tyrannical bastard

Pretty much all of the NBC affiliates were under a contract that expired on December 31st. So there was a timespan of a week or two when the stations were not tied to a deal. Basically the same thing that happened with Nexstar and some of their CBS stations, except that NBC renewed with everyone, and there wasn't a WJMN-like defection that left a station without a network.

If Standard/Apollo wants to play the game Sinclair's been up to, then WATL is the perfect duopoly partner to "share" ownership with WSB. The non-license assets of WXIA can live on WATL and what's left of "WXIA" is simply divested to a third party. What I hope is something comes out of this positively for the Jacksonville market. You have two duopolies controlling all 4 major affiliations while WJXT is all by themselves with the CW on WCWJ.

Should this deal happen and the divestitures be required, this is where Byron Allen could benefit....getting stations like WXIA/WATL, WCNC and WFOX/WJAX. What percentile of ownership is enough to trigger common ownership? While Sarkes Tarzan (with Gray involvement) can have KTVN in Reno alongside Gray's KOLO, WOAI in San Antonio had to be divested to a shell company (High Plains Television) because of then-owner Newport (Providence Equity's) investment in Univision, who had a top 4 station in the market. I don't think the deal is going to be clean at all and there will have to be divestitures even if the stakes are fractional.

Here's the modified lowers that WKRN is using:

Watching some storm coverage from WKRN, it looks like they've modified the lower thirds from the rectangles for each text field to a single two-line lower third. Large bold text on top and regular small text on the bottom. It's in red since it was a weather cut-in. I'm curious to see if the rest of the package has been modified. The similar lower thirds that Gray launched at some of their stations (like WBTV)...I wonder if Nexstar tweaked the package because of this? I also noticed that the time/temp bug looks VERY similar to the one implemented at WSMV and their other clones (the former Meredith stations). Who launched first, the original WSMV package that was hubbed or the KOIN/WKRN package?

Clearly, many of these stations are in places where Gray is stuck on VHF, and they have acted on making these UHF repeaters for the benefit of their fringe or underserved viewers who had extreme trouble picking up their signal before. And seeing as how one of the stations is licensed in one market and the translator is located in another, it's entirely possible to see these stations pack up and move, and change their status accordingly with the FCC. With this Panama City pickup, it would serve the Destin-Fort Walton Beach area greatly as a repeater for WALA, since Okaloosa County is part of the Mobile-Pensacola-FWB market. The dual Fox affiliates both on Channel 9 from both Mobile and Panama City makes this area grossly underserved. Unless they want to move either "My 7" or the CW to this feed, they were fortunate enough to move off of VHF to a UHF signal post-transition.

With all of the moves Gray is making moving their stations off VHF to UHF.... I have to wonder if this is truly for trying to improve their signals in their markets (especially for 3.0 purposes) ...or if they are trying to reduce cap space by dumping the full-value VHF allocations? In the markets where they are stuck on VHF with little chance of moving, at least they're making attempts to fill out the holes in the affected markets by establishing low-powered repeaters...

Good old WNEP. For all of the love the music gets across Northeastern and ALL of Central Pennsylvania... They still get the callers who can't stand when the lottery numbers come on...

After looking into what Gray has done in Meridian and Hattiesburg (repeating VHF WDAM and WTOK on low-powered UHF stations in the metro area with future streams on the feed) It seems entirely possible that Gray is considering doing the same with WALA and W31FB-D. Once the sale closes with the group of Lowcountry 34 acquisitions mentioned above, they'll likely change the COL to something local and issue new call letters as an -LD. There''s another -LD in Destin that's not owned by Lowcountry, but by another entity called Edge Spectrum. Destin and Fort Walton are out of range of WALA and also WPGX, which both transmit on channel 9. Establishing a repeater out there would provide over-the-air access to WALA and Fox programming.

It seems there should be some separation between Mission and Nexstar carriage agreements. Sinclair tying deals to their sidecars necessitated separate deals that were entered into with each station owner group. Because this ties into programming, that is the legal tie to the licensee on how the station is being "programmed". Hopefully, these carriage deals with Altice/Optimum/Suddenlink are either a coincidence or grandfathered into a prior arrangement, and not some form of collusion between Nexstar and it's sidecars. There have been separate disputes where Nexstar got dropped and Mission stayed on a provider, and vice versa.

Oddly enough, WAVE competitor WHAS used a similiar logo for years, until the end of the Belo era when the "11" was taken out of the circle. If Tegna ever rebooted one of their old logos, this one might look good on them now.

If this does come to pass, I wonder if Fox would be interested in selling MyNetworkTV to Sinclair. It's not much of anything aside from Dateline reruns and the like, and Sinclair was a major partner in their launch. If Sinclair tried the NewsNation approach to it, they would succeed much more and have much better reach than Nexstar does with NN itself.

