T.L. Hughes

After more than 15 years at TWC, Chris Warren has left the network (as confirmed by the well-wishes by colleagues like Jim Cantore, Mike Bettes and Charles Peek in the comments of this Twitter post).

Correction: WSVN switched from NBC to Fox, but marketed itself as an independent for the first couple of years with Fox because the network aired prime time programming only a few nights a week at the time. (Fox didn’t add children’s programming until 1990, and wouldn’t expand to a full seven-night-a-week prime time schedule until 1993.)

Which makes it highly ironic that Sunbeam agreed to ABC’s terms when it only has three more stations than BH Media has. Granted, the Ansins’ non-broadcast assets are primarily held in real estate, but if Berkshire Hathaway, whose investments pale in comparison was unwilling to pay, why were the reverse comp terms palatable enough for Sunbeam?

The one wrinkle here is, given the reason cited by WPLG management for dumping ABC, it’s a “broken clock” situation ripe for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to intervene in his apparent “borderlining on abusing his authority” way of handling certain matters (an issue that Disney would’ve experienced at some point, given Carr’s governance style as chairman so far and Trump’s gripes with ABC that the network tried to paper over with his lawsuit that they settled after his election). From The Desk’s story on the switch:

ABC’s move to WSVN-DT2 will make Miami the largest market with a subchannel-only Big Four network affiliate, which is a weird thing to note considering that Big Four multicast affiliates are typically associated with sub-75 markets with nowhere near the number of stations that South Florida has. CMIIW, I think Atlanta (affected by the 1980 NBC/ABC switches and the New World deal), Baltimore and Denver (both of which saw all of their Big Three stations swap networks in 1995 as a result of the CBS/Westinghouse deal) are currently the only Top 30 markets where none of the Big Three networks has a “legacy” affiliate (i.e., a station that it has been affiliated with prior to 1980). Given that ABC stayed with WPLG during the 1989 switches, making it the only Big Four network not affected then, Miami will now join that list.

ABC being relegated to subchannel-only status in Miami of all places sounds like the biggest lateral move ever.

This assumes that this isn’t a negotiating tactic on WPLG’s part: walk away knowing ABC has no good options for a replacement affiliate (considering WSVN is most likely locked in with Fox, and six other stations are owned by the parents of the other major English- and Spanish-language networks), so that the network will have no choice but to crawl back and meet its offer, a gamble that’s incredibly risky (they’re dealing with Disney, after all). We know other station owners have been trying to claw back on the reverse compensation model for the same reasons why WPLG said no to ABC’s terms. WSFL is the only option (relying on its existing deal with Scripps, though that would necessitate Scripps building the market’s fifth English news department from scratch), unless Disney/ABC pulls what NBC did in Boston a decade ago and launches an O&O from scratch. If it goes through, none of the major English-language television stations in Miami will have been an affiliate of their network for longer than 36 years, a rarity for a top-20 market.

That would mark a return for the Stars on both stations: KDFI was the Stars’ local over-the-air broadcaster from 1995 to 2000, while KDFW carried Fox-televised games featuring the team from 1995 to 1999 via the network’s NHL package.

In advance of the expected tornado outbreak impacting portions of the Deep South (which some atmospheric analogues suggest could be under similar conditions to those that caused the 2011 Super Outbreak that struck the same region), TWC has announced schedule changes for Saturday (March 15). According to TitanTV and OnTVTonight, AMHQ will be extended by one hour until 10:00 a.m. ET, accordingly shifting Weekend Recharge one hour later (pushing it to 10:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m., preempting Pattrn). Long-form programming reruns will be preempted for extended storm coverage through at least 10:00 p.m. ET. (Barring that the event busts, Frozen Gold reruns still scheduled from 10:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m. ET will likely be preempted as well.)

And the aftermath… The station’s outdoor weather set was destroyed, several trees and tree limbs surrounding the building were snapped, and some cars were damaged (including the sunroof of meteorologist T.J. Springer’s car). The building’s roof managed to hold on, but it was partially bent from a couple of its clips, so it was a close call. It could’ve been worse, especially considering a house was completely destroyed farther south in Longwood. (Credit to an unknown user on the Broadcast Plaza Discord for the before and after photos.)

Well, this just happened… The tornado touched down near Lake Mary around 9:40 a.m. EDT (with a debris signature visible on radar), and approached the vicinity of WOFL/WRBW’s studios, where debris was reported falling from the sky onto the studio grounds.

This is the story on the appeal: https://tvnewscheck.com/regulation/article/media-and-democracy-project-appeals-dismissal-of-fox-broadcast-license-challenge/ Considering Brendan Carr revived three complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC from a right-wing groups masquerading as a neutral arbiter over media coverage that Trump perceived as unfair to him, the Media and Democracy Project’s appeal could make that action look more politically motivated in the end. If the FCC denies MAD’s appeal, despite reviving the other equally fruitless complaints and given Fox’s alignment with the right-wing through Fox News and Fox Business (despite Trump’s complaints about their coverage of the 2020 election results, the same election he still claims was rigged against him), it’d only serve as ammo for claims that Carr is misusing his authority as FCC Chair to target MSM outlets over Trump’s personal grievances against them, especially if punitive actions of some kind were meted out in relation to the other complaints. In fact, MAD claims that the dismissal of its complaint by Carr’s former colleague, Jessica Rosenworcel, on First Amendment grounds was politically motivated, despite none of them being merited. The reasoning behind MAD’s complaint, based on actions by a separate Fox Corporation division, wouldn’t have merited a license revocation, just as the reasoning behind the other complaints wouldn’t merit revocation or other actions (such as denial of license transfers in the Paramount-Skydamce merger, which would be telling and prompt legal action if Carr and the FCC board’s GOP members ultimately do that).

