T.L. Hughes

20 hours ago, EJ Velazquez said:

20 minutes ago, NEPANews said:

You know, the more you look at the talent intros, and this may be really nit-picky, but the ABC logo within them.  Is that…..the now “former” ABC logo in there with their names?

Upon closer inspection, yes, that is the monochrome/print version of the logo's original 1962 design, with the minimal spacing between the "abc" text and the edge of the circle.

Sinclair has renewed its affiliation agreements for the group's 41 Fox stations.

A WHOI newscast from 1999, featuring what appears to be a knockoff of TVbD's "Balls and Walls":

On 1/11/2024 at 11:53 AM, mightynine said:

EDIT 1/16/24: WAFB has moved to GrayONE as of Noon on 1/16/24.

 

Put WAFB/Baton Rouge on the clock for GreyONE - this new logo just popped up on their website:

 

 

Previous logo, in place for decades with the CBS eye logo added along the way:

Along with the logo and graphics change, the longtime "Louisiana's News Channel" slogan also appears to have been deprioritized (it appears in fine print in the open, suggesting it may still be used in some capacity, but less prominently) in favor of "Your #1 Local News Station".

The FCC has issued a $150,000 fine against WPIX owner Mission Broadcasting over the station's carriage dispute with Comcast, which filed a complaint against Mission concerning its de facto control by Nexstar and its involvement in carriage deals involving Mission shortly before the dispute was resolved in December 2022.

1 hour ago, RealNews18 said:

Did you happen to get the opening? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eeO_nJqoRg

From what can be heard in the voiceover, Charlie Van Dyke's voice is even less recognizable compared to 15 years ago, almost reminiscent of how Jefferson Kaye sounded in the last set of opens he voiced for WPVI before he was replaced by CVD.

Also, while they kept their custom version of "Eyewitness News", they did shorten the open cut by a few seconds to fit the length of the standardized title sequence, omitting the teletype instrumental at the very beginning and starting where the musical signature begins.

15 hours ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

WFXT is live -- that completes everyone I believe

On top of this, WFXT also changed its news theme from "Stream" to "Guardian", becoming the first station to drop the former theme (former sister WHBQ is now the only one of the two stations that "Stream" was developed for that still uses the package).

Technically, KLSR is the only Cox station that hasn't changed over, although its newscasts are produced by KVAL (so KLSR's broadcasts haven't switched to Sinclair's standardized graphics either).

2 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

WHIO has debuted as well. 

17 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

KIRO has debuted, but they kept the bug from the previous package.

KIRO:

WPXI (this one a breaking news open):

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Griffin Media have announced a deal to televise a package of eight Friday night games over-the-air on KSBI in Oklahoma City and KOTV-DT3 (which otherwise runs KOTV news simulcasts and rebroadcasts) in Tulsa through the end of the 2023–24 regular season, starting with a January 26 away game against the New Orleans Pelicans.

The games will also air regionally on Gray's KSCW (CW)/Wichita and KSWO-DT3 (MeTV)/Lawton–Wichita Falls and Morgan Murphy's KOAM-KFJX/Joplin (the linked story doesn't specify which station will air the games in that market, whether only on CW affiliate KFJX-DT2 or alternating between both stations' CBS, Fox and CW feeds). The team's main broadcaster, Bally Sports Oklahoma, will carry the Thunder's other remaining regionally exclusive game broadcasts during the remainder of the season.

Breezeline (the U.S. unit of Canadian pay-TV provider Cogeco) has dropped WBOC from its eastern Maryland systems.

According to both Breezeline and WBOC parent Draper Holdings, the removal resulted from it being considered an out-of-market station in the communities serviced by the provider (including towns like Grasonville, Kent Island, Chestertown, Centreville, Queenstown, Rock Hall, Church Hill, St. Michaels and Chesapeake City, MD), which are considered part of the Baltimore DMA. (As such, this isn't being put in the retrans dispute thread, since this doesn't qualify.)

This may suggest Paramount/CBS and Sinclair had requested Breezeline pull WBOC's main CBS channel and Fox subchannel in favor of giving WJZ and WBFF exclusivity in those areas.

As of the date of this writing (January 8), Showtime has officially rebranded as Paramount+ with Showtime; interestingly the name change only applies to the primary channel.

Paramount Global wisely chose not to rename its six multiplex channels, keeping the standalone Showtime brand on those channels rather than applying what would be a janky and unwieldy naming scheme to them (meaning, for example, SHOxBET didn't become the math equation sounding Paramount+ with SHOxBET). Confusingly though, that means the linear network now has two separate brand schemes (the Paramount+ co-brand for the main channel, and the standalone Showtime brand for its other channels).

