tyrannical bastard

Well, it looks like Gray is about to seriously overhaul KALB....by the looks of their website. www.kalb.com. I've been less than impressed with most of Gray's on-air products, but this looks to be a massive improvement over what they've had over the last few years under Hoak. And it makes sense that they would totally blow up any remaining resemblance to their days as a Media General station....they compete against each other in a lot of places....

Broadcasting LEGEND Luther Masingill has passed away at the age of 92. http://www.wdef.com/news/story/News-12-s-Luther-Masingill-Passes-Away-at-Age-92/QYD1o5j1D0Kg4bpaIJ84rQ.cspx Not only did he have a broadcast career in radio and TV that spanned SEVEN decades, he had the unique distinction of covering BOTH Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The final installment of the Akron Beacon Journal's 6 part expose on the Ernest Angley ministry ran in today's paper: http://www.ohio.com/news/local/ernest-angley-s-for-profit-grace-cathedral-buffet-using-volunteer-labor-again-after-feds-said-to-stop-1.533069 From forced vasectomies, abortions, brainwashing, molestation, alienation, talking about the massive expense of running a 747, and now, one of their subsidiaries forcing employees to be "volunteers"...it doesn't paint a pretty picture for the future of WBNX as a TV station, especially if these allegations are true. One of these "volunteers" claimed to work for WBNX, where he wasn't paid at all. Those who were paid were paid at minimum wage and only paid for 40 hours a week, while being forced to clock out "on time" and forced to "volunteer" another 10 hours a week in lieu of being properly compensated for overtime. And this wasn't the first time they've been caught doing this. Back in 1999, after a dispute with two "volunteers", one stabbed the other to death, the labor issue was brought to light, "resolved", and when the feds stopped looking, they went back to doing things the way they've been done. If some of these allegations in this article are true, and they've been fudging timecards and even EEO reports, then WBNX is in deep, deep, trouble. Could employee issues like these be grounds for the FCC to revoke their license? Essentially, WBNX and the Cathedal Buffet are for-profit enterprises that keep the Ernest Angley Ministry alive (along with all of the suckers who send in a check every month!) Perhaps this place is so screwed up, that no one wants to buy this station and why it remains as one of the last stand-alone CW affiliates in the country outside of the top 10 markets.

Cherish Lombard is leaving WALA to become an anchor at WKRN in Nashville. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/cherish-lombard-leaving-mobiles-wala_b131496 She, along with former sports anchor Joe Emer host the station's lifestyle program "Studio Ten". With the transfer to Meredith happening in the near future, her replacement could be a placeholder for Meredith to relaunch the show in the "Better" format. They've even picked up the national version and are airing it overnight!

If it ever comes to WBNX going away in the spectrum auction, WUAB could end up with the CW and MyNetworkTV could be shoehorned onto a subchannel. Raycom really dropped the ball with WUAB by letting WBNX steal all of the good syndication and replacing it with infomercials and WOIO's rejects. Aside from a daily airing of "The 90 and 9 club" and their subchannel, WBNX is a completely secular, for-profit station that has been very successful with their WB and CW ratings. Since Rev. Angley is over 90 years old, and with these allegations AND the upcoming spectrum auction coupled with the ownership trends, it seems to be a question of WHEN it's going to happen....

I bring up those three stations since they are not owned by CBS or Tribune. Cleveland slipping to market 18 opened the doors to Phoenix and Minneapolis-St. Paul overtaking it. At one time before Sunbeam purchased WLVI from Tribune, WBNX was the largest CW station NOT owned by CBS or Tribune.

Scandal is rocking Ernest Angley Ministries....the owners of Winston Broadcast Network...which owns WBNX, the CW affiliate for the Cleveland/Akron area. (no surprises here...anyone who has ever seen his TV program is likely more entertained by it's phoniness and hokiness than its religious value....) Here's the story from the Akron Beacon Journal: http://www.ohio.com/news/local/ernest-angley-s-grace-cathedral-confronts-allegations-of-sexual-abuse-pressure-to-have-abortions-and-vasectomies-1.531094 Don't be surprised if WBNX is swallowed up either by Gannett, Scripps, or even Tribune as a duopoly partner in the near future....they are one of the largest stand-alone affiliates not part of a duopoly, or owned by Tribune or CBS (with the exception of Ed Ansin's WLVI, Sinclair's WUCW, and SagamoreHill's KASW) ...and by looking at the list of CW affiliates, Tribune and CBS could easily pare down their holdings in the Top 15 to expand otherwise!

