Samantha

A real TV pioneer: Helen S. Duhamel (of the family that started KOTA), interviewed in 1980 on the occasion of the station's 25th anniversary:

This is one of the most polarizing TV rebrands this decade, but gosh... I know Tegna takes a lot of flack. This is a company that, hell or high water (and with good intentions), is trying to reshape TV news. But this is a new level of that. It actually feels like the maximum expression of the Tegna philosophy to presentation. It feels like a big gust of fresh air. The logo is polarizing (and very very UK Channel 5-ish), but it's a creative direction with oomph to it (the teasers feel like a Euro-style ident package). In TV news, people are scared of massive leaps of change because they fear effects on stations' older viewers, even moreso in markets that aren't fast growers like Cleveland. Tegna lacks that compunction. This may end up being a rebrand that earns more critical acclaim than mass appeal. It's ambitious on a level almost never seen for affiliate rebrands. There are some networks (ABC, in particular) that would have never let this fly. This is making me think particularly of the NBC "city name" branding that never went beyond San Diego, but arguably was in hindsight a forward-thinking nod to the declining importance of channel brands in an overall station identity (particularly on social). It's not Boston 25—that was a unanimously derided downgrade.

Holy heck, that's cool. (Don't mind me ninja editing in the correct year — 1970 is much more fascinating and much rarer!)

Seems like a bit of a long shot, but Nexstar does have the scale and presence in most of the desired markets outside of Chicago to make a good deal.

$85,000 was the purchase price for Lilly to buy a TV station in the U.S. Virgin Islands. LeSEA is selling WCVI in Christiansted to Lilly in a deal that hit the FCC today. There's a preexisting relationship between the parties. WCVI has an ABC subchannel 23.2 which is Lilly's WENY, with paid programming and Lilly's "One Caribbean News" airing in non-network timeslots.

The Watch Our Spirit Now promos debuted in April '84. That May they ran a 2-page spread ad in the St. Petersburg Times TV supplement with some of the copy from the ad series...

Brandon Lee is back at KTVK and KPHO...tonight. There's an anchor reshuffle. Lee will anchor KPHO's 6:30 and 10pm (says 10:30, obviously a mistake unless they mean KTVK's) news with Kris Pickel and KTVK's 8pm with Heather Moore. Sean McLaughlin will anchor KTVK's 5pm and KPHO's 10pm (and apparently do the 10:30pm weather on 3).

Makes me wonder when that KOVR/KDNL River City theme actually debuted... Maybe that fall?

A bunch of KVUE from August 1989:

That second KUTV clip (the John Stehr bump) I think is also the news theme — they used similar for at least one other bumper I know of. The sign-off in the same video has the same musical signature, too!

This might be one of my biggest finds this year: The Spirit of Tampa Bay is Gari! It's rare to find unknown Gari works, but this appears to be one of them. It also appears there is a v2 of this image campaign that debuted in 1983. From Walt Belcher's April 11, 1983 Tampa Tribune TV column:

The post that I removed very much veered into the political realm.

Hey, I know that this topic can often stray into the political, but the political opinions that result often can become germane to the topic at hand.

There is no KMOX/Palmer News Package listing in NMSA and there is a bumper with the theme...

It's over for Cayman 27 in the Cayman Islands. It signed off today, meaning the end of independent broadcast TV on the islands. The director of Hurley's TV Ltd. cited the station's financial struggles and the refusal of regulator OfReg to require cable companies to pay a mandatory fee in order to fulfill their own local content requirements. Earlier this year, the station was told by OfReg that it had years of unpaid fees and ordered to pay up by September 1 or lose its license. Cayman 27 would be best known for TVNTers as a jcbD client that brought Brave New World (!) back into regular use. The news anchor is very very nervous — that clicking sound you hear is her hand on the mouse! This is the station's final broadcast: https://www.facebook.com/cayman27/videos/2608074222569978/

That WFMY special is very, very good.

You do have a point—there's also a certain presidential primary.

That unknown WMAR '85 theme is strange... Also... Tom Negovan in Winnipeg! (Only in the open, though.)

Ever wanted to hear a new cut of the WHAS Copeland package? Well now you can! A whole bunch of WYFF from 1990. Danny Ford is out at Clemson:

A full KHSL (!!) 5:30pm newscast from 1988. If the set gives you deja vu, it must have been shipped to Chico from KPIX...

It's very different when it's a sporting event versus a newscast. A sporting event can still be somewhat understandable in another language. A newscast, not so much. But putting down Spanish-language television stations who are doing just as much work for their communities in news and public service is being discriminatory to what they do simply because it's not in a language you understand.

Did you say... BayTV?

R Communications et al. wants to sell everything, doesn't it... Some of the Mexican stations are going to Radio Ultra S.A. de C.V.; Multimedios wants some of the US stations in the RGV and Laredo markets; and now even KMBH. As to plans, all we know is that "Entravision does not propose to operate KMBH as an affiliate of any of the Univision television networks". I wonder if they are going to use KMBH to broadcast their Fox and CW streams, which are on LPTVs. (Big-brain idea: Entravision should donate some of the LPTVs for public broadcasting, perhaps to UTRGV or KEDT up in Corpus!) All that's left of that company is KQUR Laredo, which MBM programs under LMA, and three radio stations in Del Rio, Texas. There's also a non-compete/anti-poaching agreement that terminates if and when MBM gets the green light to fully exit the market on both sides:

There are no Spanish-language newscasts produced in Tucson. Both Univision and Telemundo have full-time reporters in Tucson that contribute to the newscasts produced in Phoenix. The newscasts also include extended forecasts for both Phoenix and Tucson. Prior to the creation of Tucson News Now, KMSB did actually have a news department. Channel 11 has a longer history of local newscasts than you'd expect for a market of its size. It had a full news service between its late 1960s sign-on and 1981. (Unfortunately, it seems quality was lacking.) KMSB then had local news produced for it in Phoenix with reporters from KVOA, and then news production moved to Tucson before being subsumed.

The channel also has some other WBTV reports on the same topic: