Samantha

Not to mention Palm Springs where every single number is a cable position.

I was born after Wallace and Ladmo ended, so I've never had the chance to watch a single episode of the show, but I don't think it's that hard to understand the importance of the show as an Arizona cultural institution. The Arizona Republic article is excellent, and so is the one from KPHO itself. Keeping in the Valley, I had posted a review of our two Spanish-language newscasts just two days ago on RadioDiscussions and mentioned KTAZ doesn't do weekend news. I didn't say it but I expected that to change pretty quickly—what I didn't expect is "pretty quickly" to be this weekend. 12 new staffers are being hired to support the new 4:30 and 10pm weekend newscasts; the anchor last worked in Monterrey. There's also mention of a new set, though I think it's already in use; the one I saw on the broadcast this week looked like it was very new and aesthetically reminded me of what's in use elsewhere in the network. Their earlier "set" wasn't even a set, just a duratrans. And staying with Telemundo: It's sort of old news, but it's worth posting because it's part of a trend. Back in May Telemundo Puerto Rico also added weekend news for the first time in a decade, brought forward from 2015 in response to the end of weekend news at Univisión there.

Or TV border blasters comprising a grand total of four additional media voices.

...KTAZ doesn't have a public file and as a station in a Top 50 market it must have one. Oh boy.

It's FCC Fine Time! WXOW and KCWE got slapped for a 2006 cartoon promotion that blurred the line between cartoon characters and advertising but weren't fined because it was "isolated". Last week two other broadcasters got fined. An LPTV station in Texas didn't file children's TV reports or two annual ownership reports in a timely manner and earned a $6,000 forfeiture, while KXGN received a $15,000 fine for failing to file eight quarterly children's reports and filing 14 more late since its last renewal in 1998 — the reason that it's been hanging around that long is because the 2005 license renewal is still pending, thanks to an incomplete EEO filing in 2004. In addition, KRHD received a $1,000 fine for not publicizing where its children's TV reports are.

Some new Internet Archive items but this is the only really interesting or new one, WAGA from 1987 with "Eyewitness News Morning Edition": https://archive.org/details/tobacco_ugw27a00 EDIT: This is the same guy who voiced KTVK and who the NMSA thinks is Casey Kasem (final five seconds of open are VO). Any clue on if it's really him?

KTBC promo, 1983, an example of the Times-Mirror stations theme in action:

Thematically, nothing, not even the music, had a relationship to anything used before in Phoenix. It was the first time the Spirit signature had been used here; the only station to have used Spirit in the whole state was KOLD Tucson in the late 80s*, and of course KSAZ had its Spirit of Arizona phase but that had separate music. *From TM jingle reel records.

...WIVT's news is produced in Binghamton but is pre-taped and I know WETM has provided infrastructure in the past. Most famously WIVT shattered KOTA's record for "oldest news open/package currently on TV" by keeping its 1996 TV by Design graphics. It's a cool treat because TVbD did good stuff then, but it's also SD and analog—unacceptable from a news production standpoint.

And if you want to hear the theme better, I located this close from 1989 earlier in the year:

It's one of the few cases where this was warranted. Yuma is the nation's worst economy, and likewise its TV stations were technically not performing well — just one station is HD is not a record to be proud of, and even though I'm not a fan of the virtual set deal it's probably the most effective thing for the market. I'm sure that there was better-quality television to be had from Mexicali.

WEEK open, 1992: The open is a knockoff of WFSB.

Gahhh, I can't remember which is which. Oops. I once found a site that had ripoffs of quite a few typefaces though they've cleaned up their act a bit since. Every typeface that they ripped off had a "similar" name to it.

The background on the WETM cover photo looks a bit like WATN. Less character but more modern. I'm sure that 18 dated to the late 80s. Even in 1990 when they had the Sarentino 18 their set had a decidedly worse older logo.

I think the structure of the deal is such that Mission bought the stations and then will assign them to Marshall.

The only reason an integration didn't happen this week was because of the holiday weekend. Someone's launching these graphics next week, and I think it's WCNC IIRC.

DIN comes with Mavericks now, but still, Helvetica when done wrong (like Gannett 2008) is very, very cheap. (If it so happens to be done just right, like the new ESPN package, it can look solid.)

I know, you're getting tired of this Phoenix material, but is it worth it or what: First off, a video featuring Mary Jo West, one of the trailblazers of women in TV news. It even includes another sample of that late 1970s KOOL-TV theme: Secondly, I follow a Google+ page that posts excellent Phoenix historical stuff, and today it was all TV news: KOOL 1977 print ad with the team of Bill Close, Mary Jo West, Roy Allred and Bill Denney KTAR-TV 1966 print ad: "14 GOOD REASONS for watching NEWS on Channel 12", with the news team of Ray Thompson, Frank Peddie, Bob Vache and Bill Stull KTAR's studios in the 70s: gotta love the hanging sign with the old NBC peacock! And if that's not your cup of tea, maybe a WRCB news update from 1984 is? Or ?

It sounds a bit like the Phil Copeland package from 1989. Which is not a good thing if the point of this look is to be modern.

Consolidation has truly hit the fan in Yuma. Last year KYMA bought KSWT. Now KECY is buying "operating" BOTH of them. NPG is set to form the only English-language television empire in the Imperial Valley via a resource sharing agreement—and every news employee goes with them. All of the employees will be moving to the KECY building in Yuma, which is being remodeled to accommodate the operation, and all of the stations will continue to produce the newscasts that they are currently providing. NPG says this arrangement will mirror that of KCOY. NPG in Yuma will now include all of the Big Four networks, The CW and Telemundo. The only other major media owner on the US side of the market is Entravision, with its Spanish-language station combo of KVYE and KAJB providing Univisión, UniMás and MundoFox. On the other side of the border, in Mexicali, there's the "of course" Televisa combo of four stations, Azteca with two, the Sonora state network Telemax in San Luis del Río Colorado, and XHILA Mexicali, effectively an independent. The entire media market (both sides of the border) basically comes down to four owners, plus the Sonora state network and an independent in Mexicali. It's the only time Televisa and Azteca have ever made a multiple ownership situation look good. NPG now owns virtual duopolies in quite a few markets: Idaho Falls, Santa Barbara, Palm Springs, Mid-Missouri and Bend, Oregon.

They have to be rolling this out soon. When I went there the navbar was too low but it had the color accents from the Gannett package.

¡Más noticieros! KBLR, the Telemundo O&O in Las Vegas, once again has a local newscast that's produced in Vegas. The weeknight shows debuted last night and replaced a newscast produced from Phoenix. The new newscast uses KSNV facilities because KBLR does not have the space or equipment to produce a local newscast. The anchors are Beatriz Moncayo, former correspondent for NTN24, and Leticia Castro, who transferred from KTMD Houston. The news director is Xochitl Sandoval, who has worked at KBLR in sales and marketing for the past seven years. Her career has included being an EP at the Dallas news hub as well as being news director at KXTX.

I do as well. In a non-competition schedule, it'd give KTVK two cornerstone early evening newscasts, 4pm and 6pm, to go with its morning and late offerings.

With Scripps converting KNXV's 4pm show to its The Now hybrid format (a BBC "Sixty Minutes" for America in 2014, I suppose), KNXV has balanced the lost local news by announcing it will expand to 6:30pm on July 7. The new hour-long 6pm show will mark the first time any newscast has attempted to compete with KPHO at that half-hour. 4pm has the potential of becoming very vacant. KTVK is at 4:30 for who knows how much longer, 12's 4pm local hour is less of a newscast, and Cronkite NewsWatch won't move to 8 until the fall IIRC (it has aired at 4:30 for most of its run).

Something happened: as seen from the FCC Broadcast Actions today, the three ComCorp stations to be transferred to Marshall were OK'ed to go to Mission.