T.L. Hughes

Or, at least roll over the existing Helvetica Extended “3” logo to the new design (like what KTVT and WFOR did).

Sinclair has itself to blame, but also has Rupert Murdoch to share it with them. The company chose to grow its station portfolio as fast as it did, even though it had not long before its 2010s buying spree, had quite a bit of debt on its hands. On the RSN front, Sinclair chose to partner with Allen Media to buy the Fox Sports regional networks at a time when cord-cutting was increasing, and exacerbated things by, not long after taking over the company, making fee demands that wound up greatly reducing Bally Sports’ vMVPD distribution to where DirecTV Stream was the only live TV streamer carrying them; this, in turn, made it nearly impossible for the company to be able to pay down the debt it inherited from the purchase. By the time Diamond Sports got Fubo to bring back the Bally Sports networks a few months ago, cord-cutting had reached a point where the costs of a company like Sinclair operating an RSN became prohibitive. Diamond’s financial issues must have some ripple effect on Sinclair’s bottom line to where it’s making cuts to try to recoup the losses, on top of the affected stations’ moribund performance. Of course, a better solution to repay the losses would be to try to divest stations to AMG or other groups with significant cap room and use the proceeds to lower its debt load. I doubt Fox Corporation would’ve made the same mistakes that Diamond/Sinclair did if it had chosen to keep the RSNs; had it still owned them and floated a DTC offering for the RSNs at the same time WarnerMedia, Disney, Paramount and NBCUniversal/Comcast decided to venture into their own streaming services, such a move at an earlier point in time probably would have helped what became the Bally Sports networks and other RSNs weather the impact of cord-cutting somewhat better. Fox would have also had better leverage to secure DTC deals with MLB teams, compared to Diamond, which doesn’t even have groupwide streaming rights for all the teams that Bally Sports holds rights to.

Broadcast licensees are limited to producing no more than 25 hours of local programming per week (15% of the station’s weekly schedule) for a station it operates through an outsourcing agreement (shared services, joint sales and local marketing agreements or some combination) in conjunction with a station it owns and operates outright. While there’s a reason why it was put in place when the FCC revised the LMA rules in 1996, the 25-hour limit logistically no longer makes sense in this day and age, when many stations carry 35+ hours of local programming per week and syndicated programming availability for stations in larger and mid-sized markets has started to decline correspondingly.

So, both WCBS and KDKA were able to keep their existing newscast branding. The odd part is that O&Os that opted to keep their news brand didn’t have separate logos created for the OTA newscasts that reflect their branding (similar to KCBS/KCAL), while the version using the “standardized” wordmark was saved for the local CBS News streaming channels. If the OTA newscast logos were formatted to reflect the newscast title, the “CBS News [city name]” wordmark would probably need to be placed in the box, using the stacked version of the CBS News logo and the city/region name in a smaller point size aligned properly with it. (Granted, that formatting might not translate entirely well in the L3 bug.)

As it stands now, TV Passport isn’t showing any 11:00 p.m. newscasts on that weekend. It’d seem weird to just launch a 6:00 p.m. newscast (that will be preempted by NCAA basketball tournament coverage on Sunday the 26th) and add the 11:00 later (especially since that’s not how it launched the weeknight editions of both broadcasts), so either the continued listing of syndicated SEAL Team reruns (Saturday) and Joel Osteen’s weekly ministry program (Sunday) in the weekend 11:00 slot is a misprint or WWJ somehow chose to stagger the weekend evening newscast launches.

I’m sure most of the providers they lost were the vMVPDs, to where DirecTV Stream was the only one that carried each of the 19 Bally Sports networks until FuboTV re-added them in January. The irony is, it wasn’t always this way. Many of the RSNs that exist today once were distributed as premium channels that customers had to add onto their cable package (a la HBO and Showtime). The question is how much cost savings would customers have now, if RSNs didn’t transition to basic cable packages, and would RSNs still being made available a la carte offset the cost of carrying other channels that command higher subscriber fees (ESPN, TNT, Disney Channel, etc.)? The 1992 Cable Act’s retrans provisions only created more stress on RSNs in the past decade or so, by helping to drive pay TV prices to be able to carry other channels to progressively higher rates that led to the dramatic increase in cord-cutting… and that’s on top of service and equipment fees that add to the cost of subscribing to conventional pay TV providers. (National sports networks also contribute to the high cost, because of both retrans compensation and sports rights fees, if ESPN’s $5+/subscriber fee is any indication.)

DirecTV is suing Nexstar, along with Mission Broadcasting and White Knight Broadcasting, over the carriage dispute with the two sidecars that has been going on since last October, accusing the companies of price fixing and “engaging in an illegal conspiracy” to manipulate negotiations on retrans fee rates through Nexstar’s SSA/JSAs with the Mission and White Knight stations.