The screenshots below illustrating the two-tiered naming scheme are from my YTTV account:

The Showtime-branded multiplex channels continue to use the promo graphics introduced in August 2022 for their "up next/tonight" bumpers.

WPIX reporter Mary Murphy has announced her retirement from broadcasting after a 40-year career.

Murphy began her career at WPIX in 1983, spending four years there. After a seven-year stint at WCBS, she returned to PIX11 in 1993, where she has remained since (spending 14 years of that tenure as weekend co-anchor, before moving back to an assignment reporting role in 2009).

Sinclair has announced agreements with CBS News and Stations to offer its four diginets on several of the Paramount-owned unit's CBS O&O and independent stations:

Comet:

New York — WCBS 2.5

San Francisco — KPIX 5.5

Charge!:

Los Angeles — KCAL 9.3

Chicago — WBBM 2.5

Philadelphia — KYW 3.5

TBD:

Miami — WBFS 33.6

Philadelphia — WPSG 57.2

San Francisco — KPYX 44.2

The Nest:

Los Angeles — KCAL 9.2

San Francisco — KPYX 44.4

TVNewsCheck's Harry Jessel has his own opinion on the updated rules.

2 hours ago, CoopInTheHouse said:

Other than Justice with The People and The Kelly Clarkson Show (which also already airs on KOMO), there is practically no syndicated programming on channel 51.

Actually, the bulk of the station's syndicated programming seems to be concentrated on weekends.

Looking at TVPassport, the vast majority of the weekend schedule will be filled by barter shows:

* Six of Allen Media's current first-run and off-network weekend shows: SOS: How to Survive, Cars.TV, Kickin' It, The World's Funniest Weather (and two Weather Channel shows I wasn't aware AMG had sold into OTA syndication) Top 10 and Deadline to Disaster;

* Heartland (the long-running and still-running CBC family drama);

* Forensic Factor;

* Raceweek;

* Just for Laughs Gags

* Country Fix (apparently a music video program);

* and Positively America with Ernie Anastos (a show from Alex Paen's Telco featuring interviews and "uplifting" stories)

In addition, E/I shows Awesome Adventures and Wild About Animals will fill additional E/I commitments outside of the One Magnificent Morning block on Saturdays.

In the midst of the other diginet changes (between The365 and Outlaw's debuts, Dabl flipping from lifestyle to Black sitcoms, Circle going streaming-only and Twist shutting down), Allen Media's two multicast networks have also changed their schedules, with both This TV and TheGrio having apparently severed their licensing agreements to air various theatrical and independent films.

For This TV, this has resulted in that network reaching the "total abandonment" phase of its network decay (to borrow from TVTropes), as movies have been a staple of the network since Weigel and MGM launched it in 2008. Under Allen, most of its film rights leaned toward indies, although it did air some older theatrical films (the balance leaned in the other direction under Weigel and Tribune ownership). AMG had already dropped older MGM series (which usually occupied overnight and early morning slots, again dating to This' launch) from the network's lineup in 2022, in favor of airing its in-house syndicated shows.

To fill the former movie slots, This TV has added several Weather Channel originals (Top Ten, Weather Gone Viral, Highway Through Hell and Storm of Suspicion) and The World's Funniest Weather, and added extra airings of ES.TV and RecipeTV (the latter two shows as well as AMG's court shows are the only holdovers from the old movie-centered general entertainment format), while TheGrio has added sports in prime time and extra airings of AMG's court shows, Funny You Should Ask, Comics Unleashed and morning repeats of TheGrio News.

31 minutes ago, CoopInTheHouse said:

All of this wasn’t mentioned before, but I guess now is the “perfect time” to post it since the switch happens tomorrow.

 

KVOS (currently an affiliate of H&I) will take the Univision affiliation from KUNS on January 1st. Weigel quietly updated the station’s website to reflect on the switch. It is unknown whether or not Univision’s main-channel coverage will remain in a simulcast in Seattle over KFFV’s third subchannel, which currently broadcasts as H&I, and H&I’s new channel position among the two stations. With KVOS’s unique status, Univision’s domestic schedule will also be available over the air in Vancouver, Victoria, and southwest British Columbia for the very first time, conflicting with TelevisaUnivision’s joint venture specialty channel in Canada with TLN, Univision Canada.

This was mentioned, but in a different thread.

Thing is, KFFV would have to keep the KVOS simulcast, considering that its Grade B signal contour (as the FCC contour map indicates) basically stops at the northern end of downtown Seattle. Given that KFFV's transmitter is based in Seattle proper and therefore provides city-grade signal coverage throughout the Seattle metropolitan area, it would have made more sense for Weigel to put Univision on KFFV's main channel and move MeTV to a different sub (presumably DT2).

