T.L. Hughes

To be fair, if Gigi Sohn’s nomination to the FCC Commissioners’ Board hadn’t been held up in the Senate for the better part of two years, the deal probably would have been denied anyway based on the conflicts and the related intertwining of Apollo’s existing interests in Cox Media Group and its proposed interests in Tegna.

The preemptions by the Tegna stations don’t extend, though, to its two CW Plus outlets (KYTX-DT2 and WMAZ-DT2). In addition, while Weigel declined clearance of the tournaments on WCIU, its South Bend sister station, WCWW, apparently is going to air tthem.

Many CW affiliates (the one in my home market, KOCB, being one of them) are available on YouTube TV… The ones Nexstar runs just aren’t among them. CW programming is only available on demand in areas where YTTV doesn’t carry the affiliate.

They’ve actually begun phasing out the Entertainment Studios name and vanity card on Allen’s programs, in favor of the Allen Media Group brand. I noticed this on a recent episode of Funny You Should Ask (which resumed airing new episodes after a three-year, likely pandemic-caused production hiatus last Fall).

Yeah, I noticed that typo.

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.)

It never made sense to me that TMC and Flix haven’t been made available as livestreams within Showtime’s streaming add-ons, especially when you consider that they (along with Starz’s Movieplex channels) are the only premium channels whose feeds are not available on streaming in some capacity. WBD sells Cinemax and MGM/Amazon sells ScreenPix as standalone vMVPD and channel store add-ons (despite some library content redundancies with those of their sister premium channels, HBO and MGM+ [the network formerly known as Epix]), and Lionsgate includes live feeds of the Starz Encore channels on Starz’s streaming add-ons.

The Movie Channel and Flix have been the Meg Griffins of the Showtime Networks family since shortly before the 2005 CBS-Viacom split. Neither TMC, TMC Xtra nor Flix are even available as live feeds on the Showtime streaming service, or on the Showtime add-ons sold through channel stores (Apple TV, YouTube Primetime Channels, Roku and Prime Video) and live TV streaming services (Hulu, YouTube TV, Philo, etc.); this is likely also true on the Paramount+ Showtime tier. TMC and Flix barely get any promotion aside from references by pay TV providers that sell the Showtime channel package, haven’t even been given a full slate of multiplex channels (The Movie Channel just has TMC Xtra and Flix has no additional networks), and haven’t updated their branding since the former debuted its current logo and graphic scheme in 2006.

The article’s wording is obviously misleading, considering this confirms that the CBSNS-owned CW affiliates won’t carry LIV tournament coverage, and the Nexstar stations summarized to have cleared the tournaments aren’t the CW affiliates in those referenced markets (and of those referenced, only WGN has previously been a CW affiliate). So really, LIV has been cleared on (maybe) 85-90% of CW affiliates, and received time-buy clearances on Nexstar-owned MyNetworkTV affiliates and independent stations in about 10-15% of the remaining markets.

It would make sense not to rebrand Showtime at all, considering it’s an established brand, plus the “Paramount+ with Showtime” naming scheme is very unwieldy for a linear network, even moreso when applying it to Showtime’s multiplex channels or its sports and documentary units… and don’t get me started with branding the network’s boxing and Bellator MMA broadcasts using that name. (Showtime underwent a brand refresh in August of last year, anyway, with a minimalistic black/red/white graphical look that replaced the shattered glass graphic scheme used since January 2011.) The “Paramount+ with Showtime” branding would only work in application to the linear channels in the way HBO co-brands its seven-channel linear tier with HBO Max on most pay TV providers, by only conveying that Paramount+’s ad-free Showtime tier is accessible via provider login as a complimentary offering to Showtime linear subscribers. If anything, Bakish and company should have thought of co-branding Paramount+ and Showtime as ParamountShowtime (a la the SkyShowtime streaming partnership with Sky plc in Europe).

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.

They even named HLN, which they identified as its old name, CNN Headline News but is basically Investigation Discovery 2 at this point… what with CNN having shifted it away from news to true crime before their recent gutting and offloading of the network to the WBD unit that runs ID, and Vice, which carries only one news program but runs mostly documentaries. In picking their examples of “uber-liberal” news outlets, Newsmax reached so high in trying to prove their point, they’re halfway to the Milky Way.

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

Weekend Express won’t be getting a proper farewell; HLN has chosen to air reruns of Forensic Files in its timeslot this weekend, so the layoffs of the Weekend Express on-air and production teams were effective immediately upon the layoff announcement. I’m guessing the CNN This Morning simulcast won’t include its weekend editions once the simulcast begins. I’m surprised the morning editions of CNN Newsroom weren’t included as a simulcast as well, which suggests the required minimum amount of news programming stipulated in HLN’s carriage deals must be around 15 hours per week (the total number of hours that CNNTM runs during the work week, accounting for its three-hour runtime).

The first night had a few bumps with the production control equipment. During the 5:30 p.m. newscast, there was about ten seconds of black screen between the open and the cut to the main set as well as a few issues with cueing between different studio shots. These issues were avoided during the 10:00, however they popped up again during the OK Sports Blitz (which is simulcast on KOTV, so Tulsa viewers got to see the TD issues as well): cutting to Dean Blevins in-studio seconds before the cue with no intro sequence, and being unable to cut to John Holcomb’s segments at the KOTV studios in Tulsa, a Thunder game report and other video packages during the opening segment (at least they cut Dean’s mic at the times Holcomb was supposed to appear, but you could see him getting a little impatient with the technical issues). A technical difficulties slide was shown in place of Segment B, and they had to fall back on KOTV’s PCR (with Blevins MIA and Holcomb mostly solo) for the rest of the program.

It was announced during the Saturday morning newscast, that said newscast will be the last to originate from the Kelley Ave. studio. Tulsa sister station KOTV will produce the Saturday 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. and Sunday morning newscasts this weekend, before production moves to the downtown studio beginning with the 5:30 p.m. newscast Sunday night. (This is clearly a different tack from what KFOR did when it moved to its current studio in 2017, when it produced its Friday newscasts from the old 444 E. Britton building and produced its Saturday newscasts from the newer studio the next day; though in that case, the current KFOR/KAUT building was built next to the old one, making a more seamless transition of news production between the studios possible, whereas KWTV/KSBI is moving several miles across town.)