At least it wasn't something like this..... (which actually applies since this is how state routes are signed in Kentucky)

It's a fantastic reboot of their old-time logo. I think it's going to be the next design trend as stations resurrect and re-boot their heritage branding because of how homogeneous and "networked" broadcast affiliates have become. WKBN doing what they did a decade ago was another great example of using their heritage "WKBN" sign as part of their logo.

They could be move-ins to adjacent markets, especially if Gray has some coverage holes to fill in the fringes of WGCL, WALB, WRDW, WTOC, or even WTVM/WLTZ or WSFA. W31FB-D is licensed to Eastabuchie, MS which is in the Hattiesburg-Laurel market (and just south of WDAM's studios and transmitter), yet the station's transmitter is just outside of Stapleton, Alabama, almost a hundred miles away and firmly in the Mobile-Pensacola market. A longshot....could Gray be using low powered stations in Macon to relay WPCH, to make it a "SuperStation" again? It seems OTT may be the way to go there.

One of the Florence, SC stations could be used to repeat WMBF, As a digital-only sign-on, their signal never reached Florence as it was too close to another station on Channel 32 at the time, one of the SCETV stations. W31FB-D already has a licensed signal and construction permit that's moved their signal to Baldwin County, Alabama, in the vicinity of the other full-powered stations serving the Mobile/Pensacola area. Both contours are oriented to serve the Mobile area. This could ether be a UHF repeater or 3.0 simulcast of WALA. They were the only station (under Meredith) not to participate in the adoption of 3.0 in the market.

Looking at the schedule, they still air The Ernest Angley Hour and a double run of Our Grace Family (produced by Grace Cathedral) at 10am/pm weekdays, as well as on Sundays at 11am/pm, with an additional airing of Our Grace Family preceding Angley's show at 10:30am/pm, The rest appears to be BUZZR content. And the only traces of in-house religious programming on the main WBNX channel is a 2:30am/8:30am airing of the same two shows above on Sundays. WBNX, with its dearth of programming that no one else wants in Cleveland, is what's likely keeping the church solvent, and if the distributors are desperate enough, they're probably offering WBNX a steal on program rates, and if they're REALLY desperate, could they be paying them just to clear programs in the market?

Didn't they used to have a 9am extension of "Better Mornings Atlanta?". The reset button has been hit there so many times there's no telling when this was, even if it was only a few years back....

And after a day and a half, a deal has been reached. https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/disney-youtube-tv-renewal-1235138299/ Best news of all, all of the affected customers are still getting a $15 credit on their next bill!

YouTubeTV was the first OTT provider to pretty much cover the country with Big 4 network coverage. The only gaps were in very small markets, and even then, notable gaps were filled with either a network feed (mostly by ABC), adjacent affiliates (in Zanesville, Ohio where neighboring WBNS and "Fox 28" round out the market with WHIZ), and nearby O&Os (Alpena, MI gets WMAQ Chicago). The only hodgepodge determined by group is CW and MyNetwork stations. Sinclair has most of those covered, where Gray does not (CW legacy stations before Quincy since they had CW access). Nexstar has none, not even WGN (but WPIX was one when they were briefly owned by Scripps). There are still loopholes to get their newscasts in an area, especially when the owner has a FOX or CW station in the market. Mostly Sinclair, with their ABC/FOX combos. Nexstar stations are the most SOL right now since they are still in the dark ages with OTT coverage via the news apps like NewsON and VUit. Everyone else is pretty well-covered if they have issues getting an antenna signal from their local ABC station.

It should. Google is well within their ability to black out the network content on these stations. There are plenty of shows that are blacked out because of the lack of "digital rights" to carry them. A notable example a few weeks ago was when CBS's airing of Rudolph was unavailable. Even James Spann of ABC 33/40 chimed in. Keep in mind the viewers have even more reason to be incensed since this is Alabama and that team is at it....AGAIN, for like the 40th time.

This includes ABC affiliates too, not just the O&O stations.

I don't think either station has a choice. If he's a registered candidate, and buys the time, and the ads meet all of the requirements, they have to air the spots. Not doing so would get them in hot water especially if a challenger is also advertising their candidacy.

And move all of the "murder porn" to TruTV....whatever that network is.... They should have never cast off the CourtTV brand, and now it's in Katz/Scripps hands. And like HLN, it also airs Forensic Files every now and then! Had it been a decade earlier, Adult Swim could have gotten it's own network too, instead of being half of Cartoon Network. But back to CNN, it needs a reset, and sadly, it may take another merger or divestiture to do that. NewsNation is trying to make their own mark, and is failing miserably on the ashes of Superstation WGN.

Call me crazy, but could the new CNN+ be the eventual replacement for CNN itself? With all of the problems that CNN has incurred over the past decade, it could be a "fresh start" for them. Put all of the investment into the new standalone service and let CNN wither away over time. One day, when CNN is a shell of itself (like HLN is now), Plus takes over what is left and CNN is new again. It gives them a chance to re-negoitiate carriage so they can get the a-la-carte customers and those who still have "Pay TV" however they get it.