Oklahoma City has a similar odd setup where its Univision affiliate, KUOK, has its full-power transmitter based near Woodward (~140 miles away, with a signal that doesn't even extend into central Oklahoma), forcing it to rely on a subchannel simulcast on its Telemundo-affiliated sister KTUZ-TV and a low-power translator (all are owned by Tyler Media Group) to provide city-grade coverage within the Oklahoma City area.

On 12/21/2023 at 4:10 PM, ColtFromGulfcoast said:

No, ARC West Michigan is the brand they'll take once they lose CW. It'll just be an independent.  Why they chose that name, I don't know. 

KOMO anchor Steve McCarron, who's been tapped to helm a new morning program on KUNS using the ARC brand (running from 8:00-10:00 a.m.) when that station switches to The CW on New Year's Day, answered this on X/Twitter:

BTW, it looks like Weigel's KVOS will be taking over for KUNS as Seattle's Univision affiliate.

46 minutes ago, hmaxhanson said:

While there'll be four black oriented networks come 2024 with the launch of The365 joining Bounce, TheGrio and the new Dabl, they're at least trying to stick out by being focused on shows with female leads. So while there may not be much variety right now with a schedule of 7 shows airing 7 days a week, I'd have to imagine that by the end of 2024, they'll offer a more diverse schedule by adding dramas and reality shows keeping with the black female lead motif.

Technically, not all of the series on the new lineup are exclusively female-led:

* One on One had Flex Alexander (Flex Washington) and Kyla Pratt (Breanna Barnes) effectively as co-leads until the show's Season 5 retool, when fellow original cast member Robert Ri'chard (Arnaz Ballard) was promoted to co-lead status alongside Pratt. (Alexander guest starred in a few episodes after the show's setting moved from Baltimore to Venice Beach.)

* The Game technically qualifies as both a female-led and an ensemble series, since there is roughly equal emphasis on female and male characters (given the premise mainly focuses on the players of the fictional San Diego Sabers football team and their significant others, as well as the "momager" of one of the players).

On 12/21/2023 at 6:08 PM, mrschimpf said:

And just out of curiosity about what 41.2 will air, it looks like Dabl is completely done after December 29th; according to its national schedule it's becoming yet another Paramount Global specialty with their networks that need to die; a rerun feed of 90s UPN/WB sitcoms; no network name known yet, so expect another big exodus of stations at the end of the year switching networks on their Dabl subs. The network's social feeds haven't been updated since mid-September so it already was on borrowed time.

Dabl rebranded/relaunched as a Black-focused comedy network a day earlier than the linked schedule indicated, switching formats at 6:00 a.m. ET today (December 29) with two back-to-back airings of The Parkers. This is the new logo:

(Also, this Dabl discussion should probably be moved to the Paramount thread in "Corporate Chat".)

On 12/22/2023 at 9:39 PM, TexasTVNews said:

IMO, Tegna needs to replace Twist with either TCN (The Country Network) or Heartland (FKA TNN). Or by the time Twist signs off, Tenga stations can run rebroadcast of local news and lifestyle shows on their diginet 24/7.

 

Again, it's just my opinion.

Doubtful that happens, but it opens up channel space for The365 and Outlaw to fill in non-Gray markets when they launch New Year's Day.

Here's WNDU in action:

4 hours ago, CoopInTheHouse said:

Yesterday at 5pm, KTTC made a music switch from “The Rock” to “This is The Place”, which seems to be the new standard for Gray stations.

Edit just minutes after I posted this: WNDU has changed to GrayONE, also changing their music from “Aerial” to “Inergy”, both from Stephen Arnold Music.

26 minutes ago, mightynine said:

The alternate graphics in question are just a reskin of an already existing pre-GreyOne template, so maybe there's a technical issue unique to those stations (i.e., incompatible equipment with GreyOne) and this is a band-aid until Grey decides to pony up the cash to fix it.

So, what graphics system does GrayONE run on (presuming it wasn't developed to be compatible with other systems) and what system does KSNB and KNOP run their graphics on?

WVVA has updated its logo, and is now using a secondary slogan, "Here for You", which is not referenced verbally in the opens (unlike the primary "Two Virginias' News Leader" slogan). The station has also replaced "The Rock" with "Stream".

Note the error in the voice track, compared to the open used, and the text misalignment/overlap in the time/temp bug:

KSNB and KNOP have also adopted new graphics, but, curiously, what they adopted isn't GrayONE, but what appear to be modifications to the graphics they introduced in August 2022, with new opens in tow.

Both stations have also changed news themes (swapping one Warner-Chappell package for another): KNOP switched from Gari's "The NBC Collection" to 615's "Seize the Day", while KSNB switched from said Gari theme to 615's "Tower V.6".