tyrannical bastard

Found another station that also used the same set WMC used until 1986 and WEWS used until 1981. KTVK in Phoenix. Back then, it was owned by Ernest McFarland's group (later MAC America Communications), whose family and heirs would run the station until its sale to Belo in 1999. The intro and music is much like the ones used by several of the Outlet stations (WCMH, KSAT) and Storer's WAGA. I have to now wonder if the set was another designer outside of Scripps and the package used was syndicated at the time.

Sooner or later, WSYX is going to become the #1 station in the market. Because Sinclair has been pouring money and talent into the station for years, while WCMH has been trying to recover from Media General, and now WBNS is just another hopeless Tegna clone. I have to wonder if Jym Ganahl really retired from WCMH.....because it seemed he came right back to WSYX when his non-compete expired.

Well darn.....here I was hoping they would select someone else other than Nexstar to run their station But really, should this be a surprise to anyone? We saw this coming a mile away.

Should be fixed now

Remember the anchor who thrust his side-hustle in to the spotlight by defying state orders not to open his dine-in restaurant back in May? Well guess who's been off the air for the past month after catching COVID-19?

It's a Devlin job, who did many of their sets going back to when they first went HD, as well as some second-generation ones like WSYX. Love the hybrid on the graphics, it looks so much better than the Helvetica. WOIO would look so much better with those lowers.

It was LIN that dropped that ball. It lowered the value of LIN as a whole by over 100 million dollars. It seems that if the network even has the sense that the affiliate is going to balk, they take their ball and go to who wants to p(l)ay. CBC Raleigh likely did the same, and CBS would rather align with a major broadcaster (who was about to be taken over by Nexstar) and scale up. Plus. NBC was more than willing to finally upgrade their presence after being "cursed" for decades on WRDU/WPTF/WRDC and later WNCN....

Not to mention the fringes of the Birmingham DMA were also their own markets...the western side was Tuscaloosa, and the other side was Anniston. 33 was the CBS affiliate for Tuscaloosa, and 40 was the CBS for Anniston. This was another factor in WBMG's doormat status as their own signal sucked in the Birmingham area at the time, and the fringes could watch these stations more reliably on their side of town. Well before WBRC got Fox, WDBB put on a 9pm newscast in the 80s, and was the ORIGINAL Fox affiliate for the Birmingham area, while being a Tuscaloosa station. They later signed on WNAL in Gadsden as a satellite (now WPXH), which almost became the eastern half of Albritton's operation. Neither station penetrated Birmingham well, so it eventually went to Birmingham-based WTTO, who bought WDBB, moved the license to Bessemer, and made it a satellite of WTTO, as well as relaying on WNAL.

Just curious....does Talkback 16 have any regular callers? (like with Paul Finebaum and Phyllis from Mulga?) ...or do they all seem to sound like the same grumpy old curmudgeons?

Cue the Talkback Feedback segment about this in 3......2......1........ (BEEP!)

At this point, it's engrained in the viewers' heads, no matter what channel it's actually on. Allbritton could have requested a cable channel across the market (like what WCNC did with "6" years back, and pretty much the entire Ft. Myers market sans WINK), but that ship has sailed. Birmimgham is just one of those markets that let APT/PBS get two of the good allocations....channel 10 (Birmimgham) and 7 (Mt. Cheaha), leaving only Channel 6 and 13. When FOX moved to 6, ABC was relegated to 33/40 and 58, and now its gaggle of subchannels strewn over WABM, WDBB, and for whatever reason they can get away with being on the former WJSU. All the while, the doormat "42" has finally overcome itself, and after an identity crisis before Nexstar got them, back to good old CBS 42.

Now that I"m reading James Spann's post about the 33/40 anniversary, he is grateful for all Allbritton has done for the station and his ability to broadcast severe weather. I have to wonder.....how he feels about Sinclair...

It will be interesting to see if/when the paperwork is up. SagamoreHill may simply be wanting out of the operations side of WLTZ and the "non-license assets" may be up for sale, and the result could be like with most of SagamoreHill's other stations, where they are the licensee, and someone else runs it. Market share could be an issue though. Mission seems to be on a buying spree as of late, could they take WXTX off of American Spirit's hands? That gives WRBL a sister station.

