Rusty Muck

Per DCRTV.com, W*USA has hired away ex-WJLA ND Bill Lord as their news director and station manager. Probably the smartest thing Gannett has done with W*USA in over 15 years, if that.

Better, but not by much. The L3s are still hideously designed and far too big, and the animated bug is far too distracting. And considering how badly mutated the legacy MediaGeneral logo design had become...

Now, Rampage was simply abysmal. TIH may be generic and a bit hokey, but there is no realistic way you can compare it to the auditory disaster that was Rampage.

If Raycom didn't run WUAB as a total afterthought, that would be plausible. But there was a reason why the CW passed them over in the first place - WOIO clearly drives the bulk of attention for Raycom in Cleveland. And that was the case even before Bill Applegate and "Action News." I really doubt that they are even remotely interested in buying out a competitor.

Yeah, I kinda threw Tribune in as the clubhouse leader for whatever reason. But indeed, WEWS will be losing Live Well on 5.2 (if ABC hasn't already shut down the network) and WKYC 3.2 has been in an eternal radar loop since 2009, with PSAs thrown in almost at random. Out of all the potential buyers, Raycom is, far and away, the least likely to get WBNX.

That would be a massive downgrade for WOIO and totally foolish for Raycom to consider. WBNX's signal is just as impaired by Canadian signals to the north and thus is probably the worst signal in the market. WBNX is completely unrecieveable from where I live in Avon, even if I stick my antenna as far as possible. At least WOIO comes in if I make an effort to pick it up. Never have with 55.1. Far more likely that Tribune will buy WBNX's intellectual property as a whole, run it on WJW 8.2 (scooting off SD-formatted AntennaTV to 8.3), and Angely simply cashes out on 55.1.

WBNX is also a station that - until recently - openly censored curse words like "damn" by dropping the audio. Even on WB network programs. The station is enough of an asset for Angely to sell off if this scandal gets worse (and it might; the above link is the first of a SIX-PART series by Bob Dyer).

Dear God. The anchors look as cartoonish as the set itself.

Likely that the negotiations with these stations took place while the Allbritton deal was still pending. I'd be shocked if the Allbritton stations aren't bundled together with an extended affiliation deal in the coming months...

USA Today is a McPaper. It's also very popular among hotel housekeepers and tourist attractions. And it's the only property Gannett has with a national reach. I'd still stick it with the Gannett newspaper group with the impending spin-off. It can't be solvent by any stretch of the imagination, and it would totally drag down the Gannett television station group.

That's pretty stupid considering the impending spin-off of the entire newspaper division.

Which, of course, is operated entirely out of the WICU/WSEE studios in Erie. I'm wondering if WNBC got the .2 simulcast on WKAQ because of NBC's attempt to sell off WTVJ in 2008.

WKBW is tying in the new show to the implementation of the Scripps graphics package, in addition to a total rebuild of their weather and traffic computer equipment. Methinks that MCTYW will disappear from WKBW forever after the 11pm news on Sunday, September 28.

LIN-MG obviously learned their lesson after being spanked by CBS over WISH. It shouldn't be much of an issue at all.

Come later this month, when Scripps installs the standardized graphics/music on WKBW, bringing that station into the 20th century, there will be some that mourn the loss of MCTYW. But WKBW has a terribly antiquated look and sound, so much so that MCTYW's retirement is sorely needed. Change is a hallmark of the industry. Anomalies like WJZ and WPVI (and WNIR) are exceptions to the rule.

At least one station is keeping The Spirit alive... [yt]QoIcKI_L96w[/yt] And yes, WNIR still uses that jingle package to this day.

The only - ONLY - station to have revived a newscast theme due to popular demand... was WPVI in 1996. And they had good reason: NO ONE liked the London Philharmonic Orchestra's rendition of MCTYW. This is Home isn't bad. It's generic. It's a bit corporate-ish. But there's nothing that garners immediate negative reaction like MCTYW by the London Philharmonic Orchestra did. And honestly, I don't think the majority of viewers to either station are spitting angry that "The Spirit" - a musical signature barely in use for YEARS - got retired. Your idea is not only impractical, it is impossible and almost childish. No suit from Gannett is going to read posts on FB fan pages for WFAA or KHOU and think, "Ah ha! Let's bring back The Spirit!" That is not how the world works.

Scripps has made official that KMGH's ND Jeff Harris is jumping over to WEWS. Take from that what you will.

WEWS just posted a promo for "The Now Cleveland," which unsurprisingly has it's own dedicated YouTube channel. [yt]PE1agocDwlo[/yt]

Sharon Reed was an embarrassment to Cleveland television news. She was only hired by Bill Applegate because of her outrageous persona - the WCAU flameout was pretty much a resume enhancement** - and was best known for her "Body of Art" sweeps stunt. When WOIO finally 'fired' Reed (the Plain Dealer infamously spiked a plausible rumor - which somehow got published on their own website - as to why) the station became 100% more watchable. Plus WOIO hired away the very respectable Romona Robinson from WKYC to replace Sharon, and WKYC shockingly was able to lure away Russ Mitchell from CBS to replace Romona. So it effectively became a trade of Russ Mitchell for Sharon Reed. And that's a hell of a trade. **If you think I'm kidding, look at Catherine Bosley and Chuck Galeti as other public rehabilitation projects that Applegate initiated. But at least those two had some likable qualities.

As long as hashtags aren't incorporated into the graphics (see KALA-TV as a prime offender) then it's not that big a deal. More of a viral marketing effort than anything else as well as to help with search efforts on Twitter.

Actually, WJW needs a new anchor/reporter to replace Zinni. He's headed back to New England at an unspecified station (Zinni worked at WPRI before joining WJW in 2008).

I don't know if anyone has posted about this, but WEWS has also added another hour to their Saturday morning news. Now wrapped around a live clearance of "GMA Saturday" at 7am, WEWS has local news from 6a-7a and 8a-10a. The third hour of Litton's E/I ABC package gets scooted to 11am Sundays. So here's the local-news-on-Saturday-morning landscape for Cleveland: WKYC (as of early September): 6a-7a, 9a-10:30a, and 12p-12:30p. "Today Saturday" from 7a-9a. WEWS: 6a-7a and 8a-10a. "GMA Saturday" from 7a-8a. WJW: 7a-10a. (You have to wonder when they up the start time to 6a.) WOIO: none, surprisingly. "CBS This Morning" runs from 9a-11a.

So remind me again why Linda Pellegrino had to leave WKBW's news department when "AM Buffalo" was converted into an infotainment program?

WKYC uses sponsorship billboards leading into their newscasts. They've done that since 2006. And WEWS's newscasts were "brought to you by Ohio Edison and the Illuminating Company" for decades up until the late 90s (likely when both utilities merged to form FirstEnergy). WOIO's newsroom also has a sponsorship billboard usually run after the second commercial break... I forget the sponsor.