scrabbleship

WRDC to Nexstar would fit like a glove. They could run the station a la WCTX with an expanded morning news and a primetime block with MNTV going to late nights. Bahakel would be too big to re-enter Raleigh (they owned WKFT before selling it to Univision). The company I'm thinking that would be a better fit for WLFL would be, oddly, Tegna. Owning a standalone CW would be a bit unconventional but their approach would stand out in this market and would give the market the fourth OTA outlet it should have. Also, it would be able to draw from and benefit WFMY and WCNC so a win-win of sorts. Hey, it can't be any different than the WZDX's, WATN's, and WOI's of the group. With enough work they could reach WPMT/WTIC tier.

Four. Jill Konopka took a "dream job" (which seems to be outside TV) in Boston though she seems to tweet like she's still a journalist. Perhaps it's a stepping stone of sorts, Boston is one of those markets full of alumni from Albany stations. If this was anyone else on the morning team or any of the remaining veteran anchors, I'd be a bit concerned. There is a huge chasm between "market vets" and "twentysomething kids" on both fronts there.

Another month, another anchor leaving WNYT (and television altogether). This makes four anchors to leave in not even three months. Something...is going on there.

Wheel/Jeopardy are on WCNC, not WSOC. And the order is reversed on WLOS vis a vis WCNC.

6:00: Very outside chance. From the looks of every article I've read, it seems like any anchoring would be solely fill-in. 11:00: No. Dennis stepped down from the 11:00 at WFSB a few years back to spend more time with Kara and their kids. If I had to do a shot in the dark, the only way I see him regularly going back to the anchor desk is if Kara comes over to 8 which I only think would happen if Better Connecticut was given the axe. Weirder things have happened but I think Dennis' days as a main anchor might be a thing of the past.

In much happier but relevant news, WTNH has hired Dennis House as their chief political anchor and as a fill-in anchor as of January 11th. WTNH also will be launching a second Sunday morning political show hosted by House to go along with their longtime Capitol Report. This is a good move for both sides and only helps WTNH in the northern half of Connecticut where the battle for second place is a three station race. The transplanted CT folk getting paywalled out of WTNH's stream is going to be egg on their face though.

A update: Her husband, the controversially-parted-from-WFSB Dennis House, has also tested positive for COVID. On the day before his birthday no less.

The year from hell at WFSB continues. Noon anchor/Better Connecticut co-host/de facto health reporter Kara Sