Rusty Muck

**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.

Would Andy Lack even consider Ari and/or Joy as a replacement (if it even came down to that), or just give the 10pm hour to BriWi without any question or thought? Even as they have performed admirably as fill-ins - no doubt aided largely by Lumpy's slow-mo implosion - with the ratings proof for all to see, Lack is certainly lacking in foresight for the network.

Press release journalism runs amok in markets like Fort Wayne (the Fort Wayne Media Maven is a testament to that). It's what happens when a station, or set of stations, don't have nearly enough resources to do their jobs. Something tells me that won't really change under Sinclair when they take over (they haven't yet; my initial post was inaccurate and revised to indicate Bonten ownership).

Well poopie. Goddam it. That post is edited. Excuse me for a minute.

The Bonten TV stations in Montana - part of the group Sinclair wants to acquire - are the only outlets not competently covering the rather big story of a congressional candidate assaulting a newspaper reporter. [MEDIA=twitter]867598130346422272[/MEDIA] Not only is there audio, but a Fox News crew saw the assault and corroborated with the victim's testimony. This trio of stations are the only outlets pushing this narrative. Why is this? Because said assaulter is a Republican. I, along with others, assumed this was a fait accompli and that Sinclair already took over. As it is, Sinclair does not own them yet. My initial post (and that tweet) was wrong. Bonten is suffering from institutional failures of their own, arguably even worse than anything I've seen in awhile.

I hope you're right, for Andy Lack's sake. This story could be part of the not-so-internal PR war on Laurence's part. (Think about it: an unsubstantiated story goes up just before his show hits the air, and the ratings get driven up higher. You can't say Laurence is behind this, but he does know how to play the game.)

Andy Lack is a moron. [MEDIA=twitter]864572734482907138[/MEDIA]

According to the Variety article, MSNBC is publicly stating that they want to keep him. But this paragraph tho: Considering how well Laurence O'Donnell has done in the 25-54 money demo of late, I'd say this game of "chicken" involves trying to outrun a speeding train with a sports car.

Would they REALLY want Brian Williams to have a regularly scheduled hour directly opposite the ET feed of the NBC Nightly News? As for Greta, it seems like she's not getting any ratings traction. Yes, she's a definite improvement over Mark Haplrin, but yodeling camels wearing kilts would have been a definite improvement over Mark Haplrin.

Having the anchors say "focused on family and community" only adds to the cheapness. Good lord, this makes the pre-Gray KALB-5 opens look like a million bucks.

That's what happens when a new McOwner takes over, slashes payroll, downgrades the on-air look and imposes opinion content that is totally out of touch with the market at large.

Wow. A janitor got fired from Channel 8. Life literally imitates art.