Samantha

It's been a fairly technical day. We've had an update on Dielectric's equipment fixes in Richmond, a list of proposals for ATSC 3.0, and now WTHR has announced its intent to seek a power boost to help improve digital reception. Apparently even Indianapolis viewers are having problems with the RF 13 signal.

I've always loved the TVbD demo reels (they've also been up there for years). The WDIV theme was used 1981/82 to 1984. We have a bunch of pieces of it but it's not in the NMSA.

Other stations that used them extensively past 1992: KGET, KOAA, WFMJ (debuted 1993?), WICU? (says 1990-96, but we have Signature in 1993), WTVA. I also found the source for a bunch of the Huntsville, AL market finds: WAAY 1988 with KOAT89 theme: (used beginning in 1987!) WAFF 1988 with KSL89 theme: WAAY 1990 with NS2001: (I think this was picked up in 1990, not 1986)

No, that's the station's on-air ID.

KSNF was using five themes at once, several of them hand-me-downs from Wichita. In the 1990-94 time frame, they were using Hello, Turn To, All the News (especially), News Series 2000 and NBC: The Place to Be; that's a lot, and it's a really bad jumble too. And we don't know which one was used in the open. And from 1994-97 they used three different music pieces (I suspect that aside from Heartland, the other two are actually production music pieces). KOAM, KODE and KSNF are still pretty Swiss cheese, KOAM not so much thanks to my finds (we have most of the key pieces back to their switch to CBS in 1983). KODE has lots of missing pieces (including 1990s-2003) and mostly no-name themes to show for it. KSNF is confusing in and of itself, but being in Joplin where the NMSA source information is really bad doesn't help.

KSNF news updates from 1994. This is why I say they used NBC: The Place to Be...

The whistle's been blown by a couple of free press groups about the Dreamcatcher shell for Tribune.

I hate to post again, but our Joplin connection finally dumped some more KSNF on us (repeated but important): Promos from 1986... I think the music in the first one is from TM's All the News: ...And more material. I think the ID has All the News (again), but here's Turn To showing up all of a sudden: Much like it seems like KSNW was using Hello, GNP and Turn To at once, I think KSNF was mixing Hello, All the News, Turn To, NS2000 (very limited) and NBC: The Place to Be (for news updates as late as 1994). That's a lot of different music.

You like that WFRV logo... Arial. Please. I do see where a certain J.C.'s style can show through (he seems to be retired, for what it's worth). But it's not him. Reminds me of the stations that aped TVbD in the late 80s and early 90s, like KAIT and WCJB. On the KYMA/KSWT watch, the unemployment numbers for July in Yuma County came in. 34.5%. That's more than four times the unemployment rate of Arizona, at 8%. In June, Yuma and El Centro were the two metro areas in the country with the highest unemployment rates. With unemployment rates like these, that failing station waiver has all the reason in the world to exist.

I have no good place for this. It's not in English: XHTVM 40 (Mexico City), 2003. XHTVM has had a very unusual and contentious history in its 20-year life. It started as the product of a company called CNI that mostly produced news programs. Later CNI entered into an agreement with TV Azteca to create "Azteca 40", run by the two companies. The contract was broken, facilities were retaken (this newscast is from the day when CNI retook full control of the Chiquihuite transmitter), then came an employee strike, the owner's arrest in Houston and a bunch of legal cases. Right now, it's TV Azteca's, branded as Proyecto 40. Lots of material here, ignoring the watermark.

Chuck George, chief met at KOLD who has been suffering depression and multiple leaves of absence in the last few years, has resigned from the Tucson station to pursue a doctoral degree at the University of Arizona.

"From the news center in Phoenix, this is KOOL News 10." 1979, and what a gem this is! *** Another international find with no good place. You might recognize the music! This was produced by Colombia's RCN (back in the days of the layer cake/programadora system) in 1992. The theme music is KPM's 20th Century Revolution, used by KCST c. 1986: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRDAV87DomU

All the KTVQ you could ever want. There are four different new themes for KTVQ here, three of them new to us as well (KTVQ used the WTHI 1985 theme in 1988). http://www.johninmontana.com/video/video.htm Each one of the four opens (one 1972/possibly later in the 70s, one 1981, one 1988/WTHI 1985 and one 1990) has something really intriguing. The music from the 70s open could be some of the worst music in history; the 1990 opens begin with a sung jingle "The News Station, KTVQ". The rest of the site is chock-full of photos of TV from the rest of the country and Montana, too, some of them going back into the 60s and 70s. I even learned a couple things—did you know that KPAX in Missoula, MT, is named for founder Joe Sample's favorite team, the Green Bay Packers? EDIT: Found the promo that matches the 1990 open. Looks like we know that KTVQ changed opens in 1988: *** WISN 1992 10pm: He has a bunch of other local news stuff taped as an incident to his abortion-focused YT channel, but this is the only complete open he has.

