tyrannical bastard

Bally, being a competing sports network was able to port their graphics package to Raycom to produce the ACC games they did in the past.

As for the CW?  Seems like Nexstar didn't want to pay the extra $50 to come up with another graphics package.

Interesting that the CW/Raycom sports coverage is basically using the ESPN package. 

This is probably the case since this game package for the CW is a loose extension of the ESPN/ACC deal?

Aren't pretty much all of the Cox/Imagicomm stations operating under an onerous retransmission deal that Coxpollo inherited from their purchase of the former Northwest stations? (of which were all spun off to Imagicomm along with WHBQ and KOKI)

I'm surprised WSB is not affected....yet.  Atlanta is a major Xfinity cluster, but they may be special since they don't want to endanger their carriage...

WALA in Mobile has gone GrayOne as of 4pm yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyX76AamMjY

The lower thirds (and font changed) but much of the existing package remains the same. 

Being a former Meredith station, it's basically the same package GrayOne was based on.

It's a nice change over the canned Meredith look they forced on their stations at the time, even though it uses the same color scheme.

1 hour ago, compubit said:

I’m liking their implementation - mostly due to not using the extra bold fonts everywhere. (Though a little mixed case text wouldn’t be too bad).

 

My biggest complaint on the font is that the M looks out of place, as the inside doesn’t appear to even go halfway down the letter…

 

Jim

Agreed. Fix the "M" and I could tolerate the font.

It just has that Nexstar vibe to it based on that one package (that WSPA also uses).  I really wish Gray would have sprung for a better font.

7 hours ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

Pretty much all the Meredith stations were rebranded to First Alert

WALA was an exception, since WKRG has used "First Alert" on their Doppler radar for about 20 years and their weather coverage is the "First Alert Storm Team"...WALA using "StormTracker" for about as long, going all they way back to Emmis.

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2023/9/3/scripps-is-tanking

It seems the changes are not having a good effect on their stock price.

The way Scripps is headed, they are an oversized albatross with too many worthless (Ion) stations.  They need to right-size themselves by divesting the rest of the Ion stations to Inyo (at least the licenses) so they may be a company worth investing in and potentially merging into another as a means of survival.

I have a feeling KUSI is being groomed to become San Diego's CW station, as soon as the contract expires with KFMB.

Despite the slant that KUSI and McKinnnon put out for years, the news-intensive format is probably toast.

The ancient graphics and set are likely toast, but if KUSI had some dominance in some ways, they'll keep the stronger parts and merge those into KSWB's operation.

With the new Big Ten deal, Columbus, Ohio's playing field may level out a little more after WSYX/WTTE has had explosive success with their coverage of the Ohio State teams.  Now that NBC and CBS have games as well, it's the first time in years where 10TV has aired a Buckeyes football game (even going back to the ESPN broadcasts).  And NBC4 can gain some of the action as well should they land a Buckeyes game.

Newswise, 10TV and NBC4 are shells of themselves, but this may put a little more revenue and ratings in their pockets on game days....

4 hours ago, The Frog said:

Comet is essentially syndicated programming. It's as watchable as any other station's lineup. I'll take reruns of The X-Files over a Byron Allen court show. It wouldn't be out of place on an independent station in another era.

 

I'm surprised we don't see more stations fill non-network/news hours with programming from their in-house diginet rather than spending money on dwindling syndicated fare. If Nexstar wants to cut CW's programming costs, why not nuke the syndicated CW+ shows and fill the time with a mix of programming from their diginets?

Due to the 11th hour-nature of the pickup, it's probably going to be this way for this year.  Sinclair is basically having to create a new channel to build the CW programming around.  By next year, it may resemble more of a CW-like station lineup once deals are secured.

I"m assuming that the ex-CW stations owned by CBS are still going to be carried by YouTube TV?  They've traditionally carried their existing independents like WLNY, KCAL and WTXA.

KOCB may be dropped unless Sinclair elects to keep them on.  It would be their only independent station on YouTube TV.

And Nexstar should be running with all of their new affiliates, sans WADL since that deal hasn't closed yet?

8 hours ago, Nelson R. said:

 

I didn’t know there were any ABC affiliates still delaying Kimmel. An odd time to suddenly start airing him in pattern with the writers strike.

WEAR was probably THE very last station to do so, after WISN relented a few years back.

