sanewsguy

15 minutes ago, CarolinaWxGuy said:

Also TG Shuck has joined WTVQ as their Chief Meteorologist.

Didn't they just hire Jeff Andrews from WAOW a few months ago to be their chief? They seem to go through chiefs (and talent in general) like infants go through diapers. Not to mention, the previous chief, Jason Lindsay, didn't last long in that position either.

TG should rent, not buy, once Morris finds out he's not moving the needle.

16 hours ago, Publicradio for Central MS said:

I thought that those graphics were exclusive to Waypoint stations. I guess those are syndicated by News Hub. 

They're not syndicated. Coastal owns both the former Waypoint stations (except for Hattiesburg for whatever reason) and News Hub now, so one in the same company. It's not surprising that NewsNet was dumped in Alaska and Wyoming in favor of News Hub-produced shows, since they own it now.

I'm a little surprised they kept News Hub intact as well aside from ditching the in-house meteorologists (that's now outsourced to Praedictix out of the Twin Cities area, and honestly it's an improvement, their weather graphics are better because they use a Baron system as opposed to the AccuWeather crap the in-house mets used).

6 hours ago, kfc513 said:

Aside from all the other issues, I'm still confused about the music situation.

 

So it seems to be confirmed that they're licensed to use News One, but that doesn't account for the other music packages that they used (though they all seem to be published through Warner-Chappell) which were also ripped from NewsMusicNow!

Simple: he was caught with his pants down and moved to quickly scrub the use of the stuff ripped from News Music Now once it was exposed to the right people that he was doing that. He probably made it private hoping nobody else would see that he was doing that.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that he had probably hoped nobody would ever catch him doing this, and it worked, almost. Kind of an odd logic to have when you boast about being seen in over 115 million households.

He also started to scrub the NMN stuff from his other show, "The Reed Report" and now uses some random YouTube music: 

It looks like he was doing this with his other show too, "Valley View with Austin Reed" (how many shows does this guy have?). That one is/was using the old TXCN music and Impact in a sponsor bump. Again, I think once Austin realized what he was doing was not cool, he corrected this. That said, he shouldn't have been doing it in the first place. 

1 hour ago, ctmajka said:

I'm telling you guys, it's only going to continue to improve. It's not about ratings right now, it's about establishing a product, and allowing the audience to grow with that product. Hopefully this will continue to grow into competative news operation.

Completely agree. I will probably post a follow-up video on Friday to show my audience the improvements he has made, and to be fair. I don't want people to just see the first show, think I was there just to post it because it was bad, and move on. If he's making a true effort, which he is, I will spotlight that. For a one-person operation he is trying. I believe in being fair and equitable in my uploads (as the person who brought attention to this - I doubt we'd all be here talking about this if I didn't make that upload, and to be honest I almost passed on it, so I'm glad I did end up going for it). Not every station is going to be WPVI or WRC — conversely not every station is going to be WBKB or The Delta News. It's important to provide as wide of a variety as possible.

Is this product better than what KFSN was providing them? No, but nobody is claiming that either (I don't even like KFSN's product to begin with - too tabloidy for me). This is the same market who has bestowed the world with TikTok/IG stars Caroline Collins and Liv Johnson (KSEE/KGPE), remember. Fresno is not exactly the mecca of quality storytelling. I think Austin is making a legitimate effort to provide a serious newscast. Like I said, he is looking around for a graphics package and so it will start to look more polished with time.

If you want to blame anybody here, blame Cocola. They are a notoriously cheap company and have been since day one (they are still using outdated EAS equipment in 2022). I'm surprised they even picked up the KAIL lineup to begin with. I'm not surprised they didn't renew the KFSN agreement. I will give them credit for at least wanting to keep some type of 8pm newscast going when they could've just plugged in syndicated or paid programming (and the Cocola stations air a lot of that).

I have seen much, much worse, and I will defend Austin because he is at least taking people's concerns to heart and trying to improve. He is more than aware that his product doesn't look like the O&O in town, but I'm sure if he had the money, he would.