WPMI's website is currently down, with a temporary page stating that "A new WPMI Local 15 is coming..." I imagine its just the website switching to the new template. I doubt that the graphics are about to change as well....

Sinclair has taken great advantage of the split-market game. This is exactly the case with these stations and the markets they serve. WLOS is 3rd in the market and is the ONLY station based out of Western North Carolina, and its distance from Greenville and Spartanburg perpetuates this. WCHS owns Charleston, but plays a distant second to long-dominant WSAZ out of Huntington. WEAR is 3rd overall, and could give a hoot about anything west of Mobile Bay. The opposite could be said for the Mobile stations, which rarely cross the state line for news. And with WPMI and WJTC in Mobile, it's like having a market within a market when it comes to Pensacola. A recent addition is KLEW in Lewiston, ID. It's in the Spokane market, but is another CBS affiliate that serves this portion. I'm not sure if KREM is available. And there's WICS and WICD...TWO ABC affiliate stations in the same market. WICD covers Champaign decently, and WICS is the home base in Springfield that fills in the gaps on weekends. Back to the ABC issue. They're not the hot property they used to be back in the 1970's when their success caused affiliation swaps in Atlanta, Minneapolis, Charlotte, and other places. And the last switcheroo in 2004 involved WKEF and WICS/WICD trading affiliates with WDTN and WAND. NBC had the upper hand since ABC was plunged into 4th place. However, soon after, ABC began to overtake NBC that fall and the moves especially benefitted WKEF into becoming a factor in Dayton.

Of the Big 4 Networks, ABC is the most disadvantaged. Mostly because it is co-owned with ESPN, which has virtually stripped away any sports from ABC (even the brand itself), save for some marquee college football games, the NBA and Finals, and the Indy 500. The ratings suck for primetime programming, and Disney is dwarfed in size by FOX, CBS and Comcast (NBC). As for Sinclair's ABC stations, many legacy ones they own like WCHS in Charleston, WEAR in Pensacola and WLOS in Asheville literally OWN the portions of the market they serve, leaving the competition to fight out the main part of the market amongst themselves. WSYX (and maybe WKEF) do well since Ohio State's games end up on ABC instead of ESPN most of the time As for KDNL, they have to be making some kind of profit. As bush-league as they are, and what little effort they put into themselves, they're still there and ABC hasn't been wooed elsewhere. Now if it were a CBS of a FOX station, KDNL or KTVI would have certainly snatched up the affiliation by now.

Over the last several weeks, WCHS and WEAR have moved to the latest website templates. WEAR's was a step up, while WCHS made a giant leap from their ancient site layout. Sister station WVAH upgraded as well, but not WEAR's counterpart, WFGX. WEAR has yet to upgrade to the new graphics, but I'm thinking it could happen by November. Over in Mobile, WPMI and WJTC are still the same.

You might remember a few months back when Kurt Ludlow was unceremoniously dumped from 10TV in Columbus. Well, he was thisclose to accepting another offer at another station, when the lawyers for Dispatch would "move swiftly" against this attempt to make a living, even though his contract was not renewed. So now, Kurt (and his good friend Dr. Bill Adrian) have launched a GoFundMe account to raise up to 20k to cover his "legal fees" since he "can't work in Columbus".... He's already raised almost $5,000 as of this posting. ...and here's the link. http://www.gofundme.com/HelpKurtLudlow It almost pains me to say that WSYX and Sinclair seem to be the only station with their act together in Columbus anymore. Media General is driving WCMH into the ground further and further, and things just keep getting worse for "Central Ohio's News Leader". Now they're stiffing DirecTV for retrans $$$$. If things keep getting worse, perhaps it's time for the Wolfe family to cash out while they're still afloat...

