Rusty Muck

Get a load of this mux. Nothing like having to air CBS programming in freaking 480i because you didn't get enough advance notice.

Nope. The cap will never be eliminated, or will it be expanded. Odds are high that the UHF Discount is a goner if but to remove one of the few things Pai actually enacted (which itself was a political response to Tom Wheeler scrubbing it the first time). Heck, a case could be made that Sinclair's mishandling of their attempted purchase of Tribune did in Pai's plans for further dereg, and if HE couldn't get it done...

If the CW Plus (which I would assume is also being sold) is used as a fulcrum for replacement affiliations on .2s, then it's their call. But forcing NewsNation onto the CW creates more problems than it solves. Is it enough? Remember that Nexstar isn't in every market.

And anger all the affiliates owned by Sinclair, Gray, Scripps and Hearst? Yeah good luck decimating the affiliate base trying to push a proprietary news service that practically no one is watching.

Plus Circle is one of the better diginets out there, mostly thanks to the Ryman-WSM connections.

Thing is, Shep is hosting a specialty show on a business channel that’s running up against one of MSNBC’s star opinion hosts (Joy Reid). I doubt there were any expectations for his show in the first place, certainly nothing like NewsNation had. Nexstar may have no choice but to sell off the transponder space. What do you do with a channel that just blew up their prior identity and is slowly shedding their non-news program inventory? They can’t just snap a finger and go back to WGN America. I think what’s striking here is how Perry and Sean Compton are totally repeating the mistakes that doomed Al Jazeera America five years ago, when the lessons were blatantly obvious in this Broadcasting & Cable op-ed:

The Pax TV—i—ION metamorphosis is very interesting to look at in retrospect. You could argue that Pax TV was a diginet 25 years ahead of its time with a lineup heavy on reruns (albeit with a few new productions) and in which the affiliates all but carried the core schedule with no deviations whatsoever. Problem was, Pax TV was a money loser from the get-go, so much so that they turned to NBC for a capital investment that wound up with NBC suing Paxson a few years later for a redemption of their investment (and vice versa) with an NBCU board member succeeding Bud Paxson as chairman. Indeed, i had a programming deal with WBTV for a number of sitcom reruns but it clearly didn’t last long at all, as the lineup became nearly subsumed by infomercials near the end of the 2000s. Rebadging as ION and focusing on procedural reruns has given them an identity they never had prior, and it now adds a piece to the overall pie of genre channels that Scripps/Katz aims to offer.

It may take a year or two but I gotta believe that the ION stations—both Scripps-owned and Inyo-owned—will ultimately follow the same subchannel mux, with any co-owned stations that use the parent station’s spectrum filling in any gaps. For example, WDLI 17.1 as CourtTV transmits over WVPX’s spectrum, which has a 23.3 subchannel missing (but RF wise is over a 22.9 subchannel). But definitely, Doozy and Defy look to be in-house replacements for HSN and QVC. And for those ION outlets with only one of those shopping channels currently, they can carve out 480p subchannel space to accommodate.

The likeliest outcome does not involve the mass selling of stations, but is twofold: 1.) The holding company for the RSNs goes bankrupt and taken over by creditors who can resolve debts. In fact, that happened with Comcast’s ill-fated Houston RSN. If Sinclair were to offload their stake now, they would be getting hosed big-time. 2.) Sinclair winds up like Granite, but in too big to fail mode. (Actually, a better comparison would be iHeart and Cumulus when they entered Chapter 11. You’ll note that there was never a fire sale of stations for either radio operator but it killed off whatever M&A mindset existed for the radio industry.) But indeed, there are multiple stations that Sinclair can cut to the bone like Granite did to WKBW. Sure, a white knight investor like Byron Allen could swoop in, but only if the Smith family is stripped of control of the company. But by then, would it be worth it for Byron?

Some of the Scripps-owned ION stations did dump QVC in early January, including WPXN and KPXN. So it’s starting to look like the bulk of the HSN and QVC contracts run out at or near July 1.

It should be noted that the Scripps/Katz networks and ION are all genre channels: Newsy -> all-news, no frills Grit -> westerns Laff -> sitcoms Bounce -> African American-focused Court TV -> trial coverage and analysis Court TV Mystery -> reality crime ION -> procedurals/drama Doozy -> the “true reality” A&E library Defy -> the “true reality” History library The purchase of ION Media was for the OTA clearances (and with Inyo as a de facto shell for Scripps without the need for SSAs/JSAs). ION is destined to become the flagship Scripps/Katz brand, assuredly with more acquired rerun programming and less reliance on day-long marathons of the same shows, but the genre won’t change.

Between WOIO's lone syndication strips being WoF and J! and WUAB having a ghastly amount of paid programming on the weekends (not like WOIO is any better, but at least THEY have CBS fare) it's truly sad.