I don't think he is doing this for ratings or to make money, but doing it because he is truly passionate about it. And in this day and age when many people are exiting the industry and not missing it one bit, Austin should be commended for continuing to truly have a burning passion for journalism and local news.

My53 did not broadcast an original broadcast tonight — instead repeating Monday night's broadcast. I hope Austin didn't just give up all of a sudden.

1 hour ago, HoosierNewsie said:

Not sure who first replied to NMN’s comment, but if we’re going to be honest, I don’t think they are “well positioned to be commenting…” They clearly don’t understand how big of a risk this could’ve been to the future of News Music Now and even NMSA. 

Not saying I agree with that comment to begin with, but in the interest of fairness:

csreedabc is Chris Reed, owner of Newsmusic Central and also a copyright lawyer in his day job. So I can see why he said what he said.

In the interest of fairness, as the person responsible for posting the video that went "viral"....

Austin Reed did post tonight's newscast and he did take everyone's concerns to heart. 

He has replaced all of the various music lifted off of News Music Now with proper News One tracks that he is authorized to use, downloaded directly from WCPM, and only that package. 

I think he did read the FTVLIve piece that was published this morning and got rid of the podcaster-hosted sports segment in favor of an extended interview. He also put a disclaimer at the end that it was recorded at CentralValleyTalk.com studios (an obvious swipe at FTVLive for claiming that it was shot in his basement). 

13 hours ago, Weeters said:

Austin posted in the comments of the Studio 31 video that the music is totally licensed and we can contact "Mark Agent" about it, or somebody named "Gary".

He actually did license it — he sent my friend the contract he has with WCPM, so it is legal. Mark Agent is a legitimate person, the licensing director for WCPM. Apparently he had difficulties downloading the audio tracks and resorted to NMN for the first show. Should he have done that? No, but give him credit for getting that rectified quickly.

3 hours ago, detroiter313 said:

I wonder who would contact the webmaster of NewsMusicNow about Austin ripping off cuts from the site?

News Music Now is very much aware. He commented on my video:

2 hours ago, qunewsguy said:

Bigger concern... someone should be reaching out to Warner Chappell who actually owns the copyright for those works.

They are licensed, so nothing is going to come of this.

At the end of the day, I do feel kind of bad that Austin has received some of the hate he's gotten. Some of it is rightfully so and well deserved: lifting others' news video (even if he gave a YouTube credit) is not acceptable, and is not fair use if he's profiting off of it (which he is, there's advertising, it's all direct response ads, but there's ads) and he does seem to be making some strides to getting things right. There was a fair amount of lifted video this evening so I think it'll take him a while, but nowhere near the amount that there was Friday. The presentation could use a lot of work, and he knows that. He is actively shopping around for a graphics package and has had interest from a couple of designers.

Given the fact that is a one person operation, I will give him credit and I think this product is only going to improve over time. He had a week to launch (they were airing NewsNet in the timeslot the past three months after they declined to renew their outsourcing arrangement with KFSN at the end of 2021) and I guess they had to have NewsNet gone by the end of March. So I will give him a lot of props for stringing together what he could on such short notice.

22 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

And with all due respect, I know your stance, too. I vehemently disagree with all of it.

I know you do. You’ve made that quite clear.

1 minute ago, Myron Falwell said:

Correcting a obvious historical inaccuracy and stating the plain truth is “WAY too invested”. Uh huh.

 

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Not that. The fact you have been on here all day doubling down on your stance. I think we all get where you stand.

16 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

LMAO GE freaking ESTABLISHED RCA. They launched KOA-TV and WRGB back in the 1940s. They were heritage broadcasters and knew the industry.

 

Uh huh. Deb McDermott and Soo Kim took MediaGeneral on a massive buying spree, tried to merge it into Meredith of all things, then offloaded it all to Nexstar. She’s churn-and-burn garbage and the worst of the lot.

