Samantha

The FCC released the list of 13 bidders (7 with complete applications, 6 with minor fixes needed) for TV auction 112 in a couple of months. Complete Gray Television Licensee, LLC Major Market Broadcasting of North Dakota, Inc. Marquee Broadcasting, Inc. Radiant Life Ministries, Inc. Renard Broadcasting Corp. RxDIO.com LLC TV-49, Inc. Incomplete BEK Sports Network, Inc. Estrella Television License LLC Sinclair Television Group, Inc. SJL Television Inc. Ventura Media Communications, LLC Venture Technologies Group, LLC A 14th bidder, Redwood Empire Public Television, Inc., was rejected.

Kent Dana has died. He was 80. https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2022/04/19/kent-dana-legendary-anchor-three-phoenix-tv-news-stations-dies/7362375001/

It's real but they did a ton of really cheap station-side editing...

WJAR went into their news archives and dug up a rarity that lasted just 5 months... the WLWC TV 28 News at 10!

https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/media/2022/04/05/kris-pickel-fired-arizonas-family-phoenix/9478247002/ Kris Pickel is out at KPHO/KTVK due to a "business decision".

This is the WHCP "Bubbity News" of our time.

This is Gray, so "My Little LPTV: U-Relays are Magic" is probably the answer. Of the BX LPTVs, they could use a U-relay in Montgomery, but they don't need an LPTV in the other markets (and indeed one they don't own a network affiliate in). They could always put Circle on WBXC; the network has no place to hang its hat in that market, and the LPTVs are all unremarkable diginet trees.

@ChesapeakeTVand I are pretty much in agreement. It's Peters. When you see full-page newspaper ads like this with copy like this... Who else could it possibly be? https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97857000/ Peters LOVED flowery newspaper ads. I had already clipped three of these for KOLN/KGIN (10/11 Strong debuted 1977), KMST (It's a Must, used 1991–92), and WTXL (This is Our Place from 1984), and I was able to nab another five from WEAR Clearly Yours (1979), WXLT 40 is Yours (1980), KVIA 7 Together (1983), WQAD One Quad-City (1984), and WSPA In the Center of it All (1990). https://www.newspapers.com/clip/48745979/the-strength-of-nebraska-1011-strong/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/75942435/looking-toward-tomorrow-its-a-must-a/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29141556/tallahassee-this-is-our-place/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97857200/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97857208/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97857232/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97857336/ https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97857453/

Thanks for posting, Dan. I think every single person who has said something in this thread (including myself) would say we really appreciate your work. I don't know of anyone else who had that many concurrent campaigns on the air in the same market. A lot of craft goes into making all that work, and this thread exists because we want to recognize the people that produced it.

They're also buying an associated digital media business, and the owners are joining Gray to run strategy for the Telemundo stations. Still doesn't make sense.

The second one is a specific service mark for the National Captioning Institute. It must be the case that NCI did not caption Cosby but captioned Family Ties (I found a 1986 newspaper article mentioning they captioned the latter).

Gray petitioned for tolling on K19KE-D and KKTM-L(D) in December due to tower crew availability. They'll be out at both sites in mid-February, and construction should take about two weeks. I wish they'd be a bit more precise about their wording. Lawton viewers don't *need* to rescan if they have a setup that's good at receiving the Grandfield transmitter. But they *should* rescan if they have signal problems or a setup that's not good at VHF.

You've missed this @CircleSeven, but I've talked a bit in the Discord about what Gray is doing. Gray buys LPTVs for two reasons: To provide UHF transmission in the core metro area for a VHF station that cannot move to the UHF band at full-power (what I call a "U-relay"). To provide additional translators, even for stations and regions where traditionally this has never been a consideration, at the outer edges of station coverage areas. I don't know how many LPTVs Gray is buying for ATSC 3.0, a la their Tallahassee test bed. However, I do believe the strategy also has to do with looking down the road and the idea of a more cellular signal topology (multiple transmitters ensuring a high SNR within the defined coverage circle of the primary station). Along the way, they get UHF sticks that can serve a high percentage (if not all) of the viewers of the DMA and their flat-panel indoor antennas and, where necessary, can serve as ATSC 3.0 transmitters if so desired. In Nashville, for instance, Gray has contracted to buy three different LPTVs: 15 Nashville, 29 Lebanon–Nashville, 29 Lewisburg. Lewisburg is a translator; it's toward the southern edge of the WSMV contour. 15 Nashville could easily be a U-relay. (RabbitEars lists the first two as U-relays already!) This is actually some cutting-edge stuff and shows that Gray sees value in improving signal coverage. It may be one of the largest efforts to commission new TV translators in 20 or so years at least, and a lot longer than that when considering the location in the eastern US of many of the stations that benefit.

That is sliiiiiiiiick... It's also a new design riffing off the 1960s version (with the sine wave in the A).

Watch the close at 36:34; guess the Newsmat was still in place when they debuted that look!

https://www.inforum.com/business/7302587-Forum-WDAY-TV-plan-to-acquire-KVRR-TV-in-Fargo-KQDS-TV-in-Duluth Also mentions that Forum owns the Duluth News Tribune.

I'll note that some of these are assignments vacated a decade ago or more (by groups like Pappas and Equity, as well as the Apollo closures). Only Freeport and Eagle River are new allocations.

They look like knockoffs of that package. No eye, incorrect typefaces.

Wow, what a newscast! The answer is we don't have a lot of KMOX-TV of this era. They also likely used the Palmer package briefly in 1985–86, as we have some IDs and bumps with it.

How has that KEVN logo survived this long?

Gray is WYMPing out: they're acquiring WYMP-LD 14, virtual 7, southeast of Memphis (Bruce, Mississippi) from 5GTV for $500,000. On October 18, Gray executed a subchannel lease agreement with 5GTV, too.

The "Metromedia News at Ten" moniker is interesting. This is from just after the time when they flirted with starting up a national newscast which would have competed with INN, and I wonder if that is a legacy of the failed attempt.

The local news did indeed start 12/12.

No kidding. Big fan of the theme music, too. Unfortunate why we have it, though—it was taped because of the story of a 2-year-old baby (and others) who died in a fire.

KLAS veteran Gary Waddell has died of a heart attack while battling COVID-19 in a Las Vegas hospital. He was 77. According to the linked article, he was fully vaccinated but suffered a breakthrough case.