Just for an example, and given how that could affect if KAUT takes over the affiliation, at what point during that timeframe does KOCB’s CW contract expire?

I think this would mark the first time that MyNetworkTV stations not owned by Fox would be available on YTTV, and it fills a major gap in CW affiliate carriage on the service (many are already available on YouTube TV, with CBS and Sinclair being the largest affiliate groups prior to this deal that have carriage agreements for their CW affiliates). In some markets, it means the majority of the major local stations - commercial and public television - will be available on YTTV’s lineup. For example, in Oklahoma City (my home market), it means KAUT will join sister station KFOR (NBC), Hearst’s KOCO (ABC), Griffin’s KWTV (CBS), Sinclair’s KOKH (Fox) and KOCB (CW), Tyler Media’s KTUZ (Telemundo) and KUOK (Univision, which was added this past Fall alongside the existing national Univision feed), and OETA (Oklahoma’s PBS member network). (This leaves KSBI, KWTV’s sister station and the local MyNetworkTV outlet, as the only notable commercial station missing from the lineup.) And subscribers in New York, L.A. and Chicago will get access to WPIX, KTLA and WGN, respectively. CORRECTION: Sinclair’s MNTV affiliates and CW affiliates owned by a handful of other groups including Tegna, Scripps, Sunbeam, Griffin, Bahakel and Graham are apparently also carried on YTTV.

I’m not sure why Fox Weather doesn’t provide local weather segments myself; though, they’d have to make the national automated forecast segments that are run periodically during weekend afternoon and evening programming (as well as during overnight and weekend severe weather coverage, unless there’s a high-impact event worthy of full coverage) a regular part of the schedule to even be able to allow pre-taped local segments produced by each O&O to be inserted over the national feed. As an aside, The Weather Channel doesn’t run localized LOT8s segments or Lower Display Line data on vMVPD providers, even though YouTube TV, Sling, Frndly and FuboTV all offer its sister service, Local Now (which distributes all of its 200+ localized feeds on those platforms, with the feed available to a subscriber being determined by their ZIP Code). I’m surprised TWC, at least, hasn’t developed technology to insert local weather information over the national feed on its vMVPD carriers, such as a version of its IntelliStar or Local Now-style feeds for each DMA. (I receive TWC and Fox Weather via YTTV, and actually suggested such an idea to TWC in an email a few months back.) Either FWX or TWC should look into developing some method of inserting localized weather data on vMVPDs as well as, in Fox Weather’s case, AVOD streamers (i.e., Tubi, Xumo, Roku Channel).

Ironic that they weren’t added to the KSTP and KSTC editions of Eyewitness News Morning as well, where having weather segments at the top of each half-hour would be most useful.

Last time I streamed multiple KSTP newscasts in the same day (which was during the George Floyd protests), they were only doing “Forecast First” segments during 5 Eyewitness News Nightcast. When did it expand the segments to other newscasts?

I think you mean KCNC.

Could you clue me in? ‘Cause my only conclusion with the Flagstaff purchase was in the same vein of KNAZ’s relationship with KPNX: to act as a satellite of either KTVK or KPHO. Same with the Winnemucca purchase in relation to KOLO, since what is now KWNV was once a KRNV satellite.

If you count bi-state markets, Macon is one of three serving the state where Gray doesn’t have a station; it’s also absent in the spillover markets of Jacksonville (which includes far southeast Georgia) and Chattanooga (which covers the northwestern counties not in the Atlanta market). The only path into Chattanooga is a trade with Sinclair for either WTVC and/or WDSI/WFLI or with Morris for WDEF, or if Sarkes-Tarzian eventually decides to offload WRCB. It could enter Jacksonville by snagging either WTLV/WJXX or WFOX/WJAX, but only if the FCC ever rules on Apollo’s purchase of Tegna and decides that its interests in Tegna and Cox create ownership conflicts meriting spinoffs.

Unless Gray plans to snare the ABC or Fox affiliations from WGXA (assuming Sinclair’s contracts with those networks for that station are set to expire in the near future), it seems like an open question what they plan to do with WPGA. (Incidentally, WPGA replaced WGXA as Macon’s ABC affiliate in 1996; its previous owners, Register Communications, dropped the network in 2009, because of objections to the content of some programs and ABC’s request that its affiliates pay $500,000 in annual reverse compensation fees to carry its programming.) As for KNIN, that’s an open question as to whether Marquee continues the SSA with KIVI or turns it into a standalone station with its own studio, staff and news department, like what it did when it bought WSWG from Gray a few years ago. (Boise used to have four news departments until KNIN replaced KTRV as the Fox affiliate in 2011, which resulted in Block, which later sold the station to Ion Media, shutting down KTRV’s newsroom.)

