T.L. Hughes

Jim Ramsey, longtime weather anchor and reporter at WGN-TV for 30 years from 1987 to 2017 (and whose career in Chicago began at WLS-TV years before), has died at the age of 69. As someone who watched him regularly growing up on the former WGN superstation feed, all I can say is… we’ll miss you, Jim.

Actually, considering that TMZ regularly features quite a bit of coverage of the hip-hop industry on its two main syndicated shows, a version dedicated to hip-hop news makes sense.

None of us know how Imagicomm is going to run the stations, so these wild speculations of IP asset transfers, using the stations as spectrum farms and news operation shutdowns are just that… speculatory. I’ll grant you, though, that an affiliate of INSP buying these stations is extremely unusual… then again, the LDS Church does own KSL and runs it as an NBC affiliate.

HBO Max being available for free for HBO’s cable/satellite/IPTV/vMVPD subscribers, through a DirecTV-owned service or any other provider, most likely won’t change with the spin-off. (I get HBO Max access through HBO’s Hulu add-on [which can be added onto either of Hulu’s base VOD-only tiers as well as its live TV offering], but only use Max to watch non-HBO content; I have the Hulu add-on partly for the live East/West feeds of all seven linear HBO channels available on it, which have still yet to become available in any capacity on Max’s HBO portal.) Starz is the only other premium channel to have a hybrid TV Everywhere/direct-to-consumer streaming platform, interestingly (although HBO Max is technically more a hybrid of a premium channel streamer and a Netflix/Hulu/Prime Video-style general entertainment service), whereas Showtime and Epix still offer separate TVE and DTC services (Showtime Anytime and the Epix streaming service on the TVE side, and the Showtime streaming service and Epix Now on the DTC side).

Except not immediately, just after a transition period that would initially see them being bundled by default before Discovery+ is formally folded into HBO Max.

Apparently, the last time Gray renewed its Fox affiliation contracts was in September 2019, so how long that deal applies to WLUC’s “Fox UP” subchannel is key as to what point in time WJMN will get an opening to snag that affiliation.

What about WLUC’s DT2 Fox affiliation? How long will it be before Gray has to go to the negotiating table for that? Considering WJMN pushed its late news to prime time, Fox would make more sense as a future partner.

So, like another CBS station in the Midwest on channel 19 (during its Action News era), WZMQ elected to use separate logos: one for news and one serving as a general purpose logo (for syndicated and network programming, and for promotional use).

Taking a look at the schedule, there is no Rewind TV programming on WJMN, just Antenna TV programs. ‘80s shows featured on the new lineup like Benson, Silver Spoons and Too Close for Comfort are all sourced from Antenna TV’s schedule; the network retained a much smaller inventory of post-‘70s series on its lineup after most of its other ‘80s and all of its ‘90s series moved over to Rewind when it launched in September.

WJMN losing CBS is absolutely no indicator of Nexstar’s chances of buying The CW or a stake in it, or of Nexstar’s relationship with CBS anywhere else. There are a few questions I have about this: * 1) Even with the issues mrschimpf outlined, you would think Nexstar of all companies would have a lot more leverage to keep CBS on WJMN, while agreeing to address the technical issues that became such a bother. The fact that Nexstar lost CBS to a station with no history as a Big Three station (and which hasn’t been a major network affiliate since it lost Fox to WLUC-DT2 in 2009) is odd to say the least. * 2) Why did WZMQ decide to put CBS on its .2 instead of putting the network on its main channel and bumping MeTV programming to 19.2? Effectively, WZMQ will likely be the first subchannel-only Big Four affiliate to have a primary affiliation with a network that is commonly distributed via subchannels. * 3) Why the short notice? Unless the affiliation contract was already set to expire on January 21, common sense would be to at least wait until February 1, so that viewers could acclimated with the changes. That just causes viewer confusion for no reason.

KCPQ has added a third evening news hour at 6:00 p.m. (The TVNewsCheck article about its launch implies it premiered Monday [January 17].) David Rose and Jamie Tompkins anchor the broadcast.

The Oklahoma City listing is also incorrect. KOCO has announced that it will launch an 11:00 a.m. newscast as a replacement for Dr. Oz on January 17, instead of putting The Good Dish in that hour. Since they already air a replay of Dr. Oz at 12:07 a.m. (which replaced an overnight replay of The Kelly Clarkson Show in September), they’re likely gonna put The Good Dish in that slot.

