tyrannical bastard

Cleveland 19 is a mess. Their triple digit-market stations have put on a better product than WOIO has put on post-Action-News. Given Cleveland's size, I would hope that it puts something on the level of WBTV or WVUE. Part of the problem seems to be the number of anchor teams, as they simply have TOO MANY ANCHORS to begin with! Hopefully they can hit the reset button in the post-Dick Goddard era and put a little more ACTION into their product. As former "Dirty Dining" reporter Scott Taylor used to say....they need to "CLEEEAN UP!!!!!"

I think had it not been for Dave Ward and Marvin Zindler, KTRK would have remained a non-factor in Houston. I guess Dave Ward didn't have a "lifetime" contract like his former co-worker. And it was Dave Ward who hired Zindler in the first place!

Gray is looking to buy some low-power stations from DTVAmerica in Enterprise, AL (2 stations) ; Panama City, FL (2 stations) ; Bowling Green, KY; College Station, TX; Sherman, TX and Rockford, IL. http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/96676/station-trading-roundup-1-deal-720000 Enterprise could be used as a repeater for WRGX-LD...or even a standalone CW or MyNetwork station since WTVY covers the market decently. Panama City could be a stand-alone CW or My7, since they already have WECP-LD and WJHG. Bowling Green could be a stand-alone FOX that's currently a .2 on WBKO. Rockford? They only have Justice and AntennaTV on WIFR, so who knows what purpose this would serve, unless they poach ABC or FOX from Nexstar... College Station could be a low-powered CW station, and Sherman could be their FOX (and maybe one of Lockwood's affilations from KTEN)

And as a sidenote, it's good to see the Columbus Dispatch caring about television happenings other than their former sister station... http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2016/07/07/0707-jym-ganahl.html

Wow....another major departure soon at WCMH. I certainly hope the upcoming Nexstar takeover wasn't a deciding factor. Jym is a fixture in Columbus and at WCMH. At least they still have Ben Gelber and Bob Nunnally. Either one could be promoted to the chief slot and they would still have four meteorologists post Jym.

I started a thread in Graphics, but the "top 9" graphic is more based on the WKRG package they are currently using.

Apparently, WFNA CW55 has started a FOURTH 9pm newscast...by way of WKRG. The difference is that it is Pensacola-centric and has resurrected the old WNCN/WSPA/WJAR/WSLS graphics package. Could it be the end of the current look on WKRG? Ill have to admit, I was VERY pre-occupied the week the news came out, but WSVNFan was on top of it with his blog... https://changingnewscasts.wordpress.com/2016/06/16/wfna-air-first-ever-local-news-produced-wkrg/

WSB's Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns caused a stir on the Gulf Coast after reporting on several beaches being closed by high levels of toxic bacteria in the water... http://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/no-swim-advisory-issued-for-florida-panhandle-beaches/372684102 Originally, he reported in one post about it being "flesh eating"...the above report has been updated. Based on the backlash, it sprung WMBB and WEAR into action to dispute the reports... http://www.mypanhandle.com/news/erroneous-reports-cause-swimming-concerns-at-local-beaches http://weartv.com/news/local/chief-meteorologist-allen-strum-no-flesh-eating-bacteria-in-our-waters UPDATE: Even WJHG and Weather God James Spann have taken to social media to set the record straight... Still, it may not be the best weekend to wade in the water on the Gulf Coast...

WKYC also has a good creative team...their work was WORLDS better than the garbage Gannett introduced in 2008. I don't blame them for leading the way if it's working for them. They were also unscathed in the buyouts that swept throughout the entire company.

WKYC has taken some serious liberty in it's use of their graphics/opens and music over the last several months. Here's a promo sample that uses the same music as the intro and most bumpers. The supers and headline bar remain the same, but there's some leeway in other things, especially in the teasers. And at the very end of the newscast, they ditched the TEGNA logo and replaced it with a generic copyright "©2016 WKYC-TV INC" I doubt they're up for sale or going to be up for sale any time soon, but this is the furthesy yet I've seen a TEGNA station stray from their presentarion.

