tyrannical bastard
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Posts posted by tyrannical bastard
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and for only $60?!?!?!?!?!
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WOAY in Oak Hill, WV is off the air due to a "catastrophic failure" with their transmitter....
http://woay.com/Alerts.aspx?aid=637
I remember years ago when Newsblues allowed anonymous reports from TV stations. WOAY's account was about how on one of their pieces of transmission equipment, a screwdriver had to be inserted to keep a button pressed in order to keep the station ON THE AIR. It then proceeded to show a picture of a broomstick propped up to keep the button depressed!
Maybe someone lost the broomstick ;-)
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Big question: How can the FCC fine Newport Television, when Newport has been defunct as of June 1 of last year when they sold its stations to Sinclair, Nexstar and Cox?
In Newport's case, their private equity firm Providence is very much alive and well, even though they have completely divested themselves of Newport's former assets. I think coughing up $35,000 is not a problem for them
I would think that Nexstar would have been the responsible party, since they acquired the license of the station, and shouldn't the liability of the license transfer with change of ownership?
It would have to be the case if the former licensee no longer existed in any form...
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I wouldn't read too much into that. KDNL's web address has been abcstlouis.com for quite a few years now. Their Twitter and Facebook handles (yes, they actually have Twittter and Facebook accounts for KDNL) is ABC St. Louis as well.
If this is part of a rebranding, it's an incredibly slow one.
Same can be said in Harrisburg...where their web address is local21news.com. This was done under Sinclair when they dumped the Inergize platform for their own.
As for WHP....they're still CBS 21 and aside from a stripped logo, little has changed since.
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Too little too late in my opinion. Sinclair has let this station go too far down the toilet to even try to be viable.
If it wasn't for the expansion binge that's happened over the past 3 years, this station and WTWC would have been dumped by now.
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More sad news out of New Bern and WCTI...
Longtime former morning anchor Virginia Foye has passed away.
http://m.wcti12.com/news/virginia-foye-former-newschannel-12-anchor-passes-away/29518026
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Well, it looks like Gray is about to seriously overhaul KALB....by the looks of their website.
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....
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Broadcasting LEGEND Luther Masingill has passed away at the age of 92.
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.
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The final installment of the Akron Beacon Journal's 6 part expose on the Ernest Angley ministry ran in today's paper:
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.
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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!
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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....
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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.
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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:
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!
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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....
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Sinclair has taken great advantage of the split-market game. This is exactly the case with these stations and the markets they serve.And what do all those stations have in common?
Ashville (WLOS) is 54 miles from Greenville;
Charleston (WCHS) is 52 miles from Huntington; and
Pensacola (WEAR) is 58 miles from Mobile.
It seems as though you can very easily dominate your portion of these split markets where you can just focus on your part of the market. This is a great little nugget of knowledge that never occurred to me before.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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To add to this the Raycom stations as well. I'm at the point where DirecTV is to blame here and not so much the stations in these local cases.
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?
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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.
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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?
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WEWS just posted a promo for "The Now Cleveland," which unsurprisingly has it's own dedicated YouTube channel.
[yt]PE1agocDwlo[/yt]
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.
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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.
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Taking this in another direction...
Watching the riots, I've been switching through three stations. KSDK, who is erratic with the live streams, KTVI/KPLR, which crashes my iPhone and fails to work half the time, and KMOV, which employs one of the biggest counts* market #4 has ever had as their lead anchor. I would like a legitimate fourth choice.
What's going on at KDNL is an absolute disgrace. There is a civil emergency going on in that market right now, and one of the big four affiliates is simply unable to cover it for arbitrary budgetary reasons.
If Sinclair is committed to news on its stations, if Sinclair is buying up stations left and right, there is no reason whatsoever that its ABC station in Market 21 should not have a news department. I'd prefer Sinclair build a news department instead of losing the affiliation, because the station it would go to would be KPLR and we'd still only have three voices.
*Taken from my absolute favorite Roger Grimsby quote. When asked what his most embarrassing moment on television is, his response: "Easy. I mispronounced 'count'."
Those familiar with curse words will get it. Roger's absolute deadpan makes it funnier.
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...
Out & About
in General TV
Posted
Another passing to report.
Mark Leff, a former CNN Correspondent (from the network's inception until 2001) passed away in Shanghai, China.
After CNN, he was a Journalism professor at Ohio University who taught broadcast news classes and assisted with the WOUB news department. He later became a consultant for Shanghai Media Group's ICS News.
I had the pleasure of working with him, and his teachings still resonate with me to this day, especially his pronunciation of Iraq (eh-ROCK). He will be missed.
http://ftvlive.com/todays-news/2014/12/15/former-cnn-correspondent-mark-leff-is-dead