tyrannical bastard

Ah yes....now I remember. There was a good Entertainment Weekly article about it in 1998 right when the show was straddling 3rd place with CBS...

Deepest condolences to WALA's recently retired Bob Grip, on the loss of his wife Marie from Pancreatic Cancer. Even WKRG sent their condolences on their facebook page. Before coming to WALA (and a stint in Virginia Beach), Grip anchored and reported at WKRG in the mid to late 70s...

IIRC, ABC started GMA from their entertainment division and moved it to their news division at some point in the 90s. Was it when Shelley Ross overhauled the show in 1999 after the failure of Kevin Newman & Lisa McRee (replacing Joan Lunden & Charles Gibson)....Charlie being brought back to anchor with Diane Sawyer.... GMA was largely based on WEWS's The Morning Exchange....ah a time when networks listened to their affiliates and used their expertise to create programming...

(insert WWL adding the show to their station finally comment here) It's too bad the affiliates can't protest like they did in the 90s and 2000s and take back most of the 7am hour. I had so much hope for CBS in the morning, but with this latest chapter, it's the end of The Early Show all over again, and virtually any CBS morning show incarnation that's preceded it. The last thing we need is another clone of GMA and Today...something that CBS has failed at many times before.

While not TV related....this is BIG news out of New Orleans, and proof that good old fashioned demand can overcome the stupidity and short-sightness of a lousy owner.... https://www.nola.com/news/2019/05/owners-of-the-new-orleans-advocate-buy-nolacom-the-times-picayune.html The Manships created a New Orleans edition of the Advocate in response to the T-P going to a 3-day schedule. Eventually the T-P relented and went back to publishing 7 days a week. The Manships ended up selling the Advocate to Georges Media, while retaining WBRZ and KRGV. Even as the T-P tried to undo the damage, the new Advocate pushed them into 2nd place in New Orleans. Now if only someone can make the other Advance papers (and clusters) great again. I know newspapers are a dying industry, but the decent companies are still putting out a quality product while those that slash and burn are getting wha'ts coming to them for their cost-cutting...

If WJW gets them, they could always play the KPLR card, either with a 8 or 9pm news (or both!)

It seems like it should be the other way around. After seeing the beating that Panama City took after Michael, Denver seems like a much better place to house a broadcast hub than Jacksonville...

Since WBNX has so many subchannels, if it is seized and sold to another party, it could be run as a turnkey operation without the main 55.1 (and likely 55.2) feeds. The benefit of Tegna or Scripps getting it would be a tool to compete against WJW at 10pm and even in the morning. If WJW gets it, that's out of the question (unless they pull a KPLR...)

Here's a link to the foreclosure case.... http://204.126.123.151/ssfweb/detail.aspx The plaintiff already owns a parcel of land that has a Taco Bell on it nearby, and has the mineral rights to a vacant piece of land across the street from Grace Cathedral under their ownership. Beck Energy Partners provided the loan to Winston Broadcast Network and is holding them in default. Given the neighborhood, I doubt the city of Cuyahoga Falls would allow for drilling for oil and gas, but the vacant land was once part of Northhampton Township, which was merged into Cuyahoga Falls over 30 years ago. As for WBNX, they could always flip it over to the Grace Cathedral entity, but it is non profit and may require WBNX to change their commercial status with the FCC...... translation, all Angley, all the time! (Could the subchannels remain if this happened?) Or a third party buys the land and flips the license to one of the other Cleveland stations....they may have no desire in running a TV station and could put in something else at the site....

WBN = Winston Broadcast Network, the Ernest Angley Ministries subsidiary that has operated WBNX-TV. Not sure where the Winston came from....was it Ernest's favorite brand of cigarettes before he found salvation? Also, the buffet (and the entire complex including the unfinished concrete tower) goes back to the Rex Humbard ministry.

We have a sheriff's sale! (sorta) https://www.ohio.com/news/20190427/former-cathedral-buffet-in-cuyahoga-falls-headed-for-foreclosure-sale What this means for WBNX itself is unclear. The article mentions only the buffet itself, but the entire building (and land parcel) houses WBNX's studios and offices. The cathedral is a separate property and the unfinished tower and a small piece of land connecting it to the main road is owned by Krieger Holdings, who owns a farmers market in Cuyahoga Falls and sells tower space to cell phone companies. If only the buffet portion is affected, WBNX would be safe, for now. They do have an inordinate number of subchannels they could continue on with if they are forced out of the building and have to set up shop at their transmitter in Parma. And the telecasts could all either move to the cathedral itself as well as any operations of WBNX....(IIRC the 90 and 9 Club is in the studio building while all of the services are at the Cathedral next door) But it would be great if Tegna or Scripps steps up and acquires channel 55. Since WKYC has some Indians telecasts, it would almost be like a re-incarnation of the good old WUAB we all grew up with....