I have a couple of fonts created by amateur typographers on DeviantArt based on the Fox logo; they don’t resemble the version introduced during the game, and seem more influenced by Gotham than Franklin Gothic.

Bradshaw has two years left on his contract with Fox. He indicated in a recent interview with Radio Row that he’d likely retire after the network’s telecast of Super Bowl LXIII in 2029, meaning he’d likely seek a two-year contract extension to close out his broadcast career.

It seems like the logotype font is a custom version of Franklin Gothic (funny, ‘cause I always noticed similarities between the Fox wordmark and FG, and even tried replicating the wordmark using that font when I was a teenager). The bowls and kerning of some of the lettering help give it a hybrid style of FG and the Fox logo, but they look a little off from the derived logo (noticeable towards kickoff, during the promotion of the Fox Deportes simulcast, when the logotype was used instead of the actual logo).

Actually, Estrella TV airs a prime time news block consisting of flagship newscast Cierre de Edición at 10:00pm ET (previously at 10:30 until the end of 2023) and Estrella News’ 24 Horas at 10:30. (Both programs are rebroadcast back-to-back the hour after their initial broadcast.) Univision and Telemundo both run hour-long news blocks in the 11:00pm ET hour (technically considered to be part of the “late fringe” slot); on both networks, the first half-hour is a rebroadcast of their respective flagship 6:30pm newscasts (since many of their stations run local news at 11:00/10:00) and the second half-hour is a standalone live broadcast. (Until 2021, Univision aired a condensed half-hour version of its daily newsmagazine Primer Impacto at 11:00, leading into Noticiero Univision: Edición Nocturna.) The only English-language broadcast network that airs an evening newscast outside of the 6:30pm slot by default is MeritTV (Dr. Phil’s network), which runs their hour-long News on MeritTV at 7:00 and 10:00pm ET (though the latter is a rebroadcast of the earlier program).

Seems like Allen lifted elements of its Indiana stations’ new logo designs from the late Chambers-era logos of its Oregon ABC affiliates (KEZI/KDRV/KDKF). The opens are a mish-mash of Hothaus’ Meredith/WEVV/KADN package and KEZI (KTLA derivative) package.

I’m assuming they ran World News Now (and possibly GMA First Look) during that time.

That wasn’t Carter’s funeral, it was his lying in state service at the Capitol; his funeral takes place Thursday (January 9).

2.2 isn’t even TBD anymore, it’s a full-power KUNP simulcast, filling in coverage gaps in areas that can’t receive the LPTV translator on virtual channel 47. (TBD’s been moved to KUNP-DT4.)

I know this would be a thing for the Speculatron, but the wrinkle with NBC having yet to renew deals with the two largest station groups is that, given the current limits on subchannel-based major network affiliations (which should have included exceptions for situations where a network would otherwise be left without a local affiliate), there’s no plausible replacement affiliates that NBC can move to in markets where Sinclair and Nexstar both have stations. Case in point, here in Oklahoma City, Nexstar owns KFOR/KAUT (KFOR has been with NBC since it signed on in 1949) and Sinclair owns KOKH/KOCB (KOCB has been an independent since The CW moved to KAUT in 2023, which theoretically would make it the feasible replacement if KFOR lost NBC). If NBC were to somehow fail to ink new contracts with both Nexstar and Sinclair, the network would have to pull a lot of lateral moves to keep it available in the affected markets (in this scenario, NBC’s only option in OKC would be to cut a deal with Tyler Media to move its programming to KTUZ/KUOK, punting either Telemundo (on KTUZ) or Univision (on KUOK) to subchannel status or, like Sinclair did with Univision in Seattle and Portland, causing one of them to be dropped entirely).

Sounds like that unlike TWC en Español, TheGrio’s shutdown might not have been announced in advance. Here in OKC, KTUZ 30.5 (which replaced KOCO 5.6 as Oklahoma City’s affiliate well over a year ago, is showing a frozen image of what might be the network ID), instead of a replacement diginet (like Movies!, the only national Weigel network not available locally, as KOCO and KTUZ/KUOK carry the rest). Also, Allen has shut down four networks in a year (This TV, Pattrn, TWC en Español and now TheGrio) and five in the last three (including the 2022 shuttering of Weatherscan). With these network shutdowns, layoffs and newscast consolidations, is it possible Sinclair’s mismanagement of FanDuel Sports Network (which Allen also part-owned and had came out of bankruptcy proceedings just a couple months ago) is contributing to its financial problems, on top of whatever mismanagement AMG has done to itself?

Well, after only one year on the air, the network is already changing its name: starting January 1, The365 will become 365BLK, sharing (a stylized variant of) the name with the 2003-19 McDonald’s Black history and cultural outreach initiative. (Promos using the new name and updated logo were rolled out shortly after Christmas to promote a New Year’s Day marathon of the Lethal Weapon movies.) The network’s website URL has already changed to 365blk.tv.

Based on the similarities in the ticker layout, I’m assuming MAX Alert Live is the same alert system that Nexstar uses on most of its stations (like KFOR and KFDX).

On top of that, the station also modified its news branding to NBC 23 News Now. It’s odd to me that Nexstar allows non-ABC stations to use a package meant for the group’s ABC affiliates. The irony to this change is that, in Fresno, KGPE (one of the package’s other non-ABC clients) uses “ABC-01” while KSEE uses the “NBC-01” package that KVEO just switched from.