T.L. Hughes

Weigel is launching another diginet, MeTV Toons, on June 25. Pretty much an outgrowth of MeTV's existing Monday-Saturday cartoon blocks (Toon In with Me and Saturday Morning Cartoons) and a broadcast equivalent of Boomerang (both its original all-classic cartoon format and its current daytime-only classic block), it will feature shows and shorts like Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Tom & Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Popeye, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Woody Woodpecker, Casper, Betty Boop, and Speed Racer. Bob Bergen, the voice behind various Looney Tunes characters (like Porky Pig, Tweety and Marvin the Martian), will be the announcer for the network.

Oh, yeah, I did forget about Texas. Its creation also led to Another World being cut down from 90 minutes back to the then-newly standard one-hour format, after only 17 months in the longer runtime, and contributed to the half-hour Doctors' demise by bumping that soap from its 3:00 p.m. ET slot to 12:30 (where it would be more vulnerable to preemption by some affiliates), putting it in direct competition with Ryan's Hope and (within a year of moving to that slot) The Young and the Restless. Search for Tomorrow's move to NBC soon prompted The Doctors to move up a half-hour to noon ET, dragging down ratings even more in its final year.

Only four soaps ever started as hour-long programs, all on NBC: Texas, Santa Barbara, Sunset Beach and Passions. All three were at or near the bottom of the daytime ratings throughout their respective runs, but only one never lasted longer than four years. (Santa Barbara ran for nine years and Passions ran for eight years, followed by an ninth that aired on what eventually became the now-defunct Audience Network after NBC dropped the show in 2007 to make room for the fourth hour of Today.) I'm not sure if Santa Barbara (1984–93) was ever dead last in the ratings at any point, given there was a lot of low-rated competition at various points during its run (Loving, Generations, Ryan's Hope, Capitol and, having spiraled into its nadir during its final years following its 1982 move from CBS to NBC, Search for Tomorrow). The Aaron Spelling-produced Sunset Beach was technically the least successful of the three serials, only lasting for three years from January 1997 to December 1999. (Fun Fact: It was the only conventional daytime show to ever be featured on the overnight block once known as "NBC All Night".) Oddly, despite consistently having poor ratings throughout its run, NBC chose to give Sunset a few multi-month renewals toward the end of its run because it performed well among younger audiences. That decision to renew the show short-term in early 1999, along with NBC and Sony securing a deal to renew Days of Our Lives after settling disagreements during contract talks (including issues over same-day PPV rebroadcasts on DirecTV, with speculation that it somehow would end up being picked up by ABC should NBC drop it, despite a lack of room on ABC's daytime schedule at the time to allow for a fifth soap), contributed to Another World getting the axe. Passions (1999–2008; until 2007 on NBC) had similar issues as Sunset Beach, finishing at of near the bottom of the ratings (and doing at least slightly worse in total viewers than the soap it replaced, Another World (which placed eighth in the ratings out of the eleven soaps on the air at the time of its cancellation, ahead of only Sunset and Port Charles), did during the last couple of years of its run); it didn't land in last place among the soaps until ABC canceled Port Charles in 2003, reducing the number of daytime serials from ten to nine. Like Sunset Beach, Passions stayed on NBC because of its performance among teenagers and women 18-34 (it typically placed first among both demographics).

Former Apple and Hulu executive Pete Distad has been hired as CEO of the new streaming service.

A little late on learning this, but Gray struck a deal to air the WFAA Mavericks package in two of its Texas markets (one of which technically is a border market with Oklahoma): * In Lubbock, KLCW and KMYL will split the games evenly between them (3/1, 3/13, 3/29, 4/5 and 4/10 on KLCW, and 3/11, 3/21, 4/4, 4/9 and 4/12 on KMYL). * In the Sherman-Ada market, KXII will air most of the games on its MyNetworkTV subchannel 12.2, while the remaining two games (3/29 & 4/12) will air on its Fox sub on 12.3.

Nexstar has filed a lawsuit against the FCC over the recent modifications to its broadcast ownership regulations.

Simone Jameson has reportedly been let go by WXIX, over these photos that she posted following a boxing workout on her station-branded social media. (Note: FTVLive has posted several stories lately about reporters, like Jameson, who posted photos to their work accounts that most people, especially those outside the news business, would normally post to their personal social media.)