As expected... https://www.wkrg.com/news/mobile-county/mel-showers-retiring-from-6pm-and-10pm-newscasts/1954122762?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_WKRG&fbclid=IwAR2wuqUtQyQC0WGMxNR3seZvN-4LBvb0oJk75HEJ_eYfbQaPO18i8H4nR2A He will still be an Anchor Emeritus after May....and Peter Albrecht will add 6 and 10pm to his anchoring duties. And to think that Peter was one of the ones let go from NBC 15 12 years ago.....

Also, Cherish Lombard returns to Mobile to anchor WFNA's 9pm newscast (and possibly other WKRG ones) starting Thursday. She come from WKRN in Nashville and before that, she was a reporter at WALA and was the original co-host of Studio 10. She was also a longtime DJ on WABB 97.5 before moving to TV.

After 50 years at WKRG, It looks like the time is coming for Mel Showers.....

I'm sure eventually, IF Sinclair prevails, they will keep the FOX names on the channels as long as they have to, and likely change them to something else like Stadium or ASN.... Sinclair Sports perhaps? This could be the beginning of a major shift, now that FOX is out of the game, and New Fox doesn't want any part of it. But the regulatory headwinds against them and their penny pinching...er...inbred content will keep them on the sidelines. They could have out-muscled the networks they affiliated with, but that ship sailed away when they blew it with the Tribune deal....

Well...we'll have to see if gravity holds during May sweeps. Any gains 19 will see will probably only be from the declines of 3 and 5, and that's if there isn't a larger overall viewership decline amongst all other Cleveland stations....

With the relaunch, WOIO is the first former Raycom station to be available on SBTV. As of now, they still have a standalone Roku app (in the Raycom format updated with the new logo) and WOIO is still available on livestream and NewsOn (with the Cleveland 19 logo) Time will tell if they stay on NewsOn, but I believe they're going to stick with SBTV.

FTVlive's take....New look, same crap https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2019/4/9/look-look-same-crap I'd have to agree with him. You can change the graphics all you want, it's the content that needs to be fixed....and the hand held shot HAS. GOT. TO. GO....NOW! But even a crummy newscast can be made just a little better with a decent look, music and presentation. But it does seem Gray is fixated on research that chases their ideal viewer while the station that wins just covers the news, plain and simple.

Tiffani Tucker is sort of like a low-budget version of Romona Robinson. Being a who's who of poached Cleveland TV personalities alone wasn't going to work, so they all got slashed from the budget by the time they realized they've doped down the product too much... At least they weren't this desperate...

Ah yes....the story that actually put WOIO on top of the ratings....that one time....

And 19 News is going straight to the top with stories like this!

It feels like another omen that Meredith will soon be swallowed up by Gray now that WOIO has this package. The news supers still have the same layout and feel of the old Raycom look, but in the new colors. But it looks good so far! They still need a new set since the other one is so washed out by the lights and cramped, and I HATE the hand-held camera in the studio....they can't put it on a stedicam rig? But it's good to have the "Action" back in "19 News!"

This and the OSI theme lasting this long is a cost saving move for sure. Kind of like WKRG keeping the old Media General JDK theme as long as they did... (Someone had a good quote about a station owner keeping something around forever...please chime in...)

As dominant as WJW is, it desperately needs a fresh coat of paint. The set has lasted longer than their former O&O counterparts along with the graphics which have largely survived through Local TV into Tribune... It's a far cry from their best look, IMO, the 2002 Giant Octopus package with Arnold's Fusion. I think if WJW ever changes, you're not going to have the riots in the streets that occurred when WPVI tweaked MCTYW. If the ratings have held up despite all the retirements (cough cough Dick Goddard), a fresh coat of paint won't hurt them. Back to WOIO....they have a chance to finally steal the thunder from 3 and 5 and show Cleveland (and the rest of the country) that Gray is serious about their largest market station and just covering the news in a nice package is going to go a lot further than all the gimmickry that Tegna (and Scripps to an extent) have resorted to....

...or CBS Local. It sounds so much better than TITP and gives them just a little more edge they need back. I think both companies went "all in" with Stephen Arnold a few years back. There are a couple exceptions like WSAZ, which still has Gari's NBC Collection (which oddly enough, replaced Arnold's Signature in the great SESAC disaster of 2006)