Likely tied to their Sinclair renewal with ABC, they tweaked their logo with the latest ABC version as well.  What would they have done...pulled KDNL's affiliation in retaliation?
 

A couple changes in Mobile/Pensacola.

To replace Dr. Phil, WALA Is debuting a half hour 3:00 p.m. newscast on September 11th followed by InvestigateTV+ at 3:30.

Equal Justice with Judge Ebony K. Williams  will air for an hour at 1:00 p.m.  Judge Mathis is still at noon and People's Court will still air at 2 as of September 11th. (See below where Judge Mathis' and Marilyn Milan's efforts will end up!)

The Neighborhood will air from 10:30 to 11:30pm, followed by an hour of Mom, then Daytime Jeopardy at 12:30am, followed by a repeat of Fox 10's 9:00 p.m. newscast, both hours of Studio Ten, and InvestigateTV+ to round out the late-night into the 4:30am news.

Over at WEAR, It looks like the last hour-long 10:00 p.m. newscast is done.  It will now be a standard 35 minute length followed by Jimmy Kimmel "Live".

They'll also replay the 10:00 p.m. at midnight following Nightline.

On WJTC (WPMI's sister station), that's where Mathis Court and Justice For The People will end up.   They'll air at 1:30 and 2pm and have an encore the following morning at 7:00 a.m...

On WKRG,  WFGX, WPMI, and WFNA, there's nothing too earth shattering, except maybe a new Byron Allen court show or two on WFNA and anything else on WFGX.... (I've honestly lost track at this point )

Well, so much for the "SuperStation" that launched basic cable ending up as a network affiliate after all of these years.

This morming, all of the Tallahassee stations are wall-to-wall.  FOX 49 is carrying WCTV's coverage, while WTWC is getting weather coverage from sister station WPEC in West Palm Beach.

The Tampa/St. Petersburg/Sarasota stations are all wall-to-wall with coverage at this time.  And Nexstar is streaming WFLA LIVE on WFLA.com. 

These Nexstar sets make for interesting use during a hurricane....

Surprisingly, up in Gainesville/Ocala, only WOGX is covering the storm (since it's 10pm and sister station WOFL is live with news anyway).  The Sinclair stations are in regular programmng with weather alerts, and WCJB doesn't have a crawl or anything at this point.

Up in Tallahassee, only WTXL is in wall-to-wall mode while WTWC is in regular programming, FOX 49 is airing WCTV's newscast, and WCTV has a weather alert on the screen.  The storm is poised to hit the Tallahassee market, so they would be wise to go wall-to-wall soon.

WGTA is technically a Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville station, since it's still located (and licensed to) Toccoa in Stephens County.  Still, it serves as Atlanta's MeTV affiliate (via a leased space on WUPA (along with their H&I subchannel.  Past ties to Athens and UGA have still kept it officially out of the Atlanta market.  Even it's past CBS affiliate status (as a semi-satellite of WSPA in Spartanburg) made it more of a convenience for eastern Georgia viewers who lost CBS when it went from WAGA to channel 46.

If things get really desperate, Nexstar could simply start up a new CW affiliate and lease a channel on one of the Atlanta full-powered stations.  No matter who owns it.  All it takes is a willing station to lease a subchannel to and to collect lease payments from.  No license to deal with, just a jukebox and a satellite somewhere to beam the "channel" to.  The irony would be if it's WUPA that agrees to it!

1 hour ago, Georgie56 said:

Not TV news, but still important enough for this topic:

 

Bob Barker has passed away at 99 years old.

A legend for sure.  Spent many mornings during the summer, before college classes, even during work watching TPIR during the Barker era (He was still hosting during one of my old TV jobs).

This brings back the memory of 10TV's premiere of NightBeat.  More infamously known for the surprise appearance of wanted fugitive Donna Osborne who later turned herself into authorities after appearing on the show, Rod Roddy's passing was the same night and can be seen in the headlines pre-open.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyS9ouDaO0o

1 hour ago, atlnews2 said:

If watl’ prime time news block is broken up for CW then I could see WPCH adding an hour at 8pm to take advantage of having no competition. 

Good point. I forgot about WANF's news on WPCH.

