T.L. Hughes

Walker Brown, whose video collection focuses on Oklahoma City content, has made a great find. This is a 35-minute-long commercial block from KAUT, during its first tenure as a commercial station, roughly a year-and-a-half after it became the market's original Fox affiliate. Featured are some promos and station IDs using a graphics package by John Christopher Burns and a movie wraparound segment featuring OKC horror legend Count Gregore (played by John Ferguson). Please note, I've tried to place embed code to insert the embed player for this post with no success as TVNT's layout appears to not support standard embed encoding.

The dual newscast in Dallas and Houston kinda seems little a like the setup that Telemundo used with some of its O&Os before the Comcast purchase caused the network to reinvest in its news departments. The reason for the differing airtimes for the early newscasts in all three cities is based on how Estrella structures its prime time lineup (which effectively runs from 6:00 to 11:00 p.m. ET/PT, instead of starting it at 7:00). The three O&Os would, respectively, be covering up the entertainment news program En Vivo and reruns of the sketch comedy series LOL with those additions.

Gray Television is now getting into the multicasting and expanding deeper into the OTT business. It's teaming up with Grand Ole Opry parent Opry Entertainment Group (whose parent, Ryman Hospitality Properties [as Gaylord Entertainment], launched The [original] Nashville Network [now the Paramount Network] in 1983) to launch a multiplatform network and VOD effort focusing on "artist-driven country lifestyle programming." https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/234281/gray-teams-with-grand-ole-opry-on-tv-network/

To the latter point, the format of Full Court Press seems to me quite similar to Matter of Fact based on how it was synopsized.

I just saw the open to the 5:00 p.m. newscast on the station's live stream, and I'm getting vibes of the WGCL iteration of KPTV's graphics package, mixed with WOIO's original HD graphics. Also, when I heard the slogan, I thought "didn't WOIO use 'First. Fair. Everywhere.' before?," only to realize I confused it with "Honest. Fair. Everywhere."

Here's an update to my previous compilation for WFAA, edited and uploaded by Pancham's TVTalk (this is the first video uploaded on that channel in two years, with the nine others being opens from the Hampton Roads market); Pancham's version features additional opens that weren't available when I created the original version on my channel, including the current Tegna opens.

A couple of notes, TBD (the last national carrier of the block) has opted not to cede the former timeslot to additional internet content programs; the time period is now being filled by informercials (which it seems too many multicast channels are offering now to the point where there are more cable networks that don't offer infomercials than there are multicast networks). In Oklahoma City, KOCB replaced the weekday block with secondary runs of court shows seen on sister station KOKH in the afternoon (like Lauren Lake's Paternity Court, The People's Court and Judge Mathis). I would assume some of Sinclair's other CW, MyNetworkTV and independent stations that carried the block have also borrowed syndicated shows from their local sister stations to fill their morning lineups in the wake of the block's demise.

Again, it's possible you're reading too much into this. I looked at the affiliate lists for Court TV and Grit (available here and here) on RabbitEars and some of the latter's charter affiliates that also carry Grit are shown to be adding subchannels where Court TV will be carried. If Court TV was designed as a replacement for Grit, RabbitEars (given its access to sources) would not be putting the proposed Court TV channel placements on the same subchannels as Grit.

He didn't mention which shift he will be assigned; since they have both already left after accepting buyouts, will he be replacing Al Wallace or Jason Lamb?

KVII director Malcolm Montgomery passed away suddenly early Tuesday morning at the age of 27, while he was making preparations for that morning's edition of ABC 7 News Daybreak. Steve Kersh, the station's chief meteorologist, disclosed on his Facebook FastCast feature on KVII's Facebook page that the station canceled that day's edition of its morning and 11:00 a.m. newscasts as a result of Montgomery’s death. We at TVNT send condolences to Malcolm's family and the KVII staff.

I just saw this story on TVSpy, it's pretty hilarious and irresponsible... and the first thing I thought was "I hope there a full clip of this available for NewsBeFunny's January compilation". Some people say that humans' attention spans are short, but the fact that people are still mad at Tom Brady for "Deflategate" three years after the AFC Championship game in which the incident happened - and this employee was willing to do express his opinion in a way that got him/her fired - more or less proves otherwise. When you do something even potentially shady, people have an elephant's memory of that.

Yeah, I think this should be in the main "Classic Video" thread, since it is a clip of a partial newscast.

I don't know. It almost seemed like they copied the naming scheme of Pickler & Ben, using the last name of one of the hosts and the first name of the other, which seems like a odd choice to me. Then again, some would probably think Strahan & Haines would sound more like the title of a '70s/'80s buddy detective show than a talk show, too.

Yeah, I actually left a couple of messages on the video directing to a couple of additional videos with opens (including the 1995-96 5:30 open you mentioned) that could have been included in the compilation. (One of the two I mentioned was a WAGA noon newscast from 1994 uploaded by Radioman1968, which contains a open from the 1994 package for that particular newscast.)

Looks like TheOpensGuy is a new channel, as the Susquehanna Valley station compilations are the only ones on there. That being said NESTLEH, you can still do the HLLY market, just consider putting it off until sometime in the near future. When I gave the TVNT user who runs The ID Junkie channel permission to update the existing compilations that were on my channel, I noted that there shouldn't be any dibs-ing on markets if other similar news open comp channels popped up or I started uploading videos again. Essentially, take a "you do you" approach, but if another user does upload compilations from a particular market which you planned on doing, keep that market in your plans... but just give yourself the option of holding off creating your takes until a later date (one to two months, at least).

You might suggest to Stevations to start a Patreon account, that's a good idea. I'm pretty sure it qualifies as fair use.