This begs the question of what happens to Dr. Oz in Youngstown, Buffalo, Binghamton, Elmira and Wheeling. The stations carrying the program in Youngstown, Buffalo and Elmira (WKBN, WNLO and WYDC/WJKP) are based in markets with at least one Pennsylvania county in the DMA (Mercer County in the Youngstown DMA, McKean and Potter Counties in the Buffalo DMA, and Tioga County in the Elmira DMA); in the other two cases where the station’s home market doesn’t legally include any Pennsylvania counties, WTRF’s OTA signal (as well as WTOV’s) reaches as far into the state as Pittsburgh proper and WBGH (mainly via the WIVT simulcast, considerably less so with the main LD signal) spills over into much of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre market. (Incidentally, all of those stations, except for WYDC/WJKP, are owned by Nexstar, which pulled Dr. Oz from WJW mainly because of its significantly viewed status via cable in northwestern PA.) Secondly, would the equal time rules or, moreso, the perception that adding the show would be seen as a(n indirect) violation of said rules dissuade the Pennsylvania and PA-spillover stations from carrying The Good Dish, since Daphne Oz will be the host and it would be used as filler for the timeslots intended for her dad’s talk show per Sony’s current distribution contract for the latter? As an aside, WBRE has replaced Dr. Oz with Access Daily at 3:00 p.m., so it appears that only the rural Pennsylvania counties based in DMAs originating in surrounding states and D.C. can still watch Oz… for now.

Of course, the reason why Disney couldn’t buy them in the first place is because acquiring the RSNs as part of the 20CF purchase would have given Disney too much market share in sports broadcasting… what with ESPN being the largest cable sports network, and its namesake subsidiary owning eight sister channels in the U.S. alone, a pay-per-view unit, two streaming platforms (ESPN3, then within the now-defunct WatchESPN app, and the then-fledgling ESPN+), two radio networks (plus a Sirius/XM channel), and holding control of ABC’s sports division. So, the only options for 21st Century Fox were to pull the Fox Sports RSNs off the market and retain ownership of them or sell them to a third party (as they ultimately did). Quite frankly, as much as Murdoch selling 20th Century Fox, and the FX and National Geographic networks didn’t make much sense (especially when that library would have been useful to them from a streaming standpoint as Disney was able to do with those properties), selling the Fox Sports regional networks didn’t make much sense either, given that the Murdochs’ deep pockets allowed 21CF to clearly be better able to support the RSNs than Diamond Sports was. At least Fox Corporation wouldn’t be saddled with enough debt managing them to drag it into bankruptcy compared to what Sinclair is now dealing with, nor would they make the same mistakes with carriage agreements that Diamond/Sinclair made that contributed to its financial troubles.

WWNY has upgraded to the KFDA/WALB package (although it has yet to switch to the accordant ticker template)… It’s an upgrade from what they had before:

About Fox Weather’s digital presence, there are some shortcomings. FoxWeather.com, ironically, doesn’t include much forecast content; it’s essentially a weather news-focused site, with the only local content consisting of a widget that shows the current temperature/sky condition, forecast highs and lows, and a five-hour forecast for the user’s location… and clicking/tapping anywhere on it (whether it be the forecast info or the download app banner) only directs to a link to download the app (on iOS or Android, it just opens the App Store or Google Play app instead). The app itself needs to flesh out its forecast content a little. It’s kinda limited when compared to The Weather Channel or AccuWeather’s apps in terms of the amount of local weather content. Neither detailed current observations, health and outdoor indexes (including allergy and air quality indexes), or a tropical tracker is included on the main forecast page. Its FutureView event planning feature is limited to a simple forecast, and sunrise/sunset/daylight length data for the day of the selected event; I think it would be more useful if it included an hourly forecast for the day of the selected event (based on a user-selected time or period of time when the event is being held); it could even include a separate game-day forecast section for upcoming professional and collegiate sports events held in outdoor venues. The radar, for which Fox may have acquired the now-discontinued WeatherLab to utilize its 3D capabilities, lacks a selection of map layers (satellite, lightning data, etc.). The Fox Weather app, for some reason, is also not designed for use on tablets (the iOS version, for example, is only designed for iPhones and therefore maintains the display format meant for iPhone models when used on iPads).

The Senate Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband has begun debate on a bill (HR 4208, an amendment to Section 331 of the Communications Act called the ‘‘Section 331 Obligation 5 Clarification Act’’) that would, in principle, force Fox to adhere WWOR to commitments to offer at least 14 hours of New Jersey-focused local news programming per week (seven of which have to be scheduled between 6:00 p.m. and midnight ET), maintain a broadcast studio in Secaucus (WWOR has been run out of WNYW’s Fox Television Center facility in Manhattan since FTS sold the since-demolished 9 Broadcast Plaza facility to Hartz Mountain Industries in 2018), file local programming disclosures with the FCC (including how programming aims to satisfy the local content requirements), and consult with community leaders on the type of local programming should that would be featured. The bill is backed by four Democratic Congressmen representing New Jersey: it was introduced in the House by Reps. Bill Pascrell and Albo Sires, and in the Senate by Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez. (Menendez, in particular, has been the most fervent critic of FTS’ management of WWOR, particularly since its news department was shuttered nearly a decade ago in favor of the now-defunct Chasing News.) At least two Republican Congressmen seem to be making it about the bill targeting a Fox-owned station: Energy & Commerce Committee ranking member Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) claimed it was “another attempt by Democrats to disregard the First Amendment, this time telling broadcast stations what type of news programming to distribute,” and Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) claimed the bill was another Democratic effort to “counter news programming they simply don‘t like.” (The FCC has previously maintained local programming requirements for television stations, and Long made an apparent conflation of FTS with Fox News, despite the fact that the cable-based Fox News Channel offers conservative content by format, while Fox O&O newscasts largely are traditional local news operations, and ignored that the bill aims to enforce WWOR to offer New Jersey-based content it isn’t currently providing and hasn’t for some time and doesn’t dictate that the content hew to a particular political lean.)