19 hours ago, The Frog said:

Nexstar readies new CW Network affiliates in Pittsburgh, Seattle

 

In the Seattle market, a deal is being finalized to bring CW Network programming to KONG (Channel 16), an independent station owned by TEGNA that operates as a duopoly with NBC affiliate KING-TV (Channel 5)

 

Despite not being a full-time independent station, WATL has a slight edge as the Atlanta area’s next CW Network affiliate, because the deal could cover both it and KONG in Seattle.

 

WPCH is also being considered, because its status as an independent station means it can more-easily accommodate CW Network shows by moving around some syndicated programming. But the channel’s distribution in Canada — which dates back to its ownership by Turner, when it was called WTBS (later TBS Superstation) — proves somewhat problematic for Nexstar, in part because the network is relying on older Canadian series to fill some of its prime-time schedule and has secured live sports programming whose rights are held by other broadcasters in the country.

WATL getting the CW would bring an end to its WXIA primetime newscasts from 8-11, while WUPA is not set up to do a similar thing, much like their other sister stations are gearing up to do.

Atlanta will be an interesting market to watch, for sure.  CBS still owning a station with little means of expansion while still keeping an affiliation with WANF and losing an equivalent news effort IF WATL goes CW.

On 8/23/2023 at 11:50 AM, jerseyfla said:

I was meaning original station with a network affiliation for Gainesville. They wouldn't have another one in the market until 1986 when W49AI (now WYKE) was used as a repeater for Orlando's Fox affiliate WOFL until 1991 when WOGX took over. 

But what could have stopped WCJB from defying WJXT's place from the neighboring market and going to CBS other than the affiliation contract and maybe ABC themselves not wanting Alachua and Dixie to have to rely on weak station WJXX. Marion would be taken care of by strong ABC affiliate WFTV. Remember this is before WJXT went Independent so WGFL was just a mere affiliate of WB. Or perhaps CBS knowing how dominant WJXT was acted like Gainesville was not a seperate market.

Back in the analog era, strong affiliates that served adjacent markets had a lot more ability to muscle out local competition. 

It wasn't until the digital era when stations could sign on a second network via a subchannel or duopoly/SSA/JSA partner. 

It set a lot more boundaries with the DMAs and markets were able to fill out their choices to satisfy market exclusivity for cable, satellite and streaming services.  Also, some of the old analog stations lost a lot of their excess reach having to convert to digital (usually from VHF to UHF) so their signals became more confined with their home market.

27 minutes ago, LTSC1980 said:

In 1994 affiliate rearrangement, when Fox is getting WAGA and WJBK, CBS had considered piping nearby stations while finding replacement stations. They would eventually moved to Channel 46 and 62, respectively 

Piping in an adjacent affiliate would be the ultimate irony for Nexstar, given their retrans-heavy model.  The last thing they would want to seemingly do is pipe in another market's station in a market they can't land a new affiliate in...

In the small chance that Cox secures a deal to put the CW on one of their subchannels, that would give WSB and WPXI outlets for a 10pm newscast ....and in Pittsburgh, to bring their existing one in-house away from WPGH, leaving Sinclair in the dust to fill it with TND or something like that...

1 hour ago, jerseyfla said:

This is a great pickup next year for WCJB in Gainesville (the original network affiliate station in Gainesville) who could have easily swapped to CBS when WJXT the de facto CBS affiliate for Gainesville went Independent 21 years ago or even before it when CBS got exclusive rights to include the Championship Game in 2001 due to how important Florida Gator athletics are for the area. ABC has probably the most small market or former single station affiliates in the country between WCJB, WWSB, and WLOX.

WCJB's original reason for going with ABC was because of their contract with the Florida Gators at the time.

With ESPN planning on going DTC at some point in the future, would this be a boon or a bust to their SEC coverage?  Alabama would be a key test for this, since many of the CBS affiliates have dominated the ratings there, usually due to their SEC coverage on Saturdays.   Would the prospect of sacrificing an arm and a leg to watch SEC football be detrimental to their fanbase, and the stations that used to carry the games?

That's gotta be great news for all of the Nexstar stations roped into promoting this garbage during their local news breaks.

At least the AT&T/DirecTV viewers didn't see it since all of their Nexstar channels are blacked out!

This one's gonna be interesting, since it's a rare pacific storm to hit the continental United States.

TWC is focusing their attention on it at this moment, but the local stations aren't quite in "Hurricane Mode" like an Atlantic or Gulf station would be....yet.

Could some of these late additions be due to the ongoing strikes?