T.L. Hughes

Scripps CEO Adam Symson had some sharp criticism of Trump's rhetoric against the press in a memo to employees, comparing it to tactics done by autocratic leaders such as Recep Erdogan, Viktor Orban, Vladimir Putin and Hitler. His memo also cites polls that find large minorities of Americans of all political stripes (mostly Republican, but even some Democrats and Independents) believe that mainstream news media is "the enemy of the people” and that they believed that the President of the United States should have the power to shut down media for “bad behavior,” saying that the “vitriol and rhetoric in this assault on journalism is hitting the mark.” Symson also discloses in the memo that Scripps has had to increase security at its stations, partly because of the charged rhetoric.

A couple of St. Louis newscasts; here's a KDNL 5:00 p.m. newscast from August 20, 1998: Next, is a KSDK 6:00 p.m. newscast from July 30, 1994:

He said so in the description. That doesn't mean you can't do your own take, although take note it appears that there are multiple versions of the same exact open (with no variancies in stock imagery and/or voiceover) in some cases in DMA37dude's compilation, so anyone else's version may require some sort of clip sorting to reduce redundancy with another clip in the same compilation.

Possibly inspired by YT compilations on my channel and that of The ID Junkie, DMA37Dude has decided to create news open compilations, but is focusing solely on his home market of San Antonio. (He asks that no requests for other markets be given.) I don't know if he'll include KVDA and KWEX among the stations he'll focus on, or just the Big Four outlets. First up, WOAI-TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjAMHaSE2CY

A KSDK promo from 1997. Strange that what was then a Gannett station used a modified version of the Hearst "Camera" package, and a logo animation similar to what those stations used at that time in this promo.

Further proof the "KTAL 1997 News Theme" is really just production music (heard in the first 30 seconds):

There is another example of an online-only newscast that wasn't a short newsbrief. KOKH originated its 5:00 p.m. newscast as a web/app-only broadcast in February 2014; they quickly moved that broadcast to television in September 2014, as an hour-long broadcast.

Don't know if this has already been posted here, but WSB-TV has launched a competitor to WAGA's Good Day Atlanta during the 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. timeslot... but on the station's website and mobile apps. A two-hour extension of Channel 2 Action News This Morning debuted in that time period this past Monday (July 30) on WSB Now, the station's live-streaming platform that carries a mix of WSB newscasts as well as other local programs (including many exclusive to the WSB Now service).

Apparently, look at James Gunn. Disney just iced him from any involvement in the next Guardians of the Galaxy sequel for jokes about paedophilia and rape he made in the past. Although in that case, that was an alt-right trolling revenge attack led by Mike Cernovich, the same guy who got Sam Seder briefly fired as an MSNBC commentator for some of his past tweets before the backlash resulted in NBCUniversal researching Cernovich (which Disney didn't in the Gunn case) and realized he wasn't very credible, and in both cases was so-called "revenge" against Trump critics. In this and other cases, Cernovich did it to silence people who criticize his ideology. A debate over Gunn's misfired attempt at edgy humor can be made, but the way it came out and who brought it to the surface was more of an attempt to chill free speech. West's issue was more of a failure to realize that improper conduct occurring during worktime, even if it doesn't involve another employee, can backfire.

Weigel is launching yet another multicast network: Start TV will debut September 3 on Weigel- and CBS-owned stations (with many of the CBS-owned affiliates carrying the network on subchannel slots currently occupied by sister-network-to-be Decades, though Weigel appears to be moving Decades to its own stations in markets such as Los Angeles and Chicago). The network will focus on police and detective procedural programs with strong female leads (such as The Closer, Medium, The Good Wife, Crossing Jordan, Cold Case, Profiler and [early 2000s Lifetime series] The Division).

This must have been fairly short-lived, considering the only opens I recall seeing which featured that cut of "Image VIII" were after WSB adopted the original version of its current logo later in 1994.

Two major newscast changes to note in Indianapolis: * WRTV has cancelled its weekend morning newscasts; the Saturday editions have been replaced with a repeat of Pickler and Ben at 6:00 a.m., Newsy Special Report at 9:00 a.m. and Women of Power at 9:30 a.m. and the Sunday broadcasts have been replaced with religious programming from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. Good Morning America has been shifted to the 8:00 a.m. timeslot on both days, replacing the first half of the 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. Saturday block and the half-hour 8:00 a.m. Sunday block * WXIN has cut back Fox 59 NewsPoint at 11:00 to weeknights only, with Fox’s Saturday late-night block being moved up a half-hour, while repeats of The Simpsons will take over that slot on Sundays.