This isn't a news theme, but I've always wondered what the name and composer of this production music was (it's heard several times in this video from a 1999 Cox Communications free preview of HBO, one portion being most clearly audible at the 7:50 mark). Cox had used the piece for its free preview weekend events dating to April 1997 (during an HBO/Cinemax preview occurring the weekend Twister made its debut on HBO, over a week after it became the first film ever released on DVD), when they were still hosted by Terry Rich and produced through his production and marketing firm Rich Heritage. I've also added an audio clip taken from a fishing program included in a now-deleted YT channel surfing video (I had to convert the audio clip into an mp4, since TVNT links don't accept mp3s). 98bf080fa1d3e8c6b76fb26911a35a40.mp4

WMBF sports director Dave Ackert was charged with public intoxication early Monday (February 12) outside of a Myrtle Beach area bar. Ackert reportedly entered the bar through the backdoor and ordered a beer; apparently after several beers, he was cut off from drinking any further by the establishment's owner, who took his beer away because Ackert was “highly intoxicated.” Ackert was escorted out after threatening to kill the bar owners, but continued to threaten people outside. He refused rides home via an Uber called for him by the owner (Ackert refused to get in because he claimed the driver was an “assassin”), and by police, who brought Ackert to J. Reuben Long Detention Center, from where he was released later that morning.

Fox Weather has been added to Hulu + Live TV and TCLtv+ (TCL's AVOD live TV service accessible on its television set models).

As I figured, TBN will carry Merit Street over-the-air on its O&Os. Having passed through KTBO while channel surfing, TBN has already begun running a promo feed on its DT2 subchannels ahead of the Merit Street network's launch, which is now scheduled for February 26. But it won't be a replacement for TBN Inspire, outside of channel placement. Instead, to make room, Inspire and Smile were each moved one subchannel ahead (Inspire from DT2 to DT3, and Smile from DT3 to DT4), while Enlace has been dropped entirely and relegated exclusively to the TBN Plus streaming platform. (This would leave Daystar as the only English-language religious network that offers an over-the-air Spanish-language service, assuming other 3ABN stations removed 3ABN Latino and its sister networks a couple of years ago like KUOT-LD did in my market.)

I believe that started after Dabl switched from lifestyle shows to Black sitcoms. I noticed StartTV had started airing Drew while late-night channel surfing a couple of weeks after the Dabl format change.

The Bucks have confirmed that the Weigel-sublicensed game package will be regionally simulcast on the following stations: * WISC (CBS) and WISC-DT3 (MyNetworkTV)/Madison (Morgan Murphy Media) * WBAY (ABC) and WBAY-DT3 (The365/MyNetworkTV)/Green Bay (Gray Television) * WEAU (NBC) and WECX (CW)/Eau Claire–La Crosse (Gray Television) * WSAW (CBS) and WYOW (CW)/Wausau (Gray Television) * WQAD-DT3 (MyNetworkTV)/Davenport, Iowa (Tegna)

I'm guessing WLTZ is the .5% of that minority still using the Peacock because of the SSA?

Gray shut down KNEP's news department and laid off staff in certain other departments on the same day the Marquee swap announced. Since February 2, the station's in-house newscasts have been replaced by simulcasts of KGWN/KCWY's Wyoming News Now broadcasts.

Of course, had Rupert Murdoch not sold 20th Century Fox and the FX Networks, National Geographic Channels and Fox International Channels properties to Disney (along with the Fox Sports Regional Networks that became Bally Sports under Sinclair), they likely would have had a robust SVOD platform instead of relying on Hulu and the in-house AVOD service Tubi (which Fox Corporation bought in 2021 to have some mainstream streaming presence). I honestly think it was a mistake on the Murdoch's part to not keep those properties, because it robbed them of creating a strong streaming competitor, because it turned the successor Fox Corporation into a runt while giving Disney bigger market share in TV and film production and distribution as well as linear distribution, and because all that sale did was make Fox Corporation defined in the public by Fox News instead of the more reputable and less controversial properties it used to own and still owns.

