Rusty Muck

To be fair, she had a long run at CNN prior to Fox. She just went with the wrong network.

A half-hour at 8am? That's weird. Wouldn't it make more sense to have it at 7:30, and push "First Business" up to 7am? Unless the plan calls for half-hour block shows - including those two - between 7am and 9am... I thought I posted it elsewhere on this thread. But in any event, that's why Lockup (along with any other evergreen taped docs they've run in the past) is in the process of being eased off of the lineup completely.

WKBW is also understandable, since 1) they're trying to rebuild their ratings after years of Granite mismanagement, and 2) they have the longtime advertorial "AM Buffalo" at 10am (recently truncated to 30 minutes).

Just a precursor to Altji I. M. Paid Off taking a nice big kickback from the Smith Clan and allowing those quadopolies in Seattle and OKC and a triopoly in St. Louis.

Gene Deitch says hi. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IomjsMzXcSY

Heh. I was talking about "Pink Panther" and "Robocop" whose IP rights wound up in MGM's hands.

Aided in no small part by the legacy MGM/UA cartoon library.

Hello, unregulated quadopolies in OKC and Seattle. Altji I. M. Paid Off won't lift a finger.

Won't happen, not when they control the lion's share of revenue in the industry and use their commanding reach as a weapon to persecute any political enemies. A Sinclair-AT&T merger isn't far fetched.

Becoming a part-time fill-in/swing position on WTOL or WTVG would be a promotion.

It probably wouldn't happen, but I would laugh if Gray were to acquire the NBC affiliation for another WTVG subchannel.

**cough** John Hambrick **cough**

Nielsen still has radio ratings (they merged with Arbitron a few years ago) so they won't be totally "broken." Yet.

WEWS had Cleveland Electric Illuminating and Ohio Edison (then competing utilities) as title sponsors for their newscasts from the late 1960s until 1998. It's not new by any stretch...

Nah. They'll call themselves Network 23 and the prophecy will be complete.

Will be interesting to see how long Sinclair sticks with Boris Badenov when this probe inevitably escalates.

Just throwing this out there... [MEDIA=twitter]869661131647877120[/MEDIA]

Extremely likely. Bonten's editorial views are not that different from Sinclair's editorial views.

Sinclair would play the victim regardless of how the story was reported. I'm not defending the coverage here, but they would whine if these stories were impeccably handled, decrying them in chain-wide must-carry "editorials" as "FAKE NEWS!" Look at the broad-based reaction to Gabriel Sherman's coverage of Fox News as a precursor to any critical coverage of Sinclair. If you're a Republican, you'll blindly support Sinclair to the ends of the earth, without question. If you're a Democrat, you want Sinclair knocked down to size, if not run out of business. It's pretty cut-and-dry here.

The other question: why would Ion want to sell WBPX to anyone? They operate it at the bare bones (even more so if corrupt Altji Paid Off does away with the main studio rule) and have to be profitable.

Of note, Phil Griffin is sticking around after all.

There could be a specific template CNN licensed to CFTM, but it would have to have been as basic as possible. That ticker animation is enough of a giveaway. Also note that CFTM uses Gotham and not the proprietary not-quite-Helvetica typeface CNN's infused into their graphical look.

Crap. I got the names confused. Still, then-Gannett tried the shell game until the Obama administration's DOJ rejected it resoundingly. Expect NexsTEGNAr to do everything possible to skirt any existing regs, retain almost every single station, and for these crooks to sit back and let it happen. Mat the odds be ever in your favor.

Nah, if NexTEGNAr happens, they'll jettison WTSP as soon as possible if they are told to do so. Belo-Gannett tried to use SagermoreHill to create a STL duopoly with KSDK-KMOV and a triopoly in Phoenix with KTVK-KASW-KPHX. There is no doubt in my mind that shells will be used to couch conflicts, and this corrupt FCC will totally look the other way. Count on it.