Production ceased in February, an announcement made only about three months into its national run.

Changes in Oklahoma City: KFOR (NBC): * No changes to its weekday syndicated lineup; the only change to its weekday schedule overall is the addition of a rebroadcast of Oklahoma’s News 4 at 10:00 at 12:35 a.m. (replacing A Little Late with Lilly Singh, as NBC has turned over that show’s 1:35 a.m. ET slot back to its stations; it’s the first time that KFOR has run a late-night rebroadcast of its 10:00 news, and the first time any of the market’s Big Three affiliates - not counting KWTV’s News 9 Now subchannel - has aired a rebroadcast of its late news, since Channel 4 was under Local TV LLC ownership). * On Saturdays/early Sundays (starting 9/18), Raw Travel (bumped up from 1:33 a.m.) and S.W.A.T. replace both weekend editions of Right This Minute (which will be only shown in the market on weekdays, at 2:00 a.m., this season) at 12:33 and 1:03 a.m., and MacGyver replaces a double-run of World’s Funniest Weather at 2:03 a.m. * On Sunday late nights (starting 9/19), SEAL Team and Bull replace NCIS: Los Angeles and NCIS: New Orleans at 11:05 p.m. and 12:05 a.m. on Sundays. KOCO (ABC): As of 9/13, a second run of The Dr. Oz Show (which will also continue to air at 11:00 a.m.) replaced The Real at 12:06 a.m. weeknights. (This reduces The Real’s clearance in the OKC market for the 2021-22 season to early morning airings on Bounce TV via KSBI-DT2 and KOPX-DT2.) KWTV (CBS): * The only syndicated addition is In Touch With Dr. Charles Stanley at 5:00 a.m. Sundays, airing in tandem with KFOR’s broadcast of that show (In Touch also airs two hours earlier on KOCO and three hours later on KOCB). * As an aside, the weekend editions of News 9 This Morning are being slashed from three hours (from 5:00-8:00 a.m.) on both days to just two hours on Saturday (shifting to 8:00-10:00 a.m.) and one hour on Sunday (reduced to 7:00-8:00 a.m.) in order to accommodate CBS Saturday Morning (from 6:00-8:00 a.m., moved over from its News 9 Now subchannel) and one hour of the CBS Dream Team block on Sunday mornings (being moved to the 6:00-7:00 a.m. slot to accommodate CBSSM and the Saturday edition of N9TM). KOKH (Fox): No changes. KOCB (CW): * On weekdays, effective 9/6, an airing of Divorce Court replaced the secondary run of Judge Jerry (which remains at 9:00) at 9:30 a.m., syndicated reruns of Jerry Springer replaced one airing each of 25 Words or Less and Family Feud at 11:00 a.m., the secondary run of Funny You Should Ask and the primary run of 25WOL replaced The CW’s now-defunct daytime hour at 1:00 and 1:30 p.m., and TMZ on TV (which sister station KOKH will also continue airing at 2:00 a.m.) replaced the secondary run of FYSA at 4:00 p.m. On 9/13, You Bet Your Life replaced one episode each of Two Broke Girls (bumped to 1:30 a.m., replacing an airing of Mike & Molly, which will continue to air at 11:30 p.m.) and Two and a Half Men (bumped to 11:00 p.m., replacing an airing of Family Guy) at 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. Starting 9/27, Nick Cannon will replace one episode each of Family Feud and 25WOL at 3:00 p.m., and the evening edition of The National Desk will replace one episode each of Family Guy (the primary run of which move up to 9:30 p.m., with the secondary run being bumped to 2:30 a.m.) and Bob’s Burgers (bumped to 2:00 a.m.) at 10:00 p.m. (Funny they didn’t think of running TND at 11:00 to flow into their midnight rebroadcast of Fox 25 News at 9:00, or bumping said rebroadcast to 11:00.) * On Saturdays, Film Flickers with Kimberly & Esteban (from San Antonio sister station KMYS) and Good Taste with Tanji replace both airings of Sheriffs of El Dorado County at 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. Saturdays (starting 9/18). On Sundays, the weekend run of Two Broke Girls (moved from 2:00 a.m. early Sunday) replaces a double-run of TAAHM at 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. (No information as of yet for what replaces the two runs of the cancelled Central Ave. at 3:00 p.m. Sundays.) KAUT (Ind.): * On weekdays, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit replaces The Doctors (bumped to 6:00 a.m., replacing a double-run of Impractical Jokers, an episode of which is bumped to 2:00 a.m., replacing Right This Minute) at 10:00 a.m. and a double-run of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? reruns at 11:00 a.m., Storage Wars replaces Pawn Stars (bumped to 12:30 a.m.) at 1:00 p.m., The Liquidator replaces Cheaters at 1:30 p.m., an extra run of Inside Edition (which remains at 9:30 p.m. as a repeat) and Cheaters both replace The Drew Barrymore Show (bumped to 5:00 a.m.) at 4:00 and 4:30 p.m., The Goldbergs replaces Black-ish (bumped to 1:00 and 1:30 a.m.) at 5:00 and 5:30 p.m., Young Sheldon replaces The Goldbergs at 6:00 and 6:30 p.m. and an airing of M*A*S*H (which will now air at 10:30 p.m. and 12:00 a.m.) at 10:00 p.m., and a tertiary run of Maury (moved from 5:00 a.m.) replaces a second run of The Doctors at 4:00 a.m. * On Sundays, Storage Wars replaces Pawn Stars at 4:00 p.m., MacGyver replaces Friends at 7:00 p.m., S.W.A.T. replaces NCIS at 8:00 p.m., SEAL Team replaces NCIS: New Orleans at 9:00 p.m. and Bull replaces The Listener (which will remain at midnight) at 10:00 p.m. (I’m not familiar with what KSBI [MyNetworkTV]’s entire schedule was last season, so it’s not listed here.)

