Samantha

This is interesting. I am on the hunt for WTLV 1989, one of my favorite news themes of all time. I found this in the Copyright Office: "We're Makin' Good Things Happen: WTLV 12" Created: 1987 (May 11) Composer: VTS Music (L. Earl Grizzell, Hal Brown and D. Bradley Kelly) This is interesting, though it seems just a touch early. It does line up with an open we have including the slogan "Making Good Things Happen for the First Coast", but that open is from 1987/88. Of course, there's also a known package from Shelly Palmer called "The Works" that was done for WTLV. But what is what here? There is also another unidentified theme, the less memorable 1992, which doesn't sound like a major job...

A WAFF promo from 1984. What's the promo theme? (another good promo: — what is it referencing, July 30?) WKTV in 1980 with Bill Worden and "TV 2 News": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6jeMoyBqhM KMBC in 1985 during the short-lived Spirit of Kansas City era: And in 1987 with TVbD graphics:

El Paso is Sinclair's Memphis.

Yes it was.

I found it in the Copyright Office under the title "Stay in Touch with Ten". It appears to be the image song. He appears to be more commonly known as Doug Benge.

Yeah...they're a touch too basic, though they work. The big problem with them seems to be finding appropriate typefaces.

What did I just watch? I think that's the worst explanation of an affiliation change I've ever, ever seen. Puerto Rico calling: WORA "Telecinco en Las Noticias" opt-out, 1995:

And of course their news van just has to be in their parking lot.

In January 2015, almost all of Arizona's major television stations will simulcast a report on heroin produced by the journalism school at Arizona State University. In total 32 stations will air the program. In Phoenix, KTVK, KPHO, KAZT, KAET, KSAZ, KPNX/KNAZ, KNXV, KUTP, KASW, KTVW, KFPH, KTAZ and KPAZ (!!!!) will air the report. For Tucson, KVOA, KUAT/KUAS, KGUN, KMSB, KOLD, KTTU, KUVE and KHRR are all lined up. (This does not include KWBA.) In Yuma, all stations in the NPG Yuma cluster will air the program including all digital subchannels. (Notably, Entravision's stations are missing. I believe they are run from California, so they are not be members of the Arizona Broadcasters' Association.)

It had been planned to launch next year but it was moved up specifically because of the cuts at Univisión. And in fact WKAQ has already scooped up talent from channel 11.

Univision already had cut weekend news there, which prompted Telemundo PR to add weekend news ahead of schedule. Some other bullet points from the Spanish article: 109 employees are affected by the decision; the final newscasts have already aired. Just one local show will be on. The management structure will combine radio and TV units. "The layoffs are part of a national strategy by Univision to make itself more attractive for a sale, according to a source."

Well, Puerto Rico is heavily Christian (97%, according to Pew Research Center), and nearly three quarters of all Christians there are Catholic. That's a total of 2.6 million Catholics and nearly one million more Protestants. This is a good deal stronger than on the mainland. The religious stations vary in content. For Protestants, 3ABN, TBN and CTN all have a presence on the island, and there is a local evangelical outlet (WCCV). The Catholic Church owns a station there—which was on VHF in the analog era, to boot, and signed on in 1984. Even the TBN outlet is locally owned. Now, you might look at PR and think "well, where are all the religious TV stations in Mexico?" They're pretty much boxed out by law there — the government has a bit of a secular streak to it. But (usually Catholic) religious outlets can and do exist in other Latin American countries (El Salvador*, Colombia, Argentina). Going back to the WORA material, I'm stunned to see no ABC logo. ABC is among the most insistent networks when it comes to network branding. Perhaps they made an exception for Puerto Rico. *This is a new one. The station is channel 39 and has three 5 kW transmitters. In many central American countries all odd or even channels in UHF are in use, a bandplan that makes DTV transitions exceedingly tough.

And I found one of the people in the credits on LinkedIn—the news director, who began working there in 1983. The newscast name appears to be WMNews — a name I cannot find anywhere. That has to be incredibly rare material.

It's showing up for me. It's basically color bars with the black box of [KFOX - KDBC PRI] superimposed. Edit: The site briefly had a box stating it's in read-only mode for maintenance. Never seen that before.

KDBC relaunched overnight, showing off these color bars (from my Mexican source):

Hours of Portland and national news from CBS in 1983. At the end of this linked clip is 18 seconds of a close to some Montana newscast. Any clue as to which station?

KFOX relaunched overnight from the new Sinclair facilities on the west side of El Paso with KDBC scheduled to make the switch tomorrow. The $10 million investment includes a new facility, new sets for each station and the Sinclair graphics package. (I believe the two stations may be using variants.) The combined operation employs 120, including 45 hired just for KDBC. Currently KFOX has morning, 5pm and 9pm news. The KDBC new look launches for their 5:30 and 10pm newscasts tomorrow. Currently KDBC airs the network news at 5pm. I expect some change on this front soon, as quite clearly KDBC's news schedule was trimmed back to avoid competing with KTSM, and the setup allows KDBC and KFOX to broadcast live separately. KDBC also gets a new website. The story about the transition on their old site takes more time to hawk the fact that KTSM keeps meteorologist Robert Bettes in the move, which involves the dissolution of one virtual duopoly and the creation of another. It doesn't even link to the new site. I'm no fan of Sinclair but this move is a big step up, particularly for KDBC which has really been neglected in recent years.

It's a metered paywall. Unfortunately the entire world has a paywall now, it seems. The network may require certain facilities or the technical system is different. The networks have fairly proprietary equipment.

The Great Yuma Merger hasn't gone terribly smoothly. With every English-language television station in town under common control, it's been a mess to try and get them on the same page in terms of facilities. Problems have included overruns from CBS sports events on KSWT; transferring KSWT's master control from Texas and bringing over all the CBS receiving equipment; the NBC satellite equipment; and sun outages. Also, the transition of KYMA and KSWT news to high definition is another hurdle. So where was KSWT being master controlled from? KDBC??

WHDH? That's definitely a duopoly. But WUCW and KASW, certainly those are oddballs. I don't know if they're actually selling KASW—I get this distinct feeling it may be cashed in in the spectrum auction.

WDBB ripped off the old Hayes "splitting city skyline" element (see: WAGA, KMOL) . That could also be actual Hayes work, but I don't think so by 1984/85.

James did KPHO up until his death. In fact, it was when KPHO went away from James that I found out that he had died. He lived in Scottsdale. As to the name, it seems fine. KDBC needs a little love, and Sinclair is giving it to them.

KTVK's logistical challenges are more upcoming when KPHO moves up to that facility. In an interview with TVNewsCheck Meredith's VP of local news had this to say: "In Phoenix we now have two very large, active news-producing stations, so that is going to be a very interesting merger. KPHO and KTVK both have very unique marketing positions. So the question is how do you merge two unique brands? It is challenging but provides an incredible opportunity. We will have the largest television news operation in the Phoenix marketplace."

That's a supposition under new LMA rules — that article is not about the sale of WLOV.

Sold! WLOV will become the first non-Alaska property of Coastal Television, owner of the Fox and ABC affiliates in Anchorage. The sale is probably related to that of WTVA that was announced late last month; it also will mark a separation of WTVA from its longtime LMA partner.