NewsNation correspondent Evan Lambert was arrested on disorderly conduct and criminal trespassing charges after conducting a live report on the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio while Gov. Mike DeWine was conducting a press conference on the derailment. DeWine later disclosed he did not authorize the arrest, which if true, would suggest officers acted (and overreacted) on their own.

TitanTV identifies the vast majority of major network stations (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, The CW and MyNetworkTV, as well as many Univision, Telemundo and UniMás stations) using the station’s logo, not the logo of the network they carry (like what TV Guide, Zap2It and other TV listings sites do). This is also true of most independent stations listed on the site. Most of the time, the network logo is only used as the identifier if the station or a subchannel carries a diginet, or a religious or public television network.

Speaking of, when does WWJ plan to begin offering regular weekend newscasts? For that matter, when will production of WKBD’s 10:00 p.m. newscast be transferred from KTVT to the in-house operation?

Longtime KSAT sports director Greg Simmons resigned Monday (January 30) after 42 years with the station. His departure occurred three days after he was charged on a DWI complaint while leaving a bar in San Antonio’s Northside district. From the San Antonio Express-News:

MGM took over operational responsibility for This TV from Tribune after the Nexstar deal was completed in 2019, and then sold the network to Allen Media Group (along with LightTV, now TheGrio) in 2020.

The FCC Commissioner Board isn’t so much Democratic-run as it is headed by a Democratic chief but is split 2-2 between Democratic and Republican members on what’s supposed to be a five-member board. All as a result of Gigi Sohn’s nomination being held up from a Senate vote for so long because of opposition from the telecom industry and its lobbyists that there’s no tie-breaker for some of these M&A deals that the board has to review (like the Forum deal in Fargo and the Standard General-Apollo buyout of Tegna), hence why some of them have been stuck in the review process for so long.

This is Fox Weather’s updated weekday schedule, effective today (January 9) (per The Streamable) * 6:00-9:00 a.m. ET: Fox Weather First - anchored by Britta Merwin and Jason Frazer * 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon ET: Weather Command - anchored by Amy Freeze (replaces Sky Dome) * 12:00 noon-4:00 p.m. ET: America’s Weather Center - anchored by Kendall Smith, Craig Herrera, and Michael Estime * 4:00-7:00 p.m. ET: Fox Weather Across America - anchored by Brigit Mahoney and Stephen Morgan * 7:00-10:00 p.m. ET: Fox Weather Live - anchored by Marissa Torres and Steve Bender (replaces America’s Weather Now) * 10:00 p.m.-12:00 midnight ET: Fox Weather @ Night - anchored by Kendall Smith and Stephen Morgan (replaces America’s Weather Tonight, and interestingly carrying the same title scheme as sister network Fox News’s late night commentary show Fox News @ Night)

Ion Plus (which began as Ion Life, and now exists as a streaming network carried on a few AVOD streamers like Samsung TV+ and is soon being added along with the mothership and five other Scripps diginets to FuboTV) was the one that carried drama reruns (and lifestyle shows, most of which were also Cancon in nature, before that). Shop Ion (which used that branding only as an identifier for program listings, never on-air) was the “infomercial farm”.

In the U.S. alone, WBD owns or operates 49 cable networks: * CNN * HLN * CNN en Español * CNN International * TBS * TNT * TruTV * Turner Classic Movies * Cartoon Network/Adult Swim * Boomerang (English and Spanish) * Discovery Channel * Discovery en Español * TLC * Animal Planet * Travel Channel * Food Network * Cooking Channel * HGTV * Hogar de HGTV * Destination America * Investigation Discovery * Oprah Winfrey Network (95% with Harpo Productions) * American Heroes Channel * Discovery Life * Science Channel * Motor Trend * Magnolia Network (JV with Chip and Joanna Gaines; operated by Home Box Office, Inc.) * Discovery Family (60% with Hasbro) * Discovery Familia * AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh * AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain * AT&T SportsNet Southwest * Root Sports Northwest (40% with Baseball Club of Seattle, LP) * MLB Network (16.67% with Major League Baseball, NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications and Cox Communications) * NBA TV (operated by WBD, owned by the NBA) * HBO * HBO2 * HBO Signature * HBO Family * HBO Comedy * HBO Zone * HBO Latino * Cinemax * MoreMax * ActionMax * ThrillerMax * MovieMax * Cinemáx (Spanish-language simulcast of main Cinemax channel) * 5StarMax * OuterMax