Samantha

6 hours ago, nathannah said:

...it really didn't work out well for CBS, which is de facto irrelevant in Miami.

WFOR has been a better station than you're giving it credit.

Curiously, the SatelliteGuys thread says this has not shown up on satellite. I wonder if given the circumstances this is about a deal between NBC and DirecTV itself for streaming for all affiliates.

Unsaid: all five clearances come at the cost of TheGrio.TV. In two markets the move is a lateral or downgrade (LA and Chicago) from lower-major-number Nexstar stations. It's an upgrade in New York (WRNN) and Atlanta (WUPA). And they had no clearance in Phoenix.

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

With WJW's ownership, does acquiring WBNX now give them the UHF discount in Cleveland?

 

They've been trying to move WJW back to UHF going back to LocalTV....I could see this as a move to increase cap space if it prevails....

 

Weigel will probably take back their subchannels, and what's left could all end up on WBNX's frequency.  The Sinclair diginets will probably get sent packing as well.

It does not unless the WJW facility were to be sold.

This is legit and corroborates with some other information I had previously gathered. @MarkBRollins88_v2 is it possible to get DMAs 201–210?

Wanted to also add some context. I've been maintaining a database of ADI and DMA rankers that goes back to 1968 (the concept of exclusive markets itself only began in 1966 with Arbitron and 1967 with Nielsen).

This is the first time AFAIK that Philadelphia has not been market #4. Dallas–Fort Worth was ADI #12 in 1968.

They're not there now, but apparently Gray is on board to dedicate subchannels of WSLN (Rockford) and WNDU (South Bend) to this service. I'd hope that the secondary channel would be static when not in use to optimize bandwidth.

I could see a future where Yvonne Stroud (whose husband Joe died in April) sells WJYS soon. They are probably making good money from this arrangement, which makes sense when considering that WJYS has primarily been a paid programming purveyor in 33+ years of broadcasting.

4 minutes ago, Joey1986 said:

That’s also the case on the Los Angeles transmitter.

 

Since the website and the live stream are still up, my guess is that they went streaming only.

 

 

The last story was the jobs report, with a timestamp of 10:09am, right before the cessation.

1 hour ago, mrschimpf said:

Twitter and Facebook are frozen on the last jobs report so it might be on the morning video loop with no one minding the store. Twitter/Facebook is frozen on the monthly jobs report.

 

Stick a fork in it; it's done. Seems like the folks who have been financing the Five Hour Energy guy's spare parts media empire are done with him too; I saw an absolutely long and long-winded 'buy 2 get one free' offer on cases of the stuff last night scanning by FNC which means their longtime agency also was done with them.

 

Next spoke to watch will be ShopHQ, which turned down an all-but-done deal with RNN to become a part of Indian-American Byron Allen's company; and we'll have to see what happens to Coastal's own news ops.

ShopHQ is airing on the main channel of at least the Phoenix and Detroit Bridge transmitters. Sports News Highlights is replaced by some channel airing a show called Road Trip Masters.

No ID, but the next program was Travel Thru History, so probably Fun Roads TV.

Hi @dzonershow, this isn't the place for speculation or list-forming, and I think it's worth stating that up front.

My guess is that with Grand Rapids being closer to Chicago than Indianapolis and not in Indiana, it was not worth expanding the territorial rights area that far (with Iowa being a unique and compelling exception). The markets involved are all the Indiana markets (bar Terre Haute, where they must not have been able to get Allen or Nexstar to sign up) plus Louisville (a Tegna market with a bunch of Indiana counties), Cincinnati (which contains a few Indiana counties), Central Illinois, Dayton, and Lexington. Grand Rapids is closer than some of those last two, but closer in the direction of another WNBA franchise.

Even some big markets to which Indiana is the closest WNBA team that have Tegna stations (St. Louis! Cleveland! Columbus!) are not included, and that may be to protect the national rightsholders.

At Scripps, nothing is trapped in amber. It's a virtue and sometimes a vice.