He might be fine if he chooses to contest the copyright notifications under fair use grounds now that the videos aren't monetized. Stevations technically shouldn't have set his channel to be monetized as the content is copyrighted (therefore, he would be profiting from content that is owned by another company). I'm not sure if the NBCU claims have anything to do with that, but he'd be safe to upload content on fair use grounds as well as upload content that can justify a fair use claim should he need to contest it again (such as commercials, newscasts and station IDs). When I started my YT channel, I was aware that monetizing copyrighted content could result in the takedown of certain videos or the suspension or removal of the channel, so I chose to upload my compilations without monetization on fair use grounds. I was also subject to a copyright claim for a song included in one of the news open compilations, which I contested upon finding out that I had received a potential strike for the video in question, and was, luckily, successful in challenging.

The thing is Katz already has rights to shows like Forensic Files through its prior programming agreement with Turner. The IP deal affects Escape and Justice Network since both pool some of their programming from the Court TV intellectual property that Katz/Scripps now owns; that would suggest that Justice Network may lose a lot of that content (with the possible exception of shows such as Most Shocking that continued to air first-run episodes after the cable channel's conversion to TruTV). As far as the new Court TV being a replacement for Grit, I doubt that. It seemed to me that the removal of their action programming was more the result of a format shift, since its entire entertainment schedule - minus the two hours of overnight infomercials it (as well as Escape) added recently - now consists of westerns (compared to the mixed format of action, adventure and western series and films that existed for about the first three of years of Grit's existence). The only plausible scenarios is that Court TV will be either a format overhaul of Escape (which seems possible, even though they just acquired Law & Order and Boston Legal, since the cable Court TV did air reruns of scripted crime dramas towards the end of the format) or as an entirely new network (in which case, Escape could shift more toward scripted crime dramas and scripted and unscripted mystery programming, and away from true crime shows). The affiliation deal with Tribune would probably result in duplication being dropped in a few markets, like Oklahoma City, where KAUT and KSBI both now carry Escape on one of their subchannels, as a result of Katz cutting a leasing agreement with Griffin Communications to ensure full-market coverage for all their networks (Bounce TV, Laff and, after KOKH-DT2 dropped it for Charge!, Grit had been relegated to LPTV coverage in the market before October 1). Assuming that the new Court TV is launched as a new network, KAUT would replace Escape with Court TV on its DT3 subchannel. If Court TV ends up being an overhaul of Escape, then the network duplication on KAUT-DT3 and KSBI-DT5 continues.

Is it possible Court TV could be added through an amendment to Katz's existing leasing agreement with Nexstar that covers Escape, Grit, Laff and Bounce TV?

That'll be interesting, Court TV will have Tribune/Nexstar, Citadel, Entravision, Univision and Scripps as its initial launch groups. Scripps is basically helping Katz with bankrolling the venture since offering hours of live trial coverage each weekday would necessitate resources that Katz would have needed outside capital to raise when it was an independent company. What's not clear, though, is how much of a hand will Scripps' own stations have in the network's coverage. It appears the OTA multicast version of Court TV may have a better or similar level of distribution compared to the cable version when it launched. Even still, it will still lack some clearance in certain areas for a few years, I would think. Digital multicasting is roughly at a point in its development to where cable was when Court TV launched in the early 1990s (minus the fact that there are no kids' channels akin in format to Nickelodeon or Disney [the ones that do exist are consigned to those that are E/I-compliant until elements of the Children's Television Act that made conventional children's shows unmarketable OTA are repealed], no pay services similar in structure to HBO, Showtime or even ONTV and SelecTV, and very few news and sports networks). Newer networks like Court TV and NewsNet will struggle to maintain clearances reaching more than 80% of the U.S., a la the major networks, PBS and MeTV, until every full-power station in all 210 markets consigns to the ATSC 3.0 standard. That standard would also make it so that certain networks wouldn't have to resort to LPTV outlets just to pad out coverage in large and mid-sized markets.

And now, Sinclair is attempting - not believably - to distance themselves from Boris Epshteyn's commentary piece about the migrant tear gassings at the Tijuana border checkpoint, amid heavy criticism and a statement by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists disclosing it is reconsidering allowing Sinclair representatives to attend the organization's job recruitment events. A tweet by Sinclair representatives used the standard-bear response of broadcasters that the opinions "do not reflect the views of Sinclair Broadcast Group.” It's less believable in this case, given that the defense of using tear gas to deter migrants from entering the border has been espoused by other conservative media outlets, including by guests who have discussed this issue on Fox News, with no attempt at distancing.

It's uploaded on fair use grounds anyway, so no one person can claim ownership to upload it in the same realm as the original copyright owner cannot (or should not) take down a video without proving the uploader has profited from it in violation of their copyright outside the grounds of fair use.

This is a reposting of a Vimeo post by Compubit (JRD).

KSNV sports anchor Randy Howe was arrested in North Las Vegas Tuesday on charges of indecent exposure and "open gross" lewdness. Howe was booked at the Las Vegas Detention Center, and was subsequently released on bail. KSNV representatives have so far declined comment on the matter.

There have been rare instances of premium channels being blacked out due to retransmission disputes, the only one I can think of was the removal of Showtime (as well as The Movie Channel and Flix) from Time Warner Cable systems during its 2013 dispute with CBS Corporation. That being said, it isn't really a financially smart idea to use a premium service as hardball in a carriage disagreement. Remember, they rely on viewers paying an additional fee to receive the services, and out of approximately 90 million MVPD subscribers nationwide, not many subscribe to multiple premium services and no premium service has a reach comparative to the major basic cable networks. Since they don't rely on advertising, the hit to a premium service's revenue from a retrans dispute would sting more for a premium service that has anywhere between nine million and 30 million subscribers than a basic cable channel that reaches 80 to 90 million subscribers would.