tyrannical bastard

It does seem curious that SagamoreHill is getting these LPs in markets they don't own stations, but my theory is that these stations could be used for 3.0, by contracting with the other stations in the market. This way, you don't have the "shoehorning" of the 1.0 signals when a channel goes 3.0. Plus, given the early and experimental nature of ATSC 3.0, put them on a low power stick close to the main population center. Usually, these signals are adequate to cover most of the population in an area.

There are still some distribution holes for Antenna TV. Making it OTT (like Sinclair and Katz/Scripps have done with their diginets) would certainly fill in some holes, and given the programming that it airs it should be relatively easy to do rights-wise. Nexstar just needs to go OTT, like yesterday. Their stations, networks, and digital efforts.

This should have been an OTT thing from the start. Cable is dying faster than the subscribers who are dropping it. And whatever efforts Nexstar is doing digitally (like their digital desk at WFLA in Tampa) are being buried on the web. Even as a last resort, there's Antenna TV, now wouldn't that be the ultimate oxymoron if they end up on cable . Even then, the shows they air are mostly available 24/7 on places like Pluto TV...

I know here in the Mobile-Pensacola area, TCT recently purchased WFBD licensed to Destin (serving the eastern fringe), and recently put a feed on WPAN's .2 channel which is owned by another party. In the past, WFBD leased their airtime to a company (Blab TV) which now runs on WPAN's primary channel, and actually did so prior to the sign-on of WFBD. HC2 has two other low-powered stations in the market, but they broadcast mostly useless programming, aside from Azteca America.

With the older 20/20 set, was that the first one introduced for the permanent re-tooling of the show following the disastrous original concept? The original concept only lasted one episode, and Hugh Downs hosted the rest of the season on a scaled-down version of the original concept and set. Here's the original set and the setup Hugh Downs used for the remaining episodes...

Some of these Gray pickups could be 3.0 related. As for the ones in the Greenville-Greenwood DMA, it wouldn't surprise me to see Gray pick up an affiliation or two since Cox owns the entire market. NBC being the likeliest since it's low power, and adjacent to WMC in Memphis and WLBT in Jackson, two stations that could be used to relay NBC to the market via Gray. As for the two stations in Jackson, their NBC affiliation is owned by SagamoreHill...the same people who SSAed themselves to Gray in Columbus, GA with WLTZ. Enter WMC possibly again to take over these stations.... Speaking of relaying Gray, does KAIT's NBC subchannel still air some of WMC's newscasts? WMC was the default station there before KAIT also got NBC for the market.

They must have been able to make do since the DTV transition since both WLOX and WVUE didn't waste any time switching back to their UHF allotments due to major problems on their VHF channels they switched back to in digital. WLOX has since repacked from 39 to 32, and we saw that WVUE wanted to upp their power earlier on 29.

Looking at the road from Google, the affected interchange is only two lanes wide in each direction. Another such bottleneck exists in Mobile, Alabama where I-10 goes down to 2 lanes each direction in the George Wallace Tunnel under the Mobile River (a major port) and on the connecting bayway, a 7.5 mile elevated bridge that crosses the northern edge of Mobile Bay. Replacing that has been a nightmare itself, as the last proposal to build a bridge and widened bayway would have levied a toll of almost $6 each way for passenger cars, and it would have been an auto-toll thing with transponders and toll-by-plate, which would have gouged out even more from unsuspecting drivers. Needless to say, the locals revolted and the idea died quickly. Speaking of Mobile, at least WPMI's facility is well away from any major highway. Same with WEAR in Pensacola. In fact, the plot of land there was large enough for WEAR to rebuild an enlarged station in 1994 behind their orignal studios. As for further consolidation in the market, don't give them any more ideas. From what I heard, WPMI lost 7 employees and WEAR lost 12.....