 

Let’s be clear here. INSP is buying the stations via a holding company. This is again some Grade A Pollyanna stuff assuming they’ll be Just Another Broadcaster or That We Should Not Be Skeptical when, as @Weeters stated, Occam’s Razor needs to be invoked.

you are WAY too invested in this at this point

1 hour ago, Myron Falwell said:

Oh come on. This might just be the shortest-sighted, Pollyannaish, most ridiculous take I’ve ever seen because you and the rest of the M&A advocates who want to go back to the “good ol’ days” of TV news are going to be caught with your pants down on this deal.

Lol first of all I am not an "M&A advocate" by any means — most of the quality broadcast groups left are the privately, family held ones or the O&Os, and anyone looking to work in the business is going that route. Secondly I don't necessarily yearn for the "good ol' days of TV news". We are well past the prime era for broadcast news. I don't think there's a point in "innovating" your linear product when younger people aren't going to really watch it. Turning on a TV channel is not a habit for someone who "doesn't have cable". Broadcasters NEED to do way more with their digital platforms but don't because they don't want to invest in it. Hyperlocal coverage, short 5 minute segments that appeal to a younger audience, longform packages only for your website and social platforms. That's how you get the younger eyeballs. Not what Tegna is doing. I'm not one who believes in the whole "Tegnaitis is bad" thing and I hate that word tbh. But if your audience on TV is 55+, then cater to that audience, not the 25-54. I know that's the desired demographic for advertisers but most in that age group just do not consume media the same way their grandparents or parents did.

I just don't think terrestrial television has much of a future in its current form, which leads me to this:

1 hour ago, Myron Falwell said:

It’s the biggest technological advancement in decades. How in the hell can you be so thoroughly out of touch with the medium‘s future and host a podcast supposedly about the future of the medium?

Because most of my guests on said podcast couldn't tell you what ATSC 3.0 is to begin with? Because some of them don't even watch their own stations when they get home because they "don't have cable"? I'm not out of touch with the medium — the medium is dying and ATSC 3.0 came too little too late.

Streaming is the future and that's where their money should be focused. Not on OTA television. I think some companies are trying but not hard enough. Maybe they should invest in quality original content and create the next hit show which they can make exclusive to their own platforms. Nexstar/Sinclair/Gray have the money for it, but they won't spend it that way.

That's why I am all for new blood coming into the broadcast landscape.

I'm not the biggest Scott Jones fan by any means but he had a much better take on this whole situation:

Quote

The 12 stations were for the most part in smaller markets and they are being sold off to Imagicomm Communications, a broadcast affiliate of INSP, a cable network that runs movies, classic TV shows, and Westerns.

Not exactly a news powerhouse. 
 

What does this mean for those stations? 
 

More than likely they will continue to be run on the cheap by a company that has little experience in journalism. 

I would tend to agree with Scott in this case. Maybe they do want the spectrum, but I stand by my initial comments and maybe they see something in local television we don't. Again, nobody here really knows what's going through David's head but him.

And another edit: where was the "spectrum" speculation when Byron Allen announced he was buying stations out of nowhere? What makes this situation any different? Byron had no track record of owning stations before and he seems to be doing fine. He runs them cheaply and makes very little investments into them, but he seems to be doing fine. I can't say this is going to be any different.

I'll be happy to eat my words if the transaction closes and the stations are reduced into nothing more than repeaters for the INSP TV network, but until then, we will just have to wait and see.

Kind of hard to speculate on a company that has no track record, and I have better things to do with my time than to keep going at this when you so strongly believe a certain way about this deal.

33 minutes ago, Samantha said:

I've been thinking all day on this one, and yiiiiiikes.

 

It's rare in 2022 to see a company with this much of a "moral"/"family" lean get into the business of full-line broadcast TV stations (ones with network affiliations and newsrooms). It's also a bit alarming because there is far less tolerance for that than there was even a generation ago. I'm reminded of when WPGA cut bait from ABC in 2009. Granted, they were a small operator that could very well have been muscled out by the shape of events in the intervening decade-plus anyway (especially because they did eventually go bankrupt and they were not willing to pay reverse comp), but one of the two reasons WPGA dropped ABC was because its programming had failed to meet Lowell Register's "family" standards. The last operator left that can be said to be cut from this sort of cloth is Bonneville, one of the last "boutique" TV companies, and that's a company that also happens to have an actual century of experience in broadcasting (and an alignment with a regional-national TV network much in the vein of INSP).