The retirement of a WMTV anchor from 1992 is cause for a news open. The theme is Network Music's Energy III, first known example of it in TV news: Also from 1992, I finally found the video for that KAUZ Wall to Wall News open. Heavily based off the CBS affiliate graphics of the era:

According to this WMDT article, the seller, Delmarva Broadcast Services, had owned the station since 1982 (it signed on in 1980). This is a local company, and so I don't expect additional station acquisitions from Marquee.

The addition of the ABC logo to WKBW was a matter of time, as in "your affiliation agreement basically asks you to put in an ABC logo".

That is one heck of a cut of the Team to Watch theme. The open graphics are from TVbD (and appear in their 1994 demo).

Nexstar and Granite are too good a fit for each other. If the two companies were to combine, Nexstar would control every station of consequence in Peoria, Illinois. Nexstar owns WMBD (CBS) and controls WYZZ (Fox, Sinclair). Granite owns WEEK (NBC) and operates WAOE (MyTV, Four Seasons Broadcasting/Venture Technologies) and WHOI (ABC, Barrington --> Sinclair). It's unclear how some of the pending sale relationships are going to work out in Peoria, especially with Sinclair's pending buyout of Barrington that will give it a duopoly where it doesn't control either station. To operate its duopoly of WHOI/WYZZ, Sinclair would need to start a separate news department and find studio space, as WHOI's news department is a sidecar to WEEK and both stations are co-located with their parents. Something similar, as mentioned, would happen in Fort Wayne, where Nexstar would control WPTA, WISE and WFFT, but in this case an independent outlet does stand (LIN's WANE-TV). Third on the priority list is Syracuse. Nexstar and Sinclair would become the only station owners for all major stations (pending Barrington deal).

Finally found the Internet Archive source for that WFMY 1989 clip: http://archive.org/details/tobacco_amy99d00 Two full WFMY newscasts (the 6pm, plus a 7pm "Eye on the Piedmont" with open one hour in), the evening's CBS Evening News and USA Today on TV.

What a treat. I can't identify the theme (and I put some audio gain on it in Audacity to increase the volume). I'd say this went into 1989. The graphics certainly did. --- WDBB 1985 open, with JAM's Thematic News Package: (note the influence from, say, WAGA's early 80s open) The next year, WDBB decided to enter Birmingham, and the newscast became known as "Alabama's Nine O'Clock News", with a new theme: A longer version of the 1986 theme for the close:

Even Fisher and Belo sold out to other companies who shelled (NPG and Raycom, respectively). I understand the importance of SSA-JSAs in these smaller markets; they preserve some level of local news and make for more financially sustainable operations. "Desert News Now" (what I call the future KYMA/KSWT in Yuma) should be interesting. Basically, it's Yuma's two heritage news operations, who had no competition but each other for about two decades, against KECY which has had bare minimum local news for almost a year and a half.

Yup. There's a promo somewhere in the NewsActive3 collection from the 70s in which they use the shield-5. "5M" and "7R" are references to the TV Guides of the era; as San Francisco had the important 5 and the 7, the Medford and Redding stations got suffixed.

KFDX 1992 open with Advantage: KSWO 1992 open. The theme is "We're Looking Out for You" (NMSA: KFDA 1989). It's really underwhelming, and it looks easily several years old: WKEF 1984. The theme is KPM's Prestige, Theme 1, as used by KTLA in the late 70s: WTVC 1982. Dig that circle-9 variant! No open music in evidence... KSHB 1993 9pm. Yes, KSHB had a newscast as a Fox affiliate. This is something else...it even rivals opens from WBBM and KSAT. The graphic designers should also be shamed for that black and white flickering effect... It may even be a "worst news opens" entrant. A KLAS-specific version of that "laser cameraman" part of the Tron-inspired syndicated graphics. More noteworthy: Signature News. It seems likely that KLAS was using three news packages at once circa 1988: The News Image from Tuesday and And You and Signature News (which may have been bundled) from Telesound. And now to my favorite market in the world...Joplin! KOAM 1986 news update. No music, but this clears up a date question. This was when the station briefly branded as Action (7) News and used TM's Get to Know Us, 1984-86: KODE bumpers from 1993. This sounds like a news theme: KOAM 1995 weather promo. This is a cut of the KMOV custom package they were using at this time. A basket of KODE promos from 1995. Is the news promo at 1:20 using their news theme as background music? It sounds like the one from the 1993 bumpers. Could it be the fabled Interaction?

WFMY 1988-era open, with VTS's "News Leader". This open is a combo of gorgeous 3D animation coupled with an obvious and not-so-good imitation of TVbD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBgz-K_LqUA (notably, Mary Jane McKittrick had come from KAKE and went from "M. J." to "Mary Jane" as her name) WJZ 1988 noon open, first wave of Chroma Cues. I don't think I've heard this cut before: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQxGO0g5SAE

John Hambrick has terminal cancer and just weeks to live. He helped lead WEWS to prominence in the early 1970s before going to LA, San Francisco, New York and Miami.