Television stations are like any other business, especially given that they are facing the biggest change in consumption habits in their history. Scripps knows this. Their hometown headquarters station is feeling it. John Kiesewetter got these figures from Cincinnati:

Quote

My analysis of May TV ratings from 2018 to 2023 showed that the 11 p.m. local news audience dropped 45%, the 6-7 a.m. local news audience fell 42% and the 6 p.m. local news audience dropped 36%.

Scripps has very good values, usually, in journalism. They probably have the most value-driven approach to news operations of any major operator (aside from Sinclair, where the values are not beliefs about journalism but often about national politics). The broader problem is that tools originally conceived to make the process of assembling newscasts, or building out news extensions, are turning into tools to reduce headcount, which seems to be causing morale issues at some stations.

Ion Media has done okay, but national advertising has been soft. There's a story there. Scripps has higher exposure to the national advertising sector than its peers, and that has been an underperformer because digital has been cleaning TV's clock as advertisers that are not political rethink and retrench their budgets.

A decision this big is not done without studying the market. At some point, TV news cannot go on doing the same old things. You would have to assume, and I'd want to hear about this, that research was conducted. Perhaps people identified the Action News brand with an older style of newscast or one that didn't appeal to them. Perhaps adding "Detroit" was seen as necessary for SEO reasons.

That said, if "7 News Detroit" is installed without a brand proposition or other points of differentiation from its competitors, then it will get lost in the sea.

3 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

So does KNOP have any local North Platte newscasts left?

 

Since Glendive hasn't done any local news for years, this could be the smallest market that produces a local newscast of any kind.

 

Alpena's WBKB only does a 6:30 morning show and newscasts at 6:00 and 11:00.  They reintroduced local weather but relied on NewsNet for a while (probably due to staffing shortages).

All they did was cut mornings; they are still producing their midday and evening news.

18 hours ago, sfomspphl said:

 

Yeah they mislabled it. Makes more sense.

The NMSA made this same mistake when they put up MCTYW — turns out it wasn't even originally Stroud's error.

We've been inching toward this moment for years, and today, the lines finally converged over Tyler, Texas, with this clip:

KSL 1989 == KTRE 1989 (really 88) == KXGN 2004 =?= Non-Stop Music USA News

A Timeline

• 1985: Colorado USA is debuted as an image package only by KUSA in Denver.
• By March 1987: WAFF begins using the package including news music and pairs it with the then-new "Squares" syndicated graphics package from Digital Images. The station has "Colorado USA" resung as "Alabama and 48 / People Who Care".
• February 8, 1988: KLTV and KTRE debut new openings using the package. KTRE is using close music that WAFF is using in a sports promo.
• By July 1988: KSL begins using the package.
• 1990: WSAV in Savannah is using the package. The community service promo to which the link is cued up was also used by KXGN Glendive, Montana, in 2004, and by WAFF in a sign-off.
• 1991: KLTV uses a different open cut at 10pm which matches the Non-Stop USA Music cuts.

USA News is listed in ASCAP as a Non-Stop production with alternate titles indicating it was used by KLTV, KTRE, KOAM (extant), KJCT (1993–95, not extant), WUSA (in promos in 1998, maybe?), WAWS (July 1996–98, but they debuted with WWL News at the end of 1996, so they might have changed themes before going on the air).

KPNX picks up Ginger Jeffries for evening weather: https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2023/10/12/ginger-jeffries-weather-12-news-phoenix/71154019007/

20 hours ago, CTrey98 said:

First Rockets telecast on Space City Home Network and they are apparently carrying over the AT&T graphics package with them. Highly doubt this is permanent since the logo doesn't fit the scorebug very well. Maybe they are just buying themselves time until the regular season or at least until next baseball season. 

 

 

With the old Root Sports insert typeface. AT&TSN used AT&T's corporate typeface, AT&T Aleck.

I suspect that AT&T required them to cease using AT&T marks and branding on short notice. Even the moribund AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain got a SportsNet Rocky Mountain bug without AT&T.

