scrabbleship

On 4/18/2023 at 1:35 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

I have to wonder, could Bob Prather be heading back to Gray, especially with Bob Smith's impending retirement.....

Bob Prather has been nominally running the zombified two station remains of Heartland Media while running Allen. I'd have to think that if he comes back or not that Gray would take KQTV and WKTV off his hands as both stations fit Gray like a glove. 

On 1/10/2023 at 12:48 AM, DirtyHarry said:

 

While they're at it, the 1990's called and they want their logo back.

 

This logo didn't debut until 2004. And it's a bit long in the tooth to be fair. 

Everyone forgets the seven years WFSB didn't have Advantage and used two Advantage ripoffs.

6 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

Someone at a smaller Gray station could be in for a promotion there? Maybe hire from, say, WCAX?

To replace Kevin Hogan? Maybe. The station has enough young talent that are probably anchor ready that it might be good to take a chance on them. WFSB management has been high on Ayah Galal and if memory serves me right she'd be the first regular anchor of a local newscast anywhere in the US who wears a hijab.

To replace the second weeknight anchor pair that has been vacant since Erin Connolly and Mark Zinni defaulted into the A team after Denise D'Ascenzo died and Dennis House was cast off? Perhaps. I don't think the sentiment is that Gray is too cheap, is that a lot of the people who were there when Denise/Dennis were would see being in that spot as de facto replacing them and they left some pretty shoes to fill even if both have been vacant for two years.

I think the Stephanie Simoni hire is a backdoor way to fill the Denise hole - she started on a new newscast so an expansion might not be seen as directly replacing her. Whether the obvious move (pairing her with her husband Roger Susanin who IMO should've been made the second weeknight anchor 18 months ago) will be done remains to be seen.  

A couple of Connecticut moves that flew under the radar. First, former WFSB/WTIC traffic reporter Rachel Lutzker has resurfaced at WTNH to do the zombified CT Style segment that closes out their noon news. Second is a bit bigger.

WFSB weekend evening anchor/New London Bureau chief Kevin Hogan is retiring at the end of this month, already having gone off the anchor desk effective last weekend. This caps a 50 year career split nearly evenly between radio and TV.

Given how WFSB still technically has two BIG vacancies on weeknights dating back to prior ownership (and a base of prospective anchors who might not want those spots given the implied shoes they'd be filling), it'll be interesting to see who they get to do weekend evenings if they decide to find someone even.

10 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

The other thing to watch in the next few months is if the Meredith stations retitle their versions of Better and More so Atlanta doesn't have to pay licensing fees for those magazine titles to DDM, or just because Gray prefers blended up-front advertorials in their newscasts to an outright hour lifestyle show, just cancel them for news extensions.

Better is a dead property, the last full-on show with that name - WFSB's Better Connecticut - rebranded as Great Day Connecticut last September in advance of the split of Meredith as a company. The Better-branded segments on the morning and noon editions of Western Mass News at WGGB  ended around the same time as well.

In the case of Connecticut, the show needed a refresh due to the circumstances of its last couple of years as Better between being cut to a half hour, going on hiatus for six months because of COVID, and returning to its old timeslot without the same vibe it had prior. Of all the Better series it probably was the most successful because it didn't end up delving down the pay-for-play road though with current news talent hosting it it's a slippery slope.

A change in Hartford, as WTNH's Steph Simoni is heading up I-91 to join WFSB where she'll solo-anchor a new 7:00 newscast starting 5/2.

54 minutes ago, Adam MadMan said:

WSHM still lists People for the time being (on Titan TV, at least), but WFSB will be starting a 7 pm newscast.

TV Passport has WSHM airing DailyMailTV at 7:30, a case of obvious filler as that has been axed too.

WFSB doesn't need more newscasts. They need a B anchor team to replace the one that became the A team by default. I know Gray can be cheap but this has persisted for way too long.

49 minutes ago, DirtyHarry said:

Could the deal between Tegna and Cox have changed? Maybe the FCC already gave them an informal thumbs down? Maybe instead of that convoluted setup they had before, Both Tegna and Cox get rid of all their dog stations to get under the cap and then merge Cox into Tegna?

The fun thing here is that Cox is in the process of buying KLSR in Eugene and that now sticks out like a sore thumb with Medford/Tri-Cities/Spokane cast aside. 

Another day, another departure from WNYT. Jerry Gretzinger, who anchored the 4:00/4:30/6:00 newscasts, will be leaving the station as of March 11th after 4.5 years.

Gretzinger is the tenth on-air personality to have left WNYT since December 2020, on top of longtime GM Steve Baboulis and several longtime photogs, and is the second departure this year after reporter/fill-in anchor Jacquie Slater left the business in January.

On 2/24/2022 at 9:46 PM, Myron Falwell said:

WFXT is the sixth-place station in a five-station town and where WHDH kicks their butts in all the time slots that matter. This isn't about retrans, it's a practical joke Apollo is making to Soo Kim.

If it was about retrans it would've been easier to make KPVI or KYMA be the fall guy to be honest.

1 hour ago, TheSpeedKing said:

WNYW and WWOR kept their news departments seperate, from Fox's acquisition of Chris-Craft in 2001 all the way until the shutdown of WWOR's news department in 2013. 

When Emmis had KHON and KGMB in Hawaii, their newsrooms were kept separate. Doesn't Sinclair have a degree of separation between WOAI and KABB in San Antonio as well?

Though not a true duopoly the same could be said if WEAR and WPMI if anything for the geographical quirks of that market.

6 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Nah. Nexstar-style and Sinclair-style sidecars pretty much baked in means that they're untouchable.

