tyrannical bastard

Just in time for college football season, WEAR ABC 3's transmitter decided not to work... https://weartv.com/news/local/channel-3-working-to-resolve-technical-difficulties They are broadcasting the games on sister station WFGX My35.

I don't think there was ever a time when they were an O&O when they were a market force. Most of the 60s when they were Westinghouse was more notable before WEWS found their footing. It wasnt until the late 90s under Gannett when they finally began winning timeslots and cemented their place in the 2000s as WEWS was sinking in the ratings...

Well, It's About Time. (Oops, wrong station!) But a long overdue move. Kill the old call letters with fire after what Meredith did to the place.... As long as CBS Atlanta doesn't resurface on an O&O in the market, although I doubt Gra wants to "fire" CBS any time soon or vice versa...

Another problem... For the SSA/JSA stations in a market that are already "maxed out" with content under the 15 percent rule. They can't add another hour of news without taking away from another timeslot. Then again, that may force them to merge their programming off the shell station onto the owned station's spectrum as a subchannel, much like the many Cunningham stations have done onto their Sinclair counterparts. And lest we forget that ABC has basically turned their Sunday nights into a reboot of old game shows that the network aired in DAYTIME 30-40 years ago! CBS too, with bringing LMAD back to replace Guiding Light.

On one hand it would be nice to have a pretty universal alternative to the FOX station doing news at 10/9. On the other hand, it may be a blow to the FOX stations that have been doing this since the beginning of time, and cause quite a problem when the NBC station is the one that is doing the FOX newscast, places like Pittsburgh and Raleigh.

Here's a link to a WKYC story. He served as the prior sports director to Jim Donovan, after his time at WJKW. https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/cleveland/wkyc-sports-anchor-cleveland-browns-broadcaster-jim-mueller-dies/95-c10bc1a0-4d5d-47d5-a636-26ccf0e11289

Jim Mueller, a WJ(K)W and WKYC sportscaster and Cleveland Browns color analyst from 1975-95 has passed away. He was also a longtime spokesperson for (Ed) Mullinax Ford and Pat O'Brien Chevrolet. I'm sure anyone growing up in Northeast Ohio remembers the jingle.

It would all depend on when the affiliation agreements are up with these stations and *if* Nexstar uses its power to decline a renewal, or if the other owners decide they don't want to run a network that's now largely owned by a competitor. If Nexstar uses "plan A", that could possibly cause some antitrust issues even if the station is good to go as a subchannel...it all could hinge upon market share if Nexstar swoops in to take what's theirs and make their slice of the pie too much....

The key word here is "ownership" of the property, so it would be Gray Television's to do as they please. I imagine they've been leasing Reserve Square since the big switch to CBS and move of both stations from Shaker Heights and Parma... Malrite probably made a killing in the 90s to sell the old WUAB site to a developer. It became an Office Max when they were an up-and-coming retailer headquartered in Cleveland, and Parmatown Mall was still a draw to shoppers. Most TV stations prefer to own their property, and many have done so for decades... What was old is new again, as WOIO and WUAB could very well move out of Cleveland and back in to the suburbs...

I've noticed the Tegna "music" creeping into in-show bumpers.....has anyone complained about THAT?

Likely, the affiliation agreements in place will be status quo for now, but when they expire, they could terminate their deals with competitors and help themselves to an instant O&O in any affected market. They would be foolish to drop any "big 4" affiliation, unless their fortunes really tank between now and then. DOOL and DWTS moving to streaming could further accelerate more scripted content leaving broadcast for streaming.

Birmingham is not too far from Huntsville, home of Baron Services, the other major supplier of broadcast weather systems next to IBM (WSI/WeatherCentral/The Weather Company). It was founded by meteorologist Bob Baron, who worked at WAAY and WAFF in the 80s and 90s. WBRC also uses Baron products including their VIPIR radar. WTVA has always punched above its weight for that market size. It's been a trailblazing station going all the way back to its founder, Frank Spain, who literally built the station by hand (the equipment) back in the early days of television. It's good to see Allen Media keeping the station above the pack.

Another Kelly Clarkson replacement for Ellen... WEAR in Pensacola is putting it in Ellen's old timeslot (3pm). WKRG's sister station WFNA ran it in daytime (after WKRG cast it aside for a 4pm newscast) and ran it on WKRG as well late nights after the Late Late Show.

If Larry King was still with us, his infomercials would have higher ratings!

That, and helping out their Gulf Coast stations (WJHG, WALA, WLOX, WVUE) if a tropical storm or hurricane were to strike, especially if one was knocked off the air.

With the return of J-P Dice to WBRC, they will now have SEVEN meteorologists on staff. Likely the most out of any station in the southeast region. https://marketshare.tvnewscheck.com/2022/08/08/wbrc-birmingham-adds-familiar-face-increasing-meteorologists-to-7/ IMHO, they should have stayed at 6, it would matched their channel number. And lest we forget down at 33/40, where one reigns supreme over all...

WNEP is doing what avid fans of the station have done for years.... They're uploading old newscasts of theirs to YouTube, and even featuring them on their OTT feeds! I don't know if "Talkback 16" went back that far, but it would be interesting if it did!

Considering that KVVU did not start doing regular newscasts until 1998... that's a long way from the initial half-hour 10pm show they launched back then. Fox must have lit a fire under them to get a newscast going, because the way Vegas was growing, it was likely one of the largest markets without a Fox station airing news at the time.

That seems to be the new trend emerging at the news-intensive stations that don't have to deal with network programming at the time. WGN Chicago goes from 4am-1pm central. Any other station exceed that time, locally? Only 1 hour of that is devoted to lifestyle programming...Daytime Chicago, from 10-11. Might be a good time filler on some former superstation of theirs, but alas....

That's a very visible location, located next to a Top golf facility and the junction of I-77 and I-480. Hopefully it's something that can put them on-par with the other stations in Cleveland. I believe all of the iHeart stations are in a nearby facility as well. I don't know why they ever decided to move from the WUAB studios that used to be on Day Drive in Parma. Whatever short-term benefit of that site being used for retail space is long gone...

An update...the midday news will be at 11am-noon and Studio 10 will be 2 hours from 9-11am beginning on September 5th.

Fun fact: Perry Sook and Matt Lauer both worked at WOWK in the 80s. Sook was an AE, and Lauer was a news producer. https://www.nexttv.com/news/sook-builds-broadcast-powerhouse-105694 Years later, Sook would own the station through Nexstar's purchase of Bray Cary's West Virginia Media. Maybe NewsNation is holding out for Bill O'Reilly too...maybe as a last ditch effort before pulling the plug?

Million dollar idea here....to fill in the late night hours. Pillow Talk with Mike Lindell!!!! Not only does it give him a platform to spew his views to an interested audience, it's also the perfect opportunity to sell off all of those pillows that all of the other stores cancelled their orders of! You're welcome, Uncle Perry. This will be ratings gold!!!!

Meanwhile, Nexstar is still forcing their affiliates to have their footage credited as "NewsNation" when sent to their respective affiliate news services. Case in point, the deputy who was shot in Clark County, Ohio...the footage was likely shot by WDTN. Will it ever see the light of day on NewsNation itself? Or is it just another way to boost the ego of this "news" operation in it's futile quest for more viewers?

Even better...