Samantha

That sounds like a disaster in the making.

That's exactly what this is, a preparation for the sale of NTV. It should be no wonder that I've been talking about such a sale for years.

No idea, though the graphics match then-sister WBNG in animation style. WREG 1995/96. The VO has changed, the graphics have sorta: WLII 1986. This seems to be a year-end program. 1986 was a big year for WLII, the year it came on the air in its modern form. Is this its news theme? WBZ open, 1993:

Another Phoenix news anchor is out: Connie Colla, currently at KNXV and one-time anchor at other stations (I know KPNX and somewhere in Philly), is going to start her own consulting firm. What a week or two it's been in Phoenix. Can't recall this much instability in quite some time.

KIEM, 1980. This might even be better than what they have now: (and some news promos from the era: ) The channel has additional material of TV news interest.

KNXV also has the Cardinals (and KWBA in Tucson is their station in Southern Arizona). That said, Monday/Thursday games tend to air on KTVK (the opening MNF game did, for instance; not sure on what's up with the Thursday night St. Louis game in a couple weeks).

And earlier this week Kaley O'Kelley announced she's headed to Dallas. Now we really are feeling the effects.

KDLH looked pretty meh until 1991, too. The WIFR set, music and logo match KDLH's perfectly from that era (except with the 3 replaced by 23).

I get the sense that Quincy really poured long-needed money into WREX. The station's image right before the switch seemed really dated and not terribly well-made, particularly their set. The owner was Marty Pompadur, who owned nine stations and sold them all to different owners (other holdings: WTWO, WRBL, KATC, KQTV). As to what was said, here is a quote from an article mentioning the sale: ABC characterized the move as "a business decision on our part". Sounds a bit more like a network homogenization deal for Young—extremely common in the period, though I wouldn't doubt some spite played into it. For your trouble, an excellent WABC story promo from 1987 (the channel has a few more in this style): Also, I've made a connection that WIFR and KDLH were indeed sisters under Stauffer. KHQA was also a Stauffer station and used the The Coast PYCCO theme. (A similar connection exists for KKTV and WOWT, which used the same midday news theme in the early 90s).

You can't get enough Spokane right now, and today Crommy (who has been restoring his content in alphabetical order) hit the "K"s: KXLY: (one of the worst Turn To adaptations ever) (with Making the Northwest Difference, Wave I) 1998 5pm open, Counterpoint KHQ: There is also Seattle material, but it's mostly stuff we've all seen.

Yeah, I think they have the oldest news crew among all Fox O&Os. Except for Kari Lake, all five of their main weeknight evening anchors were hired before the station joined Fox (Dave Munsey in 1975), three of the four weekend evening personalities have been with the station 10 years or more, and two of their morning people are longtime fixtures in Phoenix TV (joined by a weatherman with 13 years of tenure at the station). This is also a station where I don't think any of the three weathercasters on staff has a meteorological seal, either. I watch KSAZ a lot, and I've always kind of noticed the tension between the younger Fox format (graphics, music, even the supermodern set) and the older news presenters.

Never seen this WITI open before, from 1990:

Thanks, Broadcasting (see page 54, 3rd column). WCCO was the only local station to be a client for an Effie award winning campaign that year.

WCCO is a strange bird. There's their 1978 theme, the 1983 theme which is seemingly an evolution of it, "The Best News of All" which was produced by a Twin Cities ad agency (and is lumped in with the 1983 theme), the 1989 theme which seems to be a local job, the 1993 theme, and they commissioned three news themes in the 2000s. On top of that, a few random packages, a hand-me-down from KCBS, and the Everyday package which resulted in near-identical looks at WCCO and WTMJ.

It is likely that the WCCO 1989/90 theme was locally made. The source for this is a Star-Tribune article from 1990 about Jeff Victor, who was a member of a 1980s Twin Cities rock band and a keyboardist for the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1990. Quote: "Victor, a self-taught keyboardist who has studied music theory, also does studio sessions, recording such things as the Channel 4 news theme." The article is from January 12, 1990. We need to get in touch with this guy!

Back to Rockford, where we have a full WREX newscast from August 13, 1995, the last day of the station's ABC affiliation: WREX lost ABC because of spite when Quincy Newspapers bought it. Quincy had jettisoned ABC for Fox in South Bend (a move influenced by the large NFC football audience in the market). ABC responded by yanking its affiliation from Quincy's acquisition in Rockford and giving it to WTVO. After Quincy came in, WREX was overhauled. Here are some news promos from 1996 that show the new set, graphics and image for the station.

And more specifically, it's Isao Tomita's synth version:

Ring of Honor is growing outside of Sinclair country:

KTVK/KPHO's got a logjam of talent it needs to fix, especially given the consolidation. I don't know if he jumps into that.

It was actually used in South Korea, too — it's in one of the "World News Openings" collections.

Crommy's return means we're going to be seeing lots and lots and lots of Spokane stuff. I've seen a lot of it (he pulled all his videos because of something with YT, voluntarily I believe) but there's also new stuff that's being added. He also has KXLY and KHQ stuff too, but he seems to be uploading things thematically and alphabetically. One of the first big things I recall him uploading was a KAYU (!) 1991 open when KREM produced their news — it was one of the first news shares of its kind in the country and I believe the first in the western US, but it only lasted a year. The 1995 stuff is John Christopher Burns. He had it before he decided to remove all his videos. It's a weird chopped-up version of the news open and graphic elements from that period. KREM went through a lot of themes and looks fairly quickly. They even commissioned one and it lasted a year. For that matter, KHQ seems like it really got confused in the 90s. Network Music tracks, Non-Stop, themes that are out of order in the NMSA, and I even think there's a misclassified theme. When the KHQ 1993 open reappears (it's a candidate for "worst news open"), that'll be awesome.

KSFY's Eyewitness News newsbreaks in 1992 with the WPTV 1989 theme:

Oh fun, that People You Can Count On theme! We've had an image song for WBRZ with it for years.

WTVO in 1993 with the WTVO/WLNS Young stations theme: A snippet of WIFR from the period. The NMSA just said they used The Coast's People You Can Count On. Even their logo matched KDLH: For a time in the 90s, KBJR had no full 10pm news and a taped five-minute broadcast, "Topline News at Ten":

The nation's "newest" full-power television station has run into a roadblock that has forced it off the air. You might recall that PMCM's station in New York was renamed WJLP, or that it has been in a tussle with WFSB over who can use virtual channel 3. Last month the station signed on with the PSIP number of 3-10. But it's off the air now after the FCC ruled in favor of WFSB, which would require WJLP to use major channel number 33—which, according to them, causes many of their contracts to be null and void. On Monday the station appealed to the D.C. Circuit of the Court of Appeals, hoping to get back on air.