How, though? You’d think KTBY (a Fox affiliate) would be in the Top 4. (I doubt KATN was the one not in the Top 4 at the time Gray acquired KYES, if so, an ABC affiliate being beaten by both a Fox affiliate and a MNT affiliate in the ratings is pretty embarrassing for KATN and ABC.) A MyNetworkTV affiliate that’s a Top 4 station just doesn’t sound right… and if it’s true in regards to KYES, it definitely doesn’t help Gray’s case for getting the fine successfully appealed.

The KOKH newscast from 1999 is pretty much a white whale, as nothing from the “News Matrix”/Fox 1999-2000 promo graphics era had been available on YT until now, and that era was the only set of opens that KOKH has used since its current news department began in 1996 that was missing.

To be fair, YouTube’s COPPA moderation system is pretty broken. There’s thousands of videos and some entire YT channels not specifically intended for kids that its AI-based COPPA moderation system mistakenly marked as being for kids and have commenting, download, in-app miniplayer and sharing features accordingly disabled as a result; a glaring example of why social media companies shouldn’t rely on AI for content moderation unless its fool-proof against false positives. One similar example is the YT channel of the Lawrenceburg, Tennessee-based Tennessee Valley Weather service (both the stream for its 24-hour live channel and all uploaded videos are mis-marked for COPPA feature restrictions and have the YouTube Kids banner ad).

WYFF weekday morning anchor Geoff Hart announced that he has been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease and will not be returning to the station (effectively announcing his retirement from broadcasting). Hart has been with the station since 1993, serving as sports director before transferring to the news side in 2011 as anchor of WYFF News 4 Today. He had been on medical leave from the station since December.

The National Desk is already getting a prime time edition. Sinclair has announced it will add an evening version of the program (airing live from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. ET) starting September 27, primarily airing on the 68 CW and MyNetworkTV stations already showing the morning edition as well as on STIRR and Sinclair station websites. It will likely act to compliment existing prime time newscasts on some of the slated carrier stations. It should be noted that some of the CW stations slated to carry the evening National Desk are in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones, where it will air from 7:00-9:00 PT/8:00-10:00 MT; this means, since parts of the program will fall into The CW’s designated prime time slot, Sinclair’s Pacific Time CW affiliates will only be able to air the first hour (as hour #2 runs into the first hour of the network’s prime time lineup there) and its Mountain Time CW affiliates will only be able to carry the second hour (as hour #1 runs into the second hour of the network’s prime time lineup there). Ironically, The CW Plus (from which a few of the company’s small-market CW affiliates source the network’s programming) doesn’t currently allow local programming opt-outs for news on weekdays. (It does have an early evening local news opt-out slot on weekends.) Something might have to be worked out there, given Sinclair’s CW Plus stations in the Pacific Time Zone will be carrying it as a network prime lead-in.

I see your "FITZ! SANCHEZ!", and raise you a "FITZ! SANCHEZ! DANIELS! LOVETT!":