Directv is FAR better than Dish, who has had multiple spats with companies like LIN, and poorly handled the Media General blackout a few months back. Aside from TWC and the Viacom / Tribune blackout, their potential spats have either fizzled out, resolved quickly, or have been with smaller broadcasters. The match made in HELL has been any group dealing with Mediacom, and any pay tv provider dealing with LIN..... Then there's Comcast, who just caves in and jacks up the rates by adding surcharges...but maybe they'll have a spat with the NBC O&Os....right?

Pretty pathetic that Sinclair can't even cover a story in the market it's happening in because their station has been an also-ran that refuses to compete. How difficult is it to pre-empt some Family Feud reruns to carry a town hall (or even acknowledge it in ANY form) by THEIR station in the market it's happening in? :bang: :bang: :bang: On the other hand, it's like they're trying to exploit a national issue because it's a national issue thanks to the media. Double fail. End rant.

So Sinclair decided to do a townhall on Ferguson, MO....from BALTIMORE. So did KDNL have any involvement...perhaps even AIRING it...since they're a ST. LOUIS STATION?

Just as I suspected....as I posted in the other thread about WXYZ's version, this version is much more refined, using better (and the intended) fonts, and took it a step further by adding the Cleveland shots to it. This would have to be some kind of template that's being circulated to the stations, and its up to the individual creative service departments to localize it.

Jeff Barnd used to host the "American Crossroads" magazine show Sinclair put on until around 2009....this was the last remaining vestige of their prior push into news with NewsCentral and Mark Hyman's original commentaries. They retrenched after the economic crisis and came back with a vengeance around 2011 when they started expanding again.

It finally dawned on me....but you beat me to it. There's got to be more to the story on why KDNL is dragging their feet with restarting news. The ABC affiliation is up next year, and the way Tribune swooped in and swiped CBS from WISH, it makes total sense to do the same thing with KPLR. Sinclair could be just dragging out the inevitable while the cards are in their hand. KDNL is far better suited to be a CW / MyNetworkTV or independent station than it is with ABC. Now the question would be, IF KDNL was actually covering this story, how would it be covered? The cavalcade from Baltimore could come in to do one of their "Town Hall" meetings...

Base it out of Wimington, and you also have close proximity to Cincinnati and WKRC.

WKRC was a Clear Channel station that was part of their spinoff to Newport in 2008. Sinclair later bought some of the Newport stations (including WKRC) in 2012 when Providence Equity wanted to sell off Newport. Since the Newport deal wasn't a total sale (along with the divested Cox stations), they have been integrated in more ways than the other stations acquired in total group deals.

I was checking around Toledo to see what was going on with their water issues, and I went to WNWO's site. Since it was a former Barrington station, all of the former Barrington Stations have essentially kept things the way they've been, including their websites. Same can be said for Fisher. I remember in the initial news that Barrington was going to be purchased, that the HQ and their employees would be kept. It looks like the same is true in Seattle, with Fisher's former HQ functioning in a similar capacity, aside from some layoffs. I'm wondering now, since these companies were purchased whole, if Sinclair will be keeping these operations status quo (for now), and given Allbritton's proximity to Baltimore (from Alexandria, VA) if the same can be true? Absorbing this many stations, this approach seems to make sense, the only difference is that they still report to Sinclair, but can carry out their duties as they've always done due to Sinclair's explosive growth (and likely inability to perform such tasks from Baltimore, necessitating the load to be picked up by the former HQs).

...we have some breaking news in to our newsroom...lets go to the EZPawn breaking news desk...... Ok...lets not give them any more ideas...:-)

Remember the news director who was completely fine with one his reporters' side career as a shill for products on Vine? Well...he's out of a job now. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/news-director-out-at-wway_b125920

I'm surprised they haven't sold the naming rights, like what's been done in radio. They do have a knack for weird sponsorships....

From the clips I've seen thus far, i'm impreseed. It's a major improvement over the previous package, and even the Belo graphics that preceded them. I like how they go back and forth on the bug from WCNC to CHARLOTTE, but my only critique is that the peacock is slightly off between the two graphics; they don't line up. It's a breath of fresh air that brings them on a higher level with WBTV and WSOC, and with their new look, really ties in with their set. WBTV and WSOC look very cheap in comparison with their sets (and WSOC's aging graphics).