Has anyone tried a sidecar approach in a market that large?

17 minutes ago, WheelWarrior said:

In Hartford, WFSB CBS 3 carried Oz (don't remember what they replaced it with). Good Dish is going to WCTX My 59 (sister of WTNH ABC 8).

Oz moved to WCTX this past September, an upgrade considering that WFSB had pushed Oz to overnights post-Corden for 2020-21 after Sony gave them the okay to do so.

1 hour ago, LTSC1980 said:

Litton’s name may be retired, but E/I programming won’t ever get back to before. Thanks to streaming technology now kids have different way to enjoy

The FCC seems content with an obsolete and broken status quo regarding E/I and Hearst has a practical Industrial Complex to keep it alive because without it they'd be hosed.

The anchor changes at WNYT weren't the biggest news to come out of there today. Steve Baboulis, GM since 1996 and an employee of the station since 1977, is retiring.

Steve is much of why WNYT went from also-ran to powerhouse and while his "it worked I  the 90s" attitude has been a little detrimental as of late, this is a huge loss for a station that's had a rough year personnel wise.

3 hours ago, ScottJ said:

WNYT/Albany has named its latest weekday morning anchor team. The station's longtime weekend sports anchor Chris Onorato will be co-anchoring with new hire Faith King, who is coming to the station from WAVE in Louisville. The new team starts September 27.

May this Louisville hire work better than the last (ex-WHAS'er Paulina Bucka who left after only four months).

1 hour ago, VHSgoodiesWA said:

WRNN has been a waste of spectrum since the mid 1990s. They were much better when it was WTZA on 62 as an independent for the Hudson Valley and Poughskeepsie. But the NYC stations won out on viewers, and WTZA faded away...WRNN tried, but failed within a few years.

WTZA didn't fail because people preferred the NYC and/or Albany stations, WTZA failed because the original owner (a noted regional developer) was in a money bind and had to sell the station and the Frenches were the first to buy. Unfortunately the Frenches had delusions of grandeur and wanted their local CNN wannabe even before purging all the syndication.

RNN even worked until they bit off way more then they could chew. Had they focused on the Hudson Valley and maybe made some inroads in relevant areas (Fairfield County and full carriage in Westchester/Rockland), they could've easily have become the Hudson Valley's WFMZ. But the Frenches never have been happy or satisfied with anything ever. It makes me wonder what would've happened had they ended up with the WFAS radio stations that they wanted to buy.

6 hours ago, VHSgoodiesWA said:

And of course, YBYL. No station cleared it here. With 98% of the nation clearing it, baffling decision by all of the stations here. Big late-night star + his bandleader sidekick and still every station turned it down.

This is the time to mention that in Boston - a Top 10 market - there is no station in Boston proper airing YBYL. WMUR has picked it up to air at the puzzling hour of 10:30 AM but still.

38 minutes ago, phillynewslover said:

Another thing I never really got was why Wheel doesn't have a daytime run, but Jeopardy does. Is there a reason why Wheel can't air out of prime access (in CT, at least), and doesn't have a daytime run, but Jeopardy can/does?

It's a relic from when Wheel had a daytime version that has remained out of inertia if anything. The involved parties seem to like the status quo more than anything at this point. 

5 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

 

WRGB (6 > 35)

That Freedom stayed on 6 in the name of tradition was always a frustrating move as you ended up with a signal that had better coverage of Rutland, Brattleboro, and Poughkeepsie more than much of Albany and Troy. The 720p simulcast on WCWN's .3 only could do so much.

Another day, another person leaving WNYT. And this one is a big name.

After 42 years at WNYT, 4:00/4:30/6:00 PM anchor and health reporter Benita Zahn is leaving the station to work as a certified health coach. Her last day will be May 28th

For those keeping score, this is the sixth departure at WNYT in as many months. A near unreal period of tumult for a station once known for being atypically stable. 

Jill Konopka, formerly of WFSB, WVIT, and WNYT, has resurfaced at WTIC. She had spent the last several months in Boston, trying to enter that market.
 

Come to think of it, this puts her in relatively exclusive company to have worked at three stations in the Hartford market; the only others I can think of would be Al Terzi (original WTIC/WFSB, WTNH, current WTIC) and Janet Peckinpaugh (WTNH, WFSB, WVIT).

1 hour ago, Yankees4life said:

We got 5 WXXA opens in the same year (2001)

(skip to 15:07 & 34:50)
https://youtu.be/G1hROjEDUeY

(skip to 36:17)
https://youtu.be/_NJDgCR-YpM

(skip to 17:35 & 34:31)
https://youtu.be/-41IpeaUdvY

 

All with Karen Meyers, now of WMUR's New Hampshire Chronicle (with stints at WTTG, WLNE, and NECN in-between).

10 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It's never good to balk to FOX whenever the question is "what to do in the 10pm hour".....and if the answer is not "News", that's probably why FOX bolted for WRAZ. 

Even though the news department was intact, it lasted until the demise of News Central in 2006 and has been farmed out to WTVD ever since...

WLFL left Fox for the WB because Sinclair gave them a sweetheart affiliation deal, not because lack of news. What you speak of applies to what happened in Norfolk at the same time with WTVZ (I can't remember of WAVY already had a 10:00 on WVBT when they were WB). That same sweetheart deal also triggered UPN to WB switches in Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio.

WLFL's news did well even into their time as WB, it was Sinclair want to force everyone Fox/Netlet (and WXLV) onto News Central that led to its demise.

12 hours ago, dman748 said:

We can consider many Sinclair stations to be in that category.

Sinclair is a bit different. They built themselves on Fox and netlets, not the other way around.