From what I took of it, the service in concept seems like a hybrid of Fubo (with far fewer entertainment-based networks with little or no sports content, seemingly what it would have been if entertainment networks weren't bundled into its carriage contracts) and DAZN. On top of it, they apparently plan to incorporate ESPN+ content onto the service. That said, even though ABC and Fox are among the networks whose sports content is being offered, I'm not sure if it's planning to run their full linear feeds or just the sports events they air (a la Max's Bleacher Report add-on, which is basically one to four part-time feeds only active when simulcasts of sports events from TBS, TNT and truTV and original daily sports talk shows air). There's also the matter of whether this replaces ESPN's original plan to offer an expanded standalone streaming service (mixing programming from the ESPN linear networks and ESPN+), and if ESPN/Disney partnering with Fox Corporation and Warner Bros. Discovery (which was done very much on the DL since there were no scoops on this partnership before the announcement) was its way forward to getting a service along those lines off the ground. Also, it's National Amusements, not Capital Amusements.

Kind of a good point, actually. While Morris' shifting of Fox programming to WCBI-DT2 technically violates the new Top-4 regulations (this move likely would have required a waiver to allow it under the new rules, and there hasn't been enough time since the ownership rules were passed to get approved for one before WLOV came under Morris' control), keeping the status quo under Allen was risky too. Until Morris took over the SSA, Allen (like Heartland and the Spains before it, dating to WKDH's shutdown after its LMA with WTVA was terminated in 2012) had control of three Big Four affiliations between two stations: Fox on WLOV, and NBC (main channel) and ABC (on DT2) on WTVA.

FTR, WLOV had been managed alongside WTVA since 1992, when the SSA was first established by the Spain family to take over operating the weakest of WTVA's two Big Three competitors. (WLOV was Tupelo's ABC affiliate at the time, and would switch to Fox three years later, leaving the market without a local ABC station until the now-defunct WKDH signed on in 2001.) The problem here is, considering the FCC recently approved an update to its broadcast ownership rules that closed the loophole allowing station operators to put a Big Four network on a multicast channel (including through the acquisition of another station's primary affiliation), Morris might be looking at a fine soon thanks to its decision to move Fox to WCBI-DT2 after the fact.

Diamond Sports has secured deals to televise Texas Rangers, Cleveland Guardians and Minnesota Twins games for the 2024 Major League Baseball season, keeping all 12 remaining teams that it held broadcast rights in the fray; however, it still does not have rights to stream games from those three teams over Bally Sports+. (The Twins deal had expired before the start of the year, while the other two teams were being renegotiated.)

Aside, how does that work? It makes sense for its newscasts, other local shows (L.A. Unscripted, Off the Clock, California Cooking with Jessica Holmes, Frank Buckley Interviews and Inside California Politics) and Clippers games, but the bulk of KTLA's local programming airs between 4:00 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. weekdays. The rest of the station's schedule (outside the weeknight 10:00 and 11:00 p.m., weekend morning and evening newscasts, Sports Final and a few of the above-mentioned non-news local shows) consists of CW shows, syndicated and paid programming, and I doubt those shows are given audio simulcasts on the iHeart feed. Radio simulcasts of local TV newscasts have been a thing for about 35 years or so, but usually have been limited to evening broadcasts—usually during drive time—on a news/talk or music station. (There were also a few cases like the arrangement that KPRC had with KLAT radio in the early 1990s, where a Spanish-language station ran a translated simulcast of the English broadcast.)

Paramount likely figured the Nick simulcast would add viewership, boosting total ratings for the Super Bowl, rather than cannibalize the CBS viewership, given their different demographics.

Syncbak has announced the planned rollout of Zeam, a relaunch/replacement of its local news streaming service VUit, which will offer live and on-demand news, sports and lifestyle programming, carrying over the latter's existing streaming deals with stations owned by groups like Gray, CBS News & Stations, News-Press & Gazette, Hearst and Morgan Murphy Media. The marketing campaign for the (re)launch will include a commercial starring John Stamos that will air within local ad breaks during Super Bowl LVIII on about 100 of the CBS stations whose local content will be available on the service.

David Smith is financially involved in a lawsuit accusing Baltimore City Public Schools of defrauding taxpayers filed in 2022 by Jovani Patterson, chairman of People for Elected Accountability and Civic Engagement, a PAC funded almost entirely by Smith promoting ballot initiatives seeking to reshape the Baltimore city government. Apparently though, WBFF's news staff had no knowledge of Smith's involvement when it ran previous stories concerning the suit; the station now plans to add a disclosure notice to stories concerning the suit.

Neal Barton is stepping down as KETK's evening anchor and news director after 20 years with the station (the longest of any of his gigs during his 42-year career). His last newscast will be on Friday, January 26.