 

That's not saying that such wouldn't be a bad fit in theory for some of the markets on offer, with Pocatello and Tulsa standing out in particular as fertile ground for something like that. But in the moment we are in in media, affiliates exist because of tradition, public service obligations, and their news output. They have a reservoir of inherent trust that every other medium would kill to have these days, and they provide vital regional news and weather services. Sure, the networks don't truly need affiliates any more to reach much of the country, with three having SVOD platforms and the fourth going the FAST route and local TV combined being out-revenued by Google. But Disney+ won't give you the weather down the block, and try hearing about your local high school teams on Paramount+. These are the things people turn to local news for, and among the purveyors of such content, TV has the steadiest economic picture.

 

Imagicomm/INSP has no experience with any of these three things. They've been in two lines of business that, while about television and TV programming, don't coincide with the bedrocks of American local TV at the "spoke" end: a TV channel that shows Westerns and the distribution of family-friendly entertainment content. In this day and age, it's hard to be anything but skeptical of new entrants into this marketplace. There were probably some serious shudders today, especially at Memphis and Tulsa, where the company is going to be running much larger concerns than the ex-Northwest outlets, a fair number of which just outsource the production of local news programming anyway.

 

The problem is that PE companies see TV stations as assets to ride the downside, squeeze all the juice out of the lemon, and then discard the dry lemons to people who are deluded into seeing value or need them as dumb pipes for other types of services (and Imagicomm may well be in that business). They don't understand the social value of TV. They don't get what makes people who care about the news business tick. They don't get that this world needs lemon juice, badly, and they aren't making many more lemon trees. And, particularly as interest rates rise and chill M&A activity, there aren't going to be many real fruit growers out there to fill their shoes.

This is well written and a fair way of looking at things. I think it’s fine to look at this deal with a skeptical eye.

But to jump to the chase and say “they just want the spectrum” like the commenters above you is just premature. I agree that INSP’s business model is dying and they are looking to diversify. But we really don’t know what their plans are until the ink dries. I’m sure the networks are figuring that all out now.

Cerullo may also not care about the content aspect from the local affiliates as long as it makes him money. Bonneville doesn’t care as long as it makes them money (as long as you’re not a casino or alcoholic beverage - they don’t want your money then). Yes, they own an NBC affiliate but they also own classic rock stations and I don’t think you could consider that music to be “moral”. 

I am just trying to remain cautiously optimistic is all. Maybe INSP realizes local news is more trusted than national outlets and that their core audience still believes in local news (I know a lot of “social conservatives” who hate the national outlets but still watch and trust their local news).

We really don’t know what their plans are until the ink dries.

Edit: also whoever said that they are buying these for ATSC 3.0 spectrum - 3.0 is DOA and would be a complete waste for them to invest in. I don’t think that is the reason at all let alone having the spectrum in general. If they really wanted to get INSP cleared over the air they just have to strike deals with the existing groups and they have not done that, leading me to believe there’s a bigger reason why these are being bought.

6 minutes ago, Myron Falwell said:

THEY ARE NOT IN THE BUSINESS OF OPERATING CONVENTIONAL NETWORK AFFILIATES. You want another ValueVision embarrassing themselves operating an ABC affiliate that they had no business doing so??

You're right. They aren't, but will be when the FCC approves the deal. Also not sure why you are comparing this to the WAKC situation when that was over 25 years ago — neither the station nor the company exist anymore.

I have nothing further to add.

2 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

INSP didn’t buy these stations to run them as conventional network affiliates.

You don't know that. Only David Cerullo knows why he decided to buy these stations. He could be a step up over Apollo and be a long-term steward for these stations and make the needed investments, he could do absolutely nothing with them and just collect stations like Byron Allen does, he could be buying them as a way to be expanding INSP carriage to digital subchannels. I wouldn't want to think the worst for these stations — give him a chance and see what he does. A lot of hard working people at these stations would be put out of work if your idea is ultimately what ends up happening. I hope Mr. Cerullo is not retaining you as a consultant.

