tyrannical bastard

I noticed that all of the soon-to-be Versant channels are now gone from NBC's OTT app. (I checked mine on Roku and Google/Android TV). Hopefully Versant re-launches OTT versions of what used to be available, primarily MSNB...er...MS NOW....

Technically it was WAKC at that point... They changed call letters in 1986 after Group One sold off WAKR AM and WONE-FM but kept Channel 23. Eric Mansfield also used to work for WAKC as well and did a holiday story from that very same Kmart location!

Retransmission Consent most likely. Satellite coverage, less OTA coverage in the digital era and zip code accuracy for digital delivery of OTT contents make for hard lines that differentiate between DMAs and viewing areas.

That does not bode well for Colorado Springs, especially given the forthcoming consolidation between KOAA and KKTV under Scripps.

Sooner or later, you're going to have an entire market with similar-looking graphics, with the notable exception of WYFF and the Hearst diagrid package. Makes you wish Sinclair had something better up their sleeve since their package is almost 7 years old at this point. Maybe Fox Carolina finally making the change will inspire Nexstar to do the same, for their own sake.

And the news that should surprise absolutely no one...

Two departures from Pensacola and Mobile.... Karris Harmon is leaving WEAR in Pensacola. Prior to WEAR, she worked as a reporter and fill-in anchor at cross-market sister station "NBC 15" in Mobile. She essentially traded places with Aubrey Spears, who was a reporter at WEAR and later took Karris' old job at NBC 15. Aubrey departed earlier this year. And at WKRG, sports director Simone Eli is making a HUGE jump in the Nexstar food chain....all the way to New York City to work at PIX 11 and other sports-related projects for Nexstar. https://www.facebook.com/SimoneEliMedia/posts/next-stop-new-yorks-very-own-i-am-thrilled-to-share-that-im-continuing-my-career/1357097819104019/

5 days in, and still no agreement in sight between Disney and YouTubeTV. Even the idea of getting a $20 credit seems elusive at this point. Bottom line, there needs to be transparency on what these channels cost. If a lapse happens, customers need to be compensated fairly for the lack of access they're paying for, If the channels are yanked permanently, the service cost should be adjusted to compensate. Since ESPN is the largest cost out of a pay TV bundle, if a customer is paying for it, they need to keep receiving it, or be refunded the difference.

It's too bad that "issues of character" aren't enforced by the FCC. That should rule out people like Dujuan McCoy from owning TV stations. (screengrab from FTVLive) https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2025/11/2/how-about-this-guy-as-your-owner

And for the second time, Disney has pulled their networks from YouTube TV at the stroke of midnight on October 31st. And this time, YouTube TV is only offering a $20 credit if the outage is "for an extended period" https://deadline.com/2025/10/abc-espn-disney-blackout-youtube-tv-1236603216/

A very sad loss at WSFA in Montgomery. News Director Desmond Wingard has passed away after a battle with cancer. https://www.wsfa.com/2025/10/30/wsfa-news-director-desmond-wingard-dies-after-cancer-battle/ Not only was he a native to the area, he had spent his entire career at WSFA, starting while he was a junior at Troy University, and worked his way up all the way to News Director in 2022.

Derek was actually the first "chief meteorologist" WJZ ever had. WJZ being WJZ seemed to be more of an ensemble that's been slowly undone as CBS has assimilated them into their group.

Bill Riales is retiring from WKRG News 5 in December. He's been there for over the last 25 years, most of those as a morning anchor (aside from mid-2008 to early 2010 when he and his co-anchor were let go for Devon Walsh's return) He returned to the station in 2009 and put back on the morning show the following spring with Devon Walsh. https://www.wkrg.com/mobile-county/wkrg-news-5s-bill-riales-announces-retirement/

Not to mention founding stations they still own today like WEWS and WCPO, along with being one of the pioneering forces of reputable print journalism in the United States.

A damn shame. Derek is a great meteorologist and and an even greater person. I hope he is snatched up somewhere quick.

And another statewide network (Alabama Public Television) is considering dropping PBS. https://www.al.com/news/2025/10/alabama-public-television-may-cut-ties-with-pbs-cutting-off-sesame-street-other-educational-shows.html The article erroneously claims that Alabama is the first statewide network to do this...MPB is leaving PBS and NPR next year. After the decision of Mississippi Public Broadcasting AND WSRE in Pensacola to leave PBS, this could have me going from THREE PBS member stations I have access to.. to ZERO. This could create a large PBS desert in Alabama and Mississippi, extending into Northwest Florida. Unfortunately, as the reality sets in of no more federal funding, other shoes could drop to the point of PBS itself being in question.

They do carry the national feed. Pretty pathetic for a top-50 market where Nexstar has to step in to put their network up since the two-bit operator of WISH (and soon to be WRTV) won't do it. Maybe the purchase of WRTV and their ABC affiliation had something to do with it?

It's painfully apparent that Scripps overbought, especially with the ION deal. Now they're dumping their weakest stations to any company that wants them, whether they can legally take them or not based on current regulations...

Oof. I was hoping Circle City was the one being put out of their misery, but WRTV has been a mess for a very long time. Probably even a clean transaction before any of the rules need to be changed.

As long as the government is shut down, everything seems to be on hold. You can't even access the station's public files on the FCC site because of this...

Kennie Bass, a longtime reporter and anchor for WCHS 8 & Fox 11 in Charleston/Huntington has passed away from cancer. He was 62 years old. He had retired from the station this past January after an over 40 year career in the market, spending much of that time at WCHS/WVAH. https://wchstv.com/news/local/longtime-anchor-reporter-kennie-bass-has-died

Not only was it a double-header for the (re)debut of NBA on NBC, but the last game also went into double overtime. This caused local 11p/10p shows in ET and CT to start around 12:53am/11:53pm. Which meant more OT for the poor local news staffs staying awake to do a late show, if they even bothered to do one live.... Sadly, the stations these days are more likely to squander the OT and just pre-tape the show...

There are assets that have been split before (such as the movies sold to A.A.P.) only to find their way back to Warner Brothers. In this case, United Artists bought AAP, MGM then bought United Artists, Ted Turner bought MGM and kept their content while flipping back MGM to Kirk Kerkorian, then coming full circle when Time Warner bought Turner. Hopefully the Discovery content is jettisoned, most of it is garbage anyways that has made HBO Max a mess.

I wonder if this is the same issue stations like WLOX have, even though they were ex-Raycom. Instead of going GrayOne a few years back, they just switched to another old Gray package when they upgraded their set. The irony is that they were a Liberty station before that, and they were legendary for their standardization of everything at the time....

Hopefully it's easily accessible through their Roku or smart TV app, because it's 2025 and Nexstar is still stuck in last decade trying to wring out pay TV revenue.... At the very least, they need a partnership with Zeam or LocalNow to get their streams in one place, and not some half-assed effort like Sinclair did with Stirr while still running NewsON.