I'm actually pretty happy to see them do something with WUAB on the weekends, but their repo of the Gaylord-era 43 logo kinda hits the uncanny valley, ngl

WOIO's original studios on Shaker Square were clearly not big enough to support a news department, so they *had* to move anyway. What I’ve never totally understood is why WUAB abandoned their longtime home on Day Drive in the process. My impression was that it seen as more important to put 19/43 downtown alongside WKYC (then still at the old East Ohio Gas Building) and WEWS (at Euclid and East 30th) but Day Drive could have housed both stations accordingly. Maybe Steven J. Cannell wanted to simply sell the land? Parma did redevelop that area and the former Parmatown Mall nearby. Fun note: from 1975 up to 1990, Reserve Square housed studios for WWWE 1100 and WDOK 102.1, I want to say in the same area 19/43 calls home now.

There's two ways Gray could go with WOHZ. One would be as a fill-in translator for WOIO/WUAB, but I'm not sure where they'd put it... up north to Lorain or Huron? Remember that WOIO/WUAB has a pretty good translator in Akron, so it wouldn't be needed there. Leaving it in Mansfield seems a bit... weird, as it IS a border market between Cleveland and Columbus (and to some extent, even Toledo to the northwest). The second possibility is... relaunching WOHZ as a semi-satellite of WOIO for Ashland/Mansfield, relaying almost all of WOIO's programming except for a Mansfield-area newscast or two (and it's not THAT ridiculous a concept when you realize that 1) WMFD has thrived with a Mid-Ohio news department and Sunbeam-level program inventory for 30 years, and 2) Raycom built and signed on WMBF from almost nothing 14 years ago). Because WOIO (RF 10) and WBNS (PSIP 10) have to avoid signal overlap by any means necessary, there's a small gap in OTA CBS availability between the two signal contours that Gray could exploit to an advantage.

It's a rip-off of the 1970s-era Meredith "5".

WJW doesn't offer an 11pm newscast so they don't win every timeslot. Fluff is a systemic issue and not confined to Tegna. WJW has to use a lot of fluff because of airing so much news all the time.

Scott Jones in 1959: "This is Westinghouse"

In that Cleveland.com article, it says that three people are in charge, not counting GM Micki. Jon Adkins (former producer/assistant at WJW) is the news director, while Denise Polverine is the digital content director (she had the same duties at Cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer). Adam Miller is basically the branding coordinator and is heading up the marketing team. They structured it in a way that the people who need to be in charge are in the right positions.

Lol pretty much doing what he used to do at WJW. Somehow Mike Polk gets all the attention, while fellow hire Mark Naymik - who was brought aboard for the old political beat Tom Beres covered for decades - got almost overlooked.

What works in WKYC's favor is that they've remained a strong station. This isn't a dog station like WTSP, WUSA or KNTV... WKYC has become a valiant competitor to WJW since the late 1990s and that hasn't waned. I'm from Cleveland. I've seen too many stations get boring McGraphics and get the same basic look. The 2007 Fox O&O package, the 2008 Gannett package, the 2009 Scripps package and the 2014 Raycom package were among the more boring visual looks possible... harmless, but boring. This is... audacious. It's easily the best look for a local TV station I've seen since the JcB WOIO nineteen era of the late 1980s. And seeing how the logo is presented, it's both static but fluid... it's a literal contradiction. The NBC peacock is ... well... proudly a part of this, WKYC is showing their history and NBC ties and doing rather creative ways to emphasize it. Furthermore, leveraging the WKYC calls in tandem with "3 News" is equally commendable. The calls have value and cachet in the market. WKYC is doing their own thing with Tegna's full blessing, pouring money and resources into the operation. Funny thing is, when you invest in a station and hire people with bona fide credentials, that causes people to tune in! WKYC was the beneficiary of that under Multimedia and Gannett, and it continues today. And I can't let it be unsaid that Channel 3, then as KYW-TV, tried a rather revolutionary approach to TV news in 1959, 60 years ago. A little thing called "Eyewitness", a 90 minute newsblock that was so earth-shattering, WEWS' Dorothy Fuldheim was compelled to launch a competing newscast in response.

Nexstar is desperately trying to stay under the 39% ownership limit* with the Tribune deal. With the planned divestitures (complicated by the failed resale of several other stations to Fox, including WJW) they're barely at the limit. At the rate this is going, I wouldn't be surprised to see WBNX taken over by the creditors. From there, they could 1) sell the station to another entity, or 2) sell the license to one party and the IP to another. Either way, it's out of Ernest's control. *which is an absolute farce because of the so-called UHF Discount Actually, MyNet is on WOIO 19.2 between 1am and 3am in an obvious contract burning, sandwiched within the rest of the MeTV lineup. MyNet has no tangible value beyond being a white-label rerun block in prime-time. For all intents and purposes, WBNX is better off remaining an indie with spillover program inventory from whatever duopoly partner they wind up with, if they wind up with one.

This is already very disturbing even by Ernest Angley standards. I’m actually reluctant to see the second part.

Mark Nolan already has a full plate hosting the morning show on WMJI Majic 105.7 (where he succeeded the legendary John Lanigan in 2014). His anchoring the 4pm and 6pm news on WOIO were almost like a side project. This had everything to do with clearing the decks before Gray took over on the 2nd.

I’d laugh if the CourtTV IP deal with Katz includes the exclusive rerun rights to Forensics Files, given that it was CourtTV that commissioned the show in the first place.