A full 11pm from WCPX Orlando in October 1994. This very short-lived look had to have debuted no earlier than June and was out no later than early 1995.

There is a very strong current of KPNX, particularly in the talent open which has both some script items and animations that are redolent of the News Station-era graphics. There also appears to be stylistic influence from the CBS News and CBS Sports looks in use then. The unusual tandem voiceover is Lisa Malay (who did KPNX — this was her second open set for 6) and the guy who voiced KTVK during this time. This is an interesting era: the station had a very CityPulse-esque appearance just a year and change prior, and there are elements in place of it (mostly the set), but the anchors (Bud Hedinger and Mary Hamill; David Wittman gets equal billing but way less air time) are much more anchored to their desk.

From the shores of the Atlantic to the frontiers of space to the heart of Central Florida... Live and local, this is 6 News.

38 minutes ago, mre29 said:

 

I would imagine Scripps is the obvious buyer of KXGN as they already own the rest of the MTN stations. They could also buy KYUS and just maintain the time brokerage deal with Cowles. Or Cowles could just buy the station itself.

 

Counterpoint: KXGN is, logistically, a radio operation with a TV appendage. Morgan Murphy has radio properties—that's probably what drew them to the Michigan operation. But either the Montana/Dakota stations are being structured as a separate M&A from the Michigan ones or MMM didn't want them.

Morgan Murphy makes its Marks in Michigan with a $13.375 million purchase of the Marks family's Michigan broadcasting operation. WBKB, WBKP, and WBUP are included along with radio stations in Houghton and Iron River.

The Marks family has been slowly divesting the properties the late Stephen owned, though this is the first TV M&A:

• An AM-FM pair in Park Falls, Wisconsin ($210K to Civic Media)
• WOWZ-FM Accomac, Virginia, to its LMA operator

What's left? The famous KXGN and KYUS in Montana plus the Montana–North Dakota radio cluster with stations in Glendive, Sidney, Forsyth, Miles City, and Williston, and Belfield (near Dickinson).

Nexstar has a real challenge on its hands with KUSI, and it's not just an integration and construction challenge.

KUSI was the most unabashedly conservative TV newsroom in a major market anywhere. Embarrassingly so. And they will be dealing with angry viewers of that persuasion. But anyone external to the McKinnons and right-wing politics probably looks at KUSI and goes "yikes". Heck, I think even someone who came to KUSI from a Sinclair station would be shocked.

There is a difference between a conservative lean, justifiable in San Diego, and just being a peddler of conservative disinformation. KUSI was frequently the latter. And Nexstar is only a "left-wing" operation if you're so far off to the right that NewsNation is radically left.

51 minutes ago, SFTV said:

KPIX was producing local news inserts for its short lived 10pm Seattle News Now. I guess it wasn’t attracting much viewership to launch a news dept.

 

I guess it’s back to square one producing only weather reports for Seattle with the previous CBSN block weather graphics on its website.

The problem is that they have virtually no physical plant in Seattle. The nominal main studio is the transmitter site; there was a sales office somewhere (don't have the address), but it closed in 2020. WUPA has insufficient space—it has not moved since it began broadcasting in 1981. (Nor has WTOG, though that building did once house a news department.)

Paramount moved KSTW in August 2001 from Tacoma to 602 Oakesdale Ave. SW in Renton. The station had a sales office in Seattle (which it closed at that time) and its 1976-vintage Tacoma plant, which now is a Bates Technical College facility (KBTC is there, and there is an adjoining building built by the college). It seems they were not in Renton long. They then wound up at 1000 Dexter Avenue North, Seattle (South Lake Union area), home to the CBS Radio cluster. (There is a 21-photo tour of CBS Radio Seattle on Flickr from 2006!) That facility is long-gone as well, with the now-Audacy stations being elsewhere.

KSTW's X/Twitter account is @Seattle11TV as of today. They are writing the name "Seattle11", no space.

34 minutes ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

That must’ve been a hell of a lot of research on your part to track this stuff down. I get the feeling that promoting your anchor team as a bunch of people from out of town probably got a very different reaction from the one the geniuses (/s) in management had in mind. It sounds like the station was a mess before Fox entered the picture.

