TVIntheDesert

Yet she won't get fired, given who her employer is and also that it's Phoenix. She's untouchable at KSAZ because her actions aren't enough to hurt her or the station's brand.

Also, KPHO was using magnetic boards for weather long after the other stations had electronic "green screen" maps.

KPHO had an understaffed news organization during their pre-CBS independent years. Their studio was modular, meaning it was taken apart when the daily kids show "Wallace & Ladmo" used the room in the afternoon to tape their show between the 11:30am and 9:30pm news shows. Sports scores were almost always reversed on their Chyron. I don't think they had a live truck back then either. KNXV was about to come in with a 9pm show as a Fox station so they got a little more serious about their product in '93.

KSAZ may have the most viewers, but KNXV has become the gold standard for news in Phoenix, despite it being a Scripps station. KSAZ's intent of mixing opinion with hard news kind of bogs them down. KPHO was never a good news station when they were independent more than 25 years ago. I'm hoping you meant "independent" in the sense when they weren't joined to the knees with KTVK.

No surprise here. KPNX has been a dumpster fire since Gannett became TEGNA, and they make KPHO/KTVK look like a newsroom of stability.

WDRB/Louisville GM Bill Lamb, known for his conservative leaning editorials during the evening news, has left the station and said he was moving to a "top-10 market." Is it a Sinclair station he's going to, perhaps? https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2019/06/18/louisville-news-wdrb-general-manager-bill-lamb-leaving/1486361001/?fbclid=IwAR10_PMXwsDmSjKqEomvoj9wyTu3hZ_ByI0V8BhxxJih2JRprm43C4YXgbA

Scripps basically had no choice but to inherit those Azteca affiliations on the McGraw-Hill stations. Entravision took Azteca away from them in San Diego, maybe they're planning on doing the same in Denver?

All this time, I thought KPNX was hubbed out of KUSA since the move out of 1101 N. Central.

I'm sure then-KWCH GM Ron Bergamo, a University of Arizona graduate, wasn't happy with the result of this game. Ironically, he would end up in Phoenix two years later running KTSP. -- Here's a couple 1992 promos from then-newsless Fox affiliate KNXV-15 (whose call letter-based image campaign that season was produced by TVbD, IIRC): And some rare pre-Scripps KNXV (I've started at a promo for "The Greatest American Hero," which ended with graphics featuring their slogan at the time "Where The Stars Shine"). Then co-owned WCGV-24 in Milwaukee used the same slogan and similar graphics.

WPGA looks like HC2 bait to me. How would Marquee make the station profitable without a major network affiliation? This was the Registers' mistake for dropping ABC over morality issues. TV is business. If you don't like what's being broadcast, sell the station.

Here's a block of commercials and promos from KUTP (IND) 45 in Phoenix from 1986. The promo design and TOH ID are the original from their 1985 sign-on. They would become a #3 (yet respectable after picking up the "red hot"--at the time--Phoenix Suns in 1988) indie (I'm counting KNXV during their first few years with FOX as still independent).

While Full Measure had limited syndication outside of the Sinclair group (the only station outside the group I recall airing the program was KAZT in Phoenix to pair with a locally-produced show hosted by a local right-wing radio host, but they no longer air it), van Susteren's new show (now named Full Court Press) is being shopped around by an outside distributor. Two non-Gray markets (Chicago and Milwaukee...Weigel?) have signed on so far. Hearst has had better luck distributing Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien outside their owned station footprint, even though that program slightly leans left.

The difference between TEGNA and RKO General was that RKO's stations were not really strong (WOR-TV and KHJ-TV were the third-ranked independents in New York and Los Angeles, respectively. KHJ could have been fourth behind KCOP). Maybe the years they were operating with the FTC and FCC as thorns on their side could have been why they never could be competitive. The Gannett group had some top-ranked stations at one time.

This is marked as a "Circle K commercial" (which is what it is), but at the :30 mark, there is a KTVK teaser from 1985 ("Eyewitness News" era) featuring weekend anchors (at the time) Frank Camacho and Heidi Foglesong.

They were under the same ownership from the late '60s until 2015. Possibly the owner (A.J. Williams) took if off the air in the mid-'70s to build radio station KDWN 720 in Las Vegas, and I'm guessing the profits from that station were used to put KAIL back on the air. When they signed off their analog signal ten years ago, they were running a '60s-era GE transmitter. KAIL was under management turmoil throughout the '80s too (according the Broadcasting Magazine archives at americanradiohistory.com).

Not a news station, just a very-low-budget intro to Fresno independent KAIL-53's movies. Notice the mailbox number stickers used for "53." The former owner of this station was notoriously cheap at his two radio stations and one TV station.

I remember watching KTVZ back in ‘94 during a stay in Bend and finding it to be super small market quality. Two and a half decades make a difference!

I have a feeling no one's making money in Casper. If KCWY wasn't profitable, then KTWO/KFNB/KGWC isn't either given the quality of their product. They allowed consolidation in the small, struggling market of Yuma/El Centro, but not in Wyoming.

I still think that Quincy will use KVOA as trade bait with Nexstar. I'm sure the Oakleys would love to enter Des Moines with the pending Tribune divestitures.

TBD was a miscalculation by Sinclair. They thought millennials who "cut the cord" were buying antennas and watching over-the-air TV, when they're actually doing most, if not all, their viewing through streaming services. I'd like to see some internal ratings information on TBD. They're definitely not selling the network to advertisers based on ratings, but on the concept itself. As for Decades, that was an expensive gamble on both Weigel and CBS, and I'm surprised Weigel has kept it around without the CBS stations.

A lot of older westerns, but not much different than Starz Encore Westerns on cable. I wouldn't say they're in danger of falling like the Decades Network did. I still think Sinclair's TBD will be the next diginet from the large operators (I don't consider Luken to be one anymore, since they cater to low-power stations) to close shop or change format, and that will most likely be because of the Tribune/Court TV deal.

It's quite possible. We've got duplication of Grit and Escape in Phoenix (via Univision and Nexstar), so I can see them substituting Court TV in those duplicate markets.

IIRC, the Katz business model is to lease space on the subchannels of stations. That's why you see Grit, Escape, and Laff sometimes on two stations per market. Eventually, they're going to make a deal with Nexstar based on the Tribune deal and their existing relationship with them.

KOBI/KOTI has been using the "Interstate Sign" logo for decades, and their former sister station in Chico/Redding (KRCR) might have done so too at one time.

I just heard through the grapevine that Stephanie Hockridge said her goodbyes at KNXV this evening.