The graphics in the KDNL clip clearly are a mod of the Ellis Communications graphics from that period, but more or less closely resemble the mod of said package that WSMV got about a year or two earlier.

And, another clip. This time from a June 1997 edition of its 11:00 a.m. newscast, from after the switch to the "Fox 2" moniker.

DTV America only buys low-power stations. WBNX is a full-power outlet, so I doubt if they would buy it.

Reuters reports that Apollo Global Management has approached Nexstar about possibly acquiring the company, in conjunction with existing Nexstar stakeholder P2 Capital Partners. They note, though, that the confidential sources who informed them of the offer contend that "Nexstar has not yet engaged in sale talks and there is no certainty it will entertain an offer."

I think WUAB carries MyNetworkTV from midnight to 2:00 a.m. now. And, yeah, you would think that there would be a two- to three-month leeway for the switch. The fact there was only five days notice that CW programming would be moving to WUAB is a little fishy.

To clarify, STIRR is a new OTT streaming service that Sinclair has announced it will launch, which would feature local news and various live and on-demand programming, including acquired television series, movies and sports. The BuzzFeed article about this notes that it could be used to have the company compete with Fox News:

A necessary bump to this thread. WBNX is losing its CW affiliation, and quite soon actually... WUAB will take over as Cleveland's CW affiliate starting July 16 (this coming Monday). The move will result in WUAB dropping its 9:00 p.m. newscast and re-extending its 10:00 p.m. news to a full hour.

Or, have watched any NBC News Special Report since "The Mission/The Pulse of Events" began being used by the network 33 years ago, depending on how old he is.

I realize I should have clarified that it would probably be the first time that a station had all-female anchor teams for their weekday morning/daytime and evening newscasts. Usually, a two-female anchor team is assigned to only one daypart, like with the Robin Marsh-Lacie Lowry pairing on KWTV's morning newscast and the Sade Baderinwa-Diana Williams pairing on WABC's weekday 5:00 p.m. news hour.

So that means, unless they hire another male anchor, we could be looking at something seldom, if ever, attempted in local television, where each of a single station's weekday anchor teams are both the same gender. Keep in mind that Abigail Ogle was promoted to weekday evenings eleven months ago, and now co-anchors the 6:00 p.m. newscast (in addition to reporting at 5:00 and 10:00 p.m.). Around the same time, Maggie Carlo took over as weekday morning co-anchor alongside Markie Martin, with whom Abigail co-anchored on the 4:30-7:00 and 9:00 a.m. broadcasts beforehand.

Yes, after doing some research, here's a brief history of Multimedia Cablevision. The cable system began in 1979, when Multimedia Inc. purchased 35% of Wichita's Aircapital Cablevision from Kansas State Network Inc. (yes, that Kansas State Network, apparently), in a deal in which it also was given the option to acquire the remaining 65% at a later date. In 1980, it was granted the franchise rights to build a cable system in the Oak Lawn suburb of Chicago. It expanded into suburban areas of Oklahoma City and Tulsa during 1980 and 1981 (the cities themselves -- including some adjacent unincorporated communities like my hometown, the OKC suburb of Forest Park -- were served by Cox Cable and Tulsa Cable Television, respectively [the latter of which was eventually acquired by TCI, which transferred the Tulsa system to Cox in 2000]). Gannett sold the cable division -- which, by that point, operated systems in Oklahoma, Kansas and North Carolina -- to Cox Communications in 1999, effectively giving the latter universal reach throughout Oklahoma's two largest cities. (Multimedia was almost forced to sell off its suburban Oklahoma City systems when it merged into the Gannett Company in 1995, because of Gannett's ownership of KOCO-TV at the time and FCC rules repealed in 2003 that banned common ownership of a cable system and a television station in the same market, though it was allowed to keep those systems under a waiver until Gannett swapped KOCO and WLWT to Hearst-Argyle Television in 1997.)

Funny it took Griffin this long to acquire radio stations, on account it has owned the Radio Oklahoma Network syndicated news service for at least 18 years now. Also, the deal creates strange bedfellows for the stations, since they'll be going from being sister properties of KJRH to being sister properties of one of its chief rivals, KOTV. This is duly noted considering that KFAQ -- which essentially founded KJRH in 1954 -- is involved in the deal.

I'll try.