ehatt493

Next domino of the Lexington Scripps cluster to fall: starting Tuesday, May 25 WLEX and WTVQ will move to simulcast a new morning show "LEXNews at Sunrise." https://www.lex18.com/news/covering-kentucky/lex-18-and-abc-36-to-launch-combined-morning-newscast-lexnews-at-sunrise-on-may-25 WTVQ already simulcasts the weekend news, and it appears replacing Good Morning Kentucky is next. For now, it appears that WTVQ's news department will continue to produce its own noon, 3pm, 5-6:30pm, and 11pm news. https://www.facebook.com/doug.high.1/posts/pfbid0pTyaJ5cVCXL7PEcWnK6RMRVh4jhyFiukSgVW3KXA6VVyaQneckWcsdweVVxWr2o9l

Just flipping through the channels this evening, looks like WHAS has made the switch.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but WUPX was also one of the ION affiliates that Scripps divested to Inyo when they took control of ION several years ago. So this move would give Scripps a sneaky triopoly, even though WUPX has never originated programming locally.

Spring training games are underway and we've got one new score bug change and a few minor tweaks thus far. No surprise after they debuted a new graphics package for the Rockets in the fall, but Space City Home Network has shuffled off the last of AT&T SportsNet's mortal coil and debuted a slick-looking bottom right bug. Minor tweaks I can see thus far. With ABS ball-strike challenges now in place, MLB's broadcasts may be testing out adding two lights to the left side of the bug for that. So far, I've only seen this on the Nats broadcast. Haven't seen it on any other MLB broadcasts yet. Even more minor tweak is that SNY has switched their main typeface from what I think was Frank (that NBC used to love so much) to the more generic (and free) Barlow. From what I've seen so far, NESN, SportsNet Pittsburgh, MASN, YES (thank god), and Sportsnet are all the same. Yet to have seen CHSN, the NBCS channels, Braves on Gray, SNLA, or any of the new national partners. Will be interesting to see if the NBC Sports RSNs (PHI, SF, ATH) stay the same and NBC debuts a new package for the network and Peacock or just adopts what the regionals have. Except for the gradient work, SNLA has had the same graphics package since it debuted 12 years ago, and I can't imagine CHSN would radically change their bug after one year on the air.

KOTA uses WSI MAX, yes. Understand, weather graphics often ship from the group's design hub and they will "install" the right assets for the weather system a station uses, either WSI MAX or Baron Lynx, sometimes both. Once the assets are installed on the weather computers, while there will likely be some pre-made templates, it's up to the meteorologists to customize each individual graphic. For news graphics, though, each station needs to make sure its hardware is compatible, groups may make the decision to deprecate certain hardware configurations so that it's easier for their remote technicians to diagnose a problem. Depending on the station, they will likely have to wait until they invest in new hardware and will launch new graphics when they're ready. For each station, it's up to management to decide whether they want to wait to launch weather graphics with the new news graphics, or just go ahead and launch weather graphics when they're ready.

Believe this is the soft-launch to coincide with the live newscast they did in downtown Hazard in celebration of the station's 40th anniversary (actually Sunday). They were back to the previous look for the morning news, but I'm told the full launch isn't far off. I think they did a great job incorporating the yellow/goldenrod elements with the blue the station has long loved, with the gold hearkening back to the sun rising over the mountains that was a longtime element of their logo from sign-on through 2015.

I enjoy the irony that they stopped using the variant of that logo with the channel number in favor of the one with the Eyemark when the old overlapping 32 logo from 25 years ago was in a parallelogram similar to the diagrid motif.

Looks like the countdown is on to the rebrand as "FanDuel Sports Network [region]." SBJ (paywall) mentions a court filing that mentioned FanDuel as the new naming rights partner: https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/10/07/diamond-sports-group-fanduel?publicationSource=sbd&issue=cfeec20f2fe5410da0e31a3dc0440253 More notably, Fubo has already switched logos for the Bally RSNs, but they still call them "Bally Sports" when clicked on. Also looks like, with the Pelicans moving to Gray, there's no logo for FDSN New Orleans, quite possible it's shutting down. Additionally, they're already squatting on several Twitter handles. Not sure a timeframe, but quite interesting.

Bengals package is fundamentally the same, but the production values have noticeably come up, probably not a coincidence in their first year on new local flagship WXIX. The graphics have some motion to them now with dissolves and wipes. Font is clearly their in-house typeface with something similar to the FOX 2017-20 package.

We have a new NHL on NBC score bug now that we're officially in the playoffs. But the lowers remain the same.

Now that the website's launched, you can stream the BSN's on their website, but it's limited to the large providers. It would shock me if they had to re-negotiate deals with every small cable provider for streaming rights. FOX Sports Go still works concurrently with it, too. EDIT: nope, looks like the website just glitched

Noticed one of those "Prep Zone" broadcasts from FOX Bally Sports West show up in the FOX Sports Go app (yep, still hasn't been rebranded and the Bally Sports website still says "coming soon!") and noticed that we have an early look at a football score bug! Unless they're planning on popping down information out of the team sections like NBA timeouts or baseball pitch counts, the idea of just having the right side of the bug be the ticker might be an issue. Not going to base reactions on a football version of the score bug on this one just yet because it seems like a generic version that's been adapted for football.

Well, SBJ's got the scoop, Sinclair will announce the rebranding today (free account required to read). Biggest changes are "shuttering" the Tennessee and Carolinas channels and folding them back into South (for the Predators) and Southeast (Hornets and Hurricanes) Prime Ticket becomes Bally Sports SoCal and SportsTime Ohio becomes Bally Sports Great Lakes. Rebrand takes effect "sometime before MLB season."

Doesn’t appear even after the deal that the RSNs reach the same coverage area as before. FSNs seem almost entirely unavailable in the state of Kentucky. Checked several KY zip codes (Louisville, Lexington, Bowling Green and Paducah etc. DMAs) and no FSNs appear to be available. Check a Cincinnati zip code (appears to work anywhere inside the Cincinnati DMA) and lo and behold FSOhio pops back up.

It feels like a quick turnaround on this package vs. the last two. And if it is a while new network-wide package, I wonder what the plans are for other FOX Sports properties...Daytona 500 is only a 2.5 weeks away, then MLB starts in late March. Plus it's a whole thing as to whether or not the FSNs get re-branded by then and whether Sinclair will debut a new package for all of their sports properties or keep Stadium and the FSNs separate and continue to use the old FOX graphics (a la 2011 Root Sports).