It will be interesting to see if the CBS station in Lake Charles will be a part of this transaction. During the strike of Hurricane Laura in the Lake Charles area, they were doing very primitive coverage using webpages of traffic cams and weather radar. It also looked like they get their forecasts from WLTZ in Columbus (same lower thirds) prior to the storm knocking them and the other stations off the air. Not to dive too deep into speculation territory, WLTZ could be a repeater for WSFA in Montgomery, giving the Alabama side of the market an NBC station that airs things at the right time for them (since Columbus and Georgia are in Eastern and the Alabama side is Central time)

Today marks the 24th anniversary of the launch of ABC 33/40 in Birmingham. At the time, it was a merger of WCFT TV-33 in Tuscaloosa and WJSU TV-40 in Anniston, coupled with a low-powered station in Birmingham, WBMA-LP. This also merged the two markets into Birmingham, and eventually made WBMG (now WIAT) the sole CBS affiliate for the now-combined market. WNAL was supposed to be the "second" station, but that went to WJSU instead....they served as the CBS affiliate for the remaining tenure of Anniston-Gadsden's time as a separate market. Allbritton would continue to run the stations until their merger with Sinclair. "33" and "40" were sold off to Howard Stirk at the last second after Sinclair tried some antics to "own" them outright, but decided to give up the licenses unless a buyer was found. Today, the station is avaiable on WBMA-LD, WABM-DT2, WDBB-DT2, and is still simulcast on Stirk-owned WGWW-DT2 (the former WJSU or "40") Several staff members are still there today, including anchor Brenda Ladun, and of course, the venerable James Spann who had departed WBRC for their switch to Fox as part of this launch.

MoffettNathanson to New Fox. "....dump the broadcast network." https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/252665/fox-should-dump-broadcast-net-says-wall-street-analyst/ New Fox is pretty diluted as it is, since the entertainment assets are now part of Disney. It's basically Fox Network, Fox News, and Fox Sports. The latter will be even lesser if/when Sinclair rebrands the RSNs they bought.

Tonight, WJW weekend anchor and longtime I-Team investigator Bill Sheil anchored his final newscast after 21 years at FOX 8. Prior to that, he worked at WEWS. https://fox8.com/news/bill-sheil-retires-after-21-year-career-at-fox-8/

I get what you're saying....if the SSA/JSA has gone on this long, it could be carried on to Mission should that sale go through, plus getting all of the "shells" under a single owner. Youngstown is just one of those places that could cut their presence by surrendering one of their FCC licenses, especially given the long-merged state of WKBN and WYTV going all the way back to New Vision and Parkin Television. Dayton is another place where Vaughan and Nexstar share a single allocation (when WBDT's spectrum was auctioned and Nexstar holds the channel). It's a moot point (unless Nexstar wants to shave off some market share), but it could save Nexstar some extra legwork if they didn't have to deal with an SSA partner in these places, since there's nothing really to stop them from dumping an FCC license, unless that triggers a complaint about competition?

In WYTV's case, they are the "host" for WKBN, since their spectrum went away in the spectrum auction. What would be the collateral effects if either "WKBN" or "WYTV" turned in one of their licenses? WYFX is a non-factor, since they're low power. All of the main streams of WKBN, WYTV and WYFX are on WYTV's full-power channel. WYFX has an HD stream of 33.2 (SD on the full-power stick) and other diginets.

The 1993 variant of the set was my favorite, with the "ei8ht is news" being my least favorite. It just goes to show you what some minor refreshes and a few coats of paint can do to a well-built set.

I'm seeing notices airing on WPMI, WJTC and WKRG about having to rescan on August 25th. The latter two stations already repacked in the spectrum auction, so someone is going to be hosting 3.0 in the Mobile/Pensacola market. Too bad WALA isn't a part of it, their VHF signal is a problem for everyone, and it would be nice to have their 1.0 signal easily viewable on a UHF frequency....

If what was said above comes to be true, it would almost be like replacing the prior MG look with the KOIN graphics. Besides WCBD and WSAV, who else in Nexstar (legacy stations) uses the NBC package? By default, WCMH has the best graphics in the market, ever since 10TV came down with the Tegna-itis and all of the Sinclair stuff over at 6/28 we've come to put up with. And Nexstar has really upped the production values on WCMH since taking over from Media General. It may not seem like much, but just by getting Arnold's Guardian and adding the Working 4 You slogan, it's really pepped up the product that's suffered under the neglect by Media General as WSYX and Sinclair have sailed ahead of them.

Sad news out of Panama City, Florida, as COVID-19 has claimed the life of former WMBB General Manager, Bill Byrd. https://www.mypanhandle.com/news/local-news/bay-county-resident-and-former-news-13-general-manager-bill-byrd-passes-away/?fbclid=IwAR2ZbL7qtwyAwTYXqdqJgaJpFg1AY2F1C3jT72xmJ9DNOYKdSFEL_vzhvdo He was a wonderful person who meant so much to those who worked with him, especially those who were just starting in their careers. A manager who took the time to know his employees and make sure that they were able to do their jobs without issues, as well as give them the time and resources to do what needed to be done.

Looks like they are finally moving away from the livestream platform to the Syncbak standard that most of the Gray stations have been using. The former Raycom stations used livestream.

Another passing to report. John Ivanic, who was a reporter/anchor at WCMH until 2007, passed away at the age of 52. https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/remembering-former-nbc4-anchor-john-ivanic/