Tallahassee wasn't on this list, but they're probably on a different contract than the other stations. Until the Newport deal, they were the SOLE NBC affiliate for the entire company after ComCorp acquired KETK, and WKEF as well as WICS/WICD flipped from NBC to ABC in 2004 and 2005, respectively. Despite all of the changes around Tallahassee, they're still another KDNL-like station whose only news product comes from their chief competitor, WCTV (for their acquired competition, WTLH on 40.2)

The landmark doppler balls that TV stations own(ed) and used to flaunt in marketing long ago are almost as extinct as helicopters and editorials. Lest we forget the problems of being inside of a "doppler dead zone" And all of the benefits of Doppler 4000 crammed into a concise 3 minutes of promo gold...

When will Meredith ever cut their losses here? I'm thinking CBS still hangs on to WUPA so they can either take back their network one day or buy WGCL....

Adding the former WVMH stations is another .699 percent of reach.

Denver is 1.391 percent of the US by Nielsen's estimates. This should bring Nexstar under the cap when Media General is acquired....

Kelly Jones is leaving WPMI Local 15 in September when her contract is up. They're also adding a lifestyle show called "Gulf Coast Today" and hired a new host, Terra Reeves. http://lagniappemobile.com/jones-decides-make-change-september/ I'm curious to see where this new lifestyle show will end up. They would have to either cancel or cut back some news programming to pull this off if Sinclair is producing the show. Their JSA forced them to cancel their 4:30AM news last year since it put the station over 15 percent of Sinclair-fed programming.

Before WALB added ABC on thieir .2, I think WSB was piped in as their default ABC afflilate. Before WSWG became a semi-satellite, it was a failed ABC station that returned as a WB/UPN affiliate. WFXL was originally a Waitt/Raycom station, but had to be divested when Liberty merged with Raycom. And, WALB was Gray's flagship, and had to be sold Liberty when WCTV was bought because of their city-grade signal contours overlapping, which was a no-no at the time. Even though WSWG pipes in WCTV's newscasts...you would think that WFXL would at least have a fighting chance. But down the road, you have WTWC, the southern equivalent of KDNL, our favorite non-news producing Sinclair station of all time. What caused WTWC to be such a failure over the years? WALB's signal reaching Tallahassee and it being until 1983 that Tallahassee got a NBC station of their own through WTWC. Aside from WEAR (and possibly WPMI), they haven't had too much luck down here running things they've gotten their hands on...

This is Albany, GA....and a former Barrington station. Not helping matters is the 800 pound gorilla WALB with both NBC and ABC; as well as WCTV's semi-satellite WSWG as competition. I'm not even sure they're 16x9. Just up the road in Macon is WGXA which we all know is pumping out beautiful 4x3 SD!

...meanwhile on the spinoff side of things, Gannett is offering $815 million to buy Tribune Publishing. This includes the assumption of $390 million in debt. Even if the sale goes through, the debt load incurred by Gannett will pale in comparison to the debt TEGNA now carries.

Surprisingly, WKYC has been unscathed in this go-around. The only two on-air personalities that come close to the qualifications are longtime sports anchor Jim Donovan and senior correspondent Tom Beres. Many longtime employees have already left in prior years, including the high profile departures of Tim White, Romona Robinson, Mark Nolan, Kim Wheeler and Jeff Maynor. Even reading through Director Frank Macek's blog has no mention of any buyouts or departures... http://wkycdirectorscut.blogspot.com/

The question is.....how does KMYU factor into this? It's almost like a repeater since it serves a separate geographic area and the program streams are identical, aside from the PSIP assignments KUTV is 2.1 on both channels, whereas KMYU is 2.2 on KUTV and 12.1 on KMYU itself. Armstrong Williams will probably swoop in and acquire it and shift the channels to run some diginet on 12.1....

That's encouraging....especially since most stations after they've been "Nex-starr'd" have lost their web streams.

...and Melissa Swan of WHAS11 in Louisville... http://www.whas11.com/news/local/whas11-congratulates-melissa-swan-on-31-years-of-service-to-kentuckiana-swan-to-retire-april-21/135032764

It's probably a sign of things to come in future years. It's a proactive move, but if things don't go well this year revenue-wise, next year could be one reminiscent of 2009 with layoffs, furloughs, and other cutbacks to stop the bleeding....

Perhaps TEGNA is still trying to burn off the debt from all of the spinoffs and mergers... When Belo split into two...the TV side sucked up all of the newspaper's debt. When Gannett purchased Belo...the debt was at $715 million. When TEGNA split from Gannett....the debt load was a staggering $4.4 BILLION...eclipsing even Sinclair, who stands at $3.89 billion. Each time, the newspaper spinoff has been the winner of being debt-free while the TV side has shouldered the burden.