The Frog

Some of Tegna's CW affiliates that refused to air LIV Golf (KCWI, KSKN, WLMT) will now clear it for the 2024 season. Nexstar/CW is also in talks for IndyCar rights.

According to this SBJ article, Nexstar purchased Paramount's 12.5% stake late last year.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2023/08/02/d-fws-highest-paid-ceo-perry-sook-ushers-nexstar-into-new-era-with-sports-cable-news/

...has closed multi-year deals with major broadcast groups including Nexstar, Sunbeam, Cox Media, Weigel, and Mission Broadcasting in well over a 100 U.S broadcast markets, including all of the top 10. Sounds like it will air primarily on CW stations.

The CW Unveils New Branding Look, Dropping the ‘The’ and Embracing a ‘Hot Sauce’ Color Palette (EXCLUSIVE)

1.1 million viewers.

Ratings for the GOP debate are in. 1.6 million on NewsNation. 2.5 million on The CW.

I did some exploring on this, and sure enough Fox treated Smackdown as a sports property (they even put them in the Fox Sports intro!). That changed this summer when Fox recategorized them as an entertainment show. As far as Raw and NXT goes, NBCU has always classified them as entertainment programming. We'll have to wait and see if The CW decides to air NXT under their CW Sports banner. As for AEW, it appears that they were also reclassified from sports to entertainment when Discovery took over WarnerMedia.

KUNS will be the new CW affiliate in Seattle. Univision is being dropped. They declined being moved to a subchannel.

The CW will simulcast the next GOP debate.

In today's earnings call, Nexstar teased that more CW affiliation changes will be announced in the coming weeks.

Kevin Adell has sent a cease and desist letter to WMYD to stop the CW affiliation. Official article (paywalled).

Here's a pro wrestling-worthy swerve. The CW is reportedly close to picking up WWE NXT.

WMYD's CW affiliation is officially announced. That leaves the question of what happens with Mission's pending acquisition of WADL.

The deal is in jeopardy due to cocaine usage on a NWA PPV.

WMYD will take the CW affiliation in Detroit.

CW Network yanked from Detroit airwaves over business spat

The CW has reportedly picked up an NWA wrestling show and a companion reality series.

Looks like CW may have quietly expanded Sundays to 7/6c. There's network repeats scheduled in that timeslot starting on 10/1.

Saturday's ratings are in. CW's ACC game (0.11/617k) nearly matched NBC's Big Ten game (0.11/665k).

KUSI is airing the ACC game instead of KFMB. I assume the other Tegna affiliates are preempting as well?

An affiliation switch flew under the radar. The CW departed Scripps' MTN group of stations for Nexstar's KSVI.

How will college football broadcasts on The CW work? Q&A with network president Dennis Miller

Comet is essentially syndicated programming. It's as watchable as any other station's lineup. I'll take reruns of The X-Files over a Byron Allen court show. It wouldn't be out of place on an independent station in another era. I'm surprised we don't see more stations fill non-network/news hours with programming from their in-house diginet rather than spending money on dwindling syndicated fare. If Nexstar wants to cut CW's programming costs, why not nuke the syndicated CW+ shows and fill the time with a mix of programming from their diginets?