2 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

Jim, with all due respect, INSP has no track record running a conventional network affiliate and they bought a bunch of stations from a private equity vulture wanting to cash out.

I don't doubt that Apollo wanted to cash out, I completely agree there. It was going to happen sooner rather than later. To your first point though, you are right — INSP has zero track record, so let's give them the benefit of the doubt.

2 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

They bought the stations solely for the spectrum and nothing else. They have only one fish to fry, and it’s INSP.

Again, what makes you think that? Why would a company that has never owned stations before all of sudden be interested just to own broadcast spectrum? There's more to the story than is being reported, and unless you personally know David Cerullo, then you have no idea why he decided to buy these out of nowhere.

Give them a chance. The INSP TV channel is not my cup of tea but I don't want to speculate simply out of respect for the staff at the stations who would be put out of work if your idea of mass news department shutdowns comes to fruition.

7 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

Apollo was never going to be a long-term owner. This is a breakup that will take 1–2 years to complete as Apollo cashes out.

 

Make no mistake, INSP bought these licenses solely for the 3.0 spectrum. The station operations and news departments are all either going to be shut down or sold to existing groups.

 

If I’m at ABC, I’m fucking terrified. Disney’s long-standing “we won’t buy our affiliates” strategy is going to bite them in the butt when WSOC, WSB, WFTV and WFAA are offloaded to a spectrum hog and/or a Godcaster because no other buyers exist beyond the networks.

How do you know that INSP only bought them for the spectrum? Or what leads you to believe that?

You have a track record of not necessarily being optimistic with your analyses. 

Basically the former Northwest markets along with Memphis and Tulsa are going to the owners of the INSP TV cable network.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/03/30/2413122/0/en/Cox-Media-Group-to-Sell-Television-Stations-in-Twelve-Markets-to-Imagicomm-Communications.html

7 hours ago, JosiahCubed said:

I don't know why; but I feel like with the current Gray graphics packages, WAVE and KGMB/KHNL have the best implementations of them so far.

I know why - because neither stations' opens were done by Gray's hub and it's very obvious. Almost anybody can design and animate stuff better than the Gray hub.

1 minute ago, Georgie56 said:

Hawaii News Now has the WVLT package.

thank you for tipping Dado and Larry off so they can get them (w/ Bandicam logo) for their channels

Those sites look nice but they automatically lose 5,000 points for having those stupid Admiral nag pop-ups.... the ads were already paid for, disabling your adblocker doesn't make a difference. if they get rid of that this revamp wil get an A++ in my book.

Those hideous CBS Local sites needed to go ten years ago.

Interesting to see the defense of the above two posts given that most people on this site yearn for station individuality. I guess not in this case?

46 minutes ago, Samantha said:

This is Gray, so "My Little LPTV: U-Relays are Magic" is probably the answer. Of the BX LPTVs, they could use a U-relay in Montgomery, but they don't need an LPTV in the other markets (and indeed one they don't own a network affiliate in). They could always put Circle on WBXC; the network has no place to hang its hat in that market, and the LPTVs are all unremarkable diginet trees.

that my little pony pun was cringe ngl

44 minutes ago, channel2 said:

I get the impression that NewsNation isn't thought of too highly at Nexstar stations...

I've talked with enough people connected to Nexstar who would agree with that assessment.

On 6/16/2021 at 1:48 PM, CircleSeven said:R&O:

WRGB (6 > 35)

WRGB has made its move to physical 35. 

https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/antenna-users-wrgb-to-change-channels-for-over-the-air-broadcast-service

The one that piqued my interest in TV news for the first time:

2 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

EDIT 4:27pm/ET: And Lo and behold, the paperwork is up. $30M is the purchase price.

 

$30 mil for a low-power Telemundo affiliate? Seems kinda high, even in a top 10 market.

As of this writing, WJMN is now gone from YouTube TV, as-is the generic feed of CBS they had up the past few days, with WZMQ now available on that platform.