.6 itself) are no more. The subchannel has been moved to the now-Weigel owned WOCV-CD (which was the remnant of the old WAOH/W35AX "CAT" network) on their primary feed. WBNX still has Movies! H&I and Start TV. VUit is also streaming the main WBNX feed on it's service. It appears to only be available to viewers in the Cleveland DMA (much like Syncbak used to do with local newscasts on mobile devices) It's the first time I've seen geofencing on their app for a particular station/channel.

A new one....Comcast/Xfinity and Nexstar are about to come to blows.... https://tvanswerman.com/2022/12/10/comcast-could-lose-nexstar-owned-local-stations-in-carriage-row/

Could their minimum wage ($18 an hour) be causing some problems? That may be a high hurdle in places where the cost of living is dirt cheap. Then again, I know people in the industry who've been working 10-15 years and STILL don't make that much...

Marquee is only getting the channel 4 facility and will basically have to build it from the ground up. The former WTLW (now on WTLW-LD) and it's intellectual unit will be status quo, with their current mix of family, religious and secular programming under their existing ownership, https://www.limaohio.com/news/2022/11/17/wtlw-sells-one-of-its-two-frequencies/

Like the old Headline news was years ago, cable channels have become an endless jukebox of shows. It's silly to think what purpose they even serve as the shows they air on repeat over and over again are often readily available on demand from a streaming service without the on-screen clutter and commercials that pretty much put things on at oddball times (that's more of a TVLand thing though and TBS TurnerTime is long gone.) Since they're jukeboxes, they're pretty much turnkey operations that require little human intervention. And in the digital realm where channel space is unlimited, these channels won't go away anytime soon until everybody switches to streaming and the cable bundle dies once and for all.

Were the affiliates ever in question (even on satellite DirecTV?) On the OTT platform it could have been an issue given the brief Disney/ABC vs. YouTubeTV spat last year when even the ABC affiliates were pulled from YTTV.

Tonight is Greg Peterson's final newscast at WPMI NBC 15 in Mobile. He is stepping aside to work at the restaurant he co-owns with his wife, and to concentrate on his involvement in a mortgage company he is a partner in. https://www.facebook.com/people/Greg-Peterson-NBC-15/100058084209224/?ref=py_c

It looks like they did have two full-powered (UHF) repeaters that converted to digital, but temporarily shut down due to budget cuts in 2013 and opted to auction those frequencies when the microwave link failed. One of the repeaters (WSBN) originally had the WSVN call letters (when the current WSVN was WCKT) and WBRA was initially WBRZ's planned call letters, but they opted with the latter because, well....

Was WBRA an auction participant who settled for a VHF-low alottment? Their current signal must be a disaster if they want to move up to VHF-high.

Here's the rest of the story. It was WCBI's Jon Sokoloff who tweeted (again!) about the Auburn job, and it was news to Lane Kiffin as well. Hence the tweet mentioned above.

In response to Lane Kiffin being rumored to take the Auburn head coaching job he tweeted this...and this was WLOX anchor Hugh Keeton's response... In contrary to the rumors, Lane just re-upped his tenure as coach at Ole Miss... The funny part is, Ole Miss is in the Memphis market (Oxford) where Starkville is the home of rival Mississippi State! And WCBI is actually based in Columbus, MS...part of the Columbus-Starkville-Tupelo market. WCBI is on cable in Oxford, though.

Absoultely 100% true! I remember him back in the 80s on WEWS. Here's a clip from 1986. https://youtu.be/bFhNusRpFMQ?t=735