Very much so. The next management was able to put the station back on sound news footing (they also hired Dave Murray at about the time Stu Klitenic left for WSB).

26 minutes ago, lanman said:

The domains pittsburgh19.com and kdkaplus.com were recently purchased by CBS (6/20 and 7/28, respectively), and are currently pointed to a MarkMonitor parking page.

kpixplus.com was registered July 28 as well. Notably, wforplus and kywplus (among others) were not taken.

The KTVI piece is fascinating. Let me shed some light on what KTVI was like at the time, and you might understand how this one never saw the light of day.

KTVI had adopted Hello in 1984 alongside the other "major" Times-Mirror stations (KDFW and KTBC). They all had similar open animations. All three of those stations (KDFW, KTBC, KTVI) plus WVTM Birmingham then adopted the same look in mid-late 1987: JAM's Yours Truly and the diagonal stripe bar graphics. I believe this comes from that time period. The ND of KTVI from 1986 to 1989 was Sue Kawalerski.

Times-Mirror tended to make a lot of decisions at the level of corporate. (A corporate graphics package of the kind the Times-Mirror stations rolled out in late 1987 was not common then!) And they made some disastrous ones at KTVI, the market's third-rated news station (with KMOV and KSDK, two goliaths, in front of them). In November 1986, Lloyd Immel was hired to be one of the lead anchors. Then, just months after the Yours Truly look debuted at KTVI, it was gone. And so too were all the news presenters.

In February 1988, KTVI debuted a new anchor team (see the very laughable promo above), which gained the nickname "Gang of Four" in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They all came from elsewhere: Kevin Cokely was working for Storer in Washington, Iola Johnson was in radio in Dallas (previously of WFAA), Stu Klitenic came from WXYZ, and Miles Muzio had been a journeyman weatherman already by this point (I believe his last posting was KOIN prior to this). The existing look was blown up (this is when they switched to the Great Prospect track from Bruton, then to Palmer, then to News Central, all in about two years). Apparently their installation had been in the works since August 1987 when a new promotions director came to KTVI. (There's a sign of something.)

St. Louis viewers—famous for their resistance to change, as KDNL would later learn—never took to the Gang of Four, all of whom left the market within two years. Kawalerski was evidently forced out, not long after Times-Mirror broadcasting president John McCrory was replaced. In the KTVI newsroom, the news she was out was met with "jubilation" and "euphoria". (She landed at WCIX.) But the hiring of the Gang of Four was a corporate decision, beyond Kawalerski. McCrory was known for his intense involvement in KTVI's affairs. It took Bud Carey, the new T-M broadcasting head; Wayne Thomas, the new GM; and a salvage operation to return them to respectability. Losing ABC for Fox helped; ABC was never much watched in St. Louis, something else for KDNL to learn.

Clearly In Touch was far along. It was finished work from Gari, the same company that had already done resings of Hello for them. But the change in promotions director and possibly other factors (the Times Mirror stations graphics package of 1987), and likely the forthcoming revamp of news anchors, likely left this to sit on a shelf.

Forgot to post this originally, but some words from Kim Hindrew, who left for WMC in August 1988 when they took away her anchor duties:

"They're still wondering what they did wrong. The fact that they would think the people of St. Louis had to accept what they were giving them ... it's an arrogance I don't understand. Then viewers did the only thing they could do: They stopped watching."

On 7/15/2023 at 5:47 PM, JimScott said:

Something tells me that I believe Editel and Century III used the same vocalists from KTXL 1986 on WVIT 1987. 

 

Am I right or was that a plain rumor?

I have not come across anything to indicate they did this package. I also doubt it would have been done in Boston, especially back then; CIII's clients, except for things DI was actively syndicating like Window on the World (apparently tied to a 1986 station image package they introduced at the BPME show in Dallas, wondering if this is the KXAS etc. look of that era), generally came from New England. Not unthinkable but not my first guess.