Here's the plan from TXDOT. As you can see, the proposed location of I-10 and it's access roads goes RIGHT THROUGH the existing station. https://ftp.txdot.gov/pub/txdot/get-involved/bmt/i10-us69-interchange/091719-schematic-liberty-7th.pdf TXDOT should pay them handsomely for their eminent domain, but sadly, Sinclair looks like they would rather cash out the market instead of serving as a badly-needed local second provider of news and information. The iHeart Radio stations are next door too, and the access road will wipe them out as well.

What could go down at KFDM just goes to show you why Sinclair is in the predicament it's in..... Not only did they take over KBTV (thanks to Nexstar selling it out to Deerfield) They made a major expansion at their facility about 5 years ago... (before....in 2013) (During construction....in 2016). which is located RIGHT on the access road by a major junction of I-10.... Then came the "move" of KBTV to KFDM, consolidating their grip over both stations..... And now this. What a waste. I'll bet you the old KBTV space at the mall has been leased. and the original KJAC/KBTV studios were destroyed by fire after KBTV switched to FOX.

And the hits just keep coming for "KBTV" and KFDM...... https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2021/3/15/sinclair-to-hub-news-in-texas They would have to start pre-taping WXLV's newscasts or drop them again, unless they have another station to do them out of... Not good news for a market with essentially two stations doing news for 4 channels, and now two of them potentially getting hubbed away....

THIS email sent to FTVLive pretty much sums what is wrong and what could work going forward for NewsNation... There are several huge reasons that News Nation is failing, in my opinion. First.. the approach is all wrong. Stories from the Nexstar stations need to be local stories that can be easily adapted to national interest. It's all in the writing. You have to write those local lead-in's, NATIONALLY. You have to structure them differently. To a good imaginative writer, this is not difficult. If the news writer or producer is enthusiastic about it, the magic words are there. You simply have to make that local story in Peoria, interesting to people in Raleigh-Durham. You can only do that in the writing. You can also make a difference by re-editing the package, taking out some of the local references. It is NOT difficult. Second... the anchors are all wrong for that show. Frankly, they are boring, seemingly uninterested in any story they're reading. Part of it are the words they're reading, but most of it is just flat deliveries. They just do not seem comfortable. Third... timing is everything. News Nation has changed time on several occasions. It's not finding an audience because people never know where to find IT. Fourth is the news approach. The world does not need another Fox News anymore than it needs another CNN. It does need a national newscast that is free of any political coverage. Yeah, I said it. Who cares what's going on in Washington right now? Who cares about Democrats and Republicans and what they think? In a political season, yes. Do political stories. Outside of a political season, can them. Nobody cares. There are other subtle changes that News Nation needs to make, that won't get made. I crossed News Nation off my watch list after the second or third show. I haven't watched it since, and won't. I also haven't even bothered to watch Sinclair's National Desk. In my opinion, they are both and equally gigantic wastes of valuable viewer time. And a way to drive viewership? Make a half-hour or hour long show to syndicate on their stations. It could follow the "PM/Evening Magazine" model. Have a bank of stories that are chosen and promoted, and that drive viewership to the main channel. It could be localized in the larger markets, especially if it's a story that originated locally or in the region. And if all else fails, see if CNN still has the "jukebox" they used for Headline News in the 90s. Call me old fashioned, sometimes I just want to know what's going on at a random time.... And when HLN jumped the shark, the last days of the All News Channel was a good watch. They essentially did what Nexstar should have been doing all along. Using THEIR stations to present content to a national audience.

Sound like a frame sync or two is out of whack. Is the time/temp thing sponsored? There's your answer. Sadly but true, they probably only care that the "spot ran" instead of it working like it should.

Perhaps if Nexstar focused their strategy outside of prime time, they may get more viewers. Shepard Smith is likely bombing for the same reason on CNBC.

Before Nexstar grew to the size it is today, WDHN was an outlier, being very distant from the legacy Nexstar stations. (Even Morris sold them to Nexstar!) WMBB's divestiture from the Hoak/Gray merger changed that, giving them a neighboring market, and then the Media General merger really bolstered their presence in Alabama and the region. Gray & Raycom have had a dominating presence in the area, and has gotten even stronger as Gray has traded up in Dothan and the weaker Raycom stations (WDFX, WTXL, WPGX, WFXL) have been divested. With WALA being up for sale, it really is the last piece in the puzzle if Gray wants to pursue Meredith for either the stations they want to sell, or even the entire group. Now back to the topic at hand....when will WVUE get new graphics? I really hope they get a hybrid look like WBRC got. It's a powerhouse station that now dominates the New Orleans market, plus being home of Investigate.TV and Lee Zurik providing stories for the entire group...

I wonder if Perry Sook had any idea of Sean Compton's motives when this idea was launched.

The seeds of WGN (America's) decline were planted long ago, and are mostly rooted in the changing times of cable television. The big draw of WGN to begin with was the Cubs/White Sox & Bulls telecasts. Then the sports world got too expensive, and these games began slowly slipping away. Also, WGN itself as a SuperStation was just happenstance, since it was another company that distributed the signal nationally, and SyndEx took some of the local flavor out of it. Flash forward to around 2008 and the privatization of Tribune by Sam Zell, that's when the deliberate destruction began. The "eye" logo and the antics of Randy Michaels coupled with a long and twisted trip into bankruptcy. Then came the "original programs" that came and went, and until Sincl....I mean Nexstar took over, WGN was a shell of its former self. I'm sure had Sinclair gotten WGN America, they would have done the same thing, but would have been a little less restrained about the slant than Nexstar was. It's just a boring time right now, given all we've been through over the past year or four.....

Even the New York Times summed up all of the issues facing NewsNation, from the ratings woes, involvement of Bill Shine, and recent staff departures. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/07/business/media/newsnation-cable-news.html

Still no weekend news. But they have added a weekday 5am edition of Wake Up Wiregrass, as well as an hour-long 11am show called WDHN Daytime (since Noon CT is ABC's GMA3 hour).

Keep in mind that Dothan is market 170-something, so that alone plays a part on how much they can spend on an upgrade. I'm amazed at how far WDHN has come over the past several years, to the point it's finally added morning news and taking over the news for WDFX.

Much of that was the end of the "News Central" experiment, which actually gutted some existing newsrooms before (like WPGH), but added newscasts to their other netlet stations with content from Baltimore. WLFL did shutter theirs around the same time....were they ever NewsCentral-ized?

The ones to watch are in San Antonio and Mobile/Pensacola. San Antonio is easier since it's all in one place, despite the recent addition of WXLV's newscasts. Mobile and Pensacola each got a taste of it last year thanks to COVID shutting down each station. WPMI did WEAR's newscasts for a few days when they had an exposure and the opposite happened when WPMI had a case...WEAR produced the news for both stations and WPMI personnel filled in where they could have in the field. It's probably safe to say that the days of a market Mobile/Pensacola's size having four distinct news operations (2 of which Sinclair runs) is numbered.

Cleveland music, radio and TV legend Michael Stanley has passed away at the age of 72. After a very successful music career in Northeast Ohio and a longtime stint on 98.5 WNCX, he also co-hosted WJW's version of PM Magazine with Jan Jones in the late 80's & early 90s. https://fox8.com/news/cleveland-music-legend-michael-stanley-dies-at-72/

I hope Sinclair has their direct-to-consumer model ready to roll when baseball season starts, because that's the ONLY way cord-cutters and those dumping cable will be able to watch their games. I could see some sort of resolution eventually for this to some degree, but this guarantees them viewership and maybe some additional subscriber fees to start filling in the massive hole they've dug themselves into. Even if full capacity levels won't be realized for a while in the stadiums and arenas, the more fans and eyeballs they can get, the better.

I believe these graphics are also being used on the WRGX newscasts as well (with the News 4 branding). They simulcast in SD on one of the WTVY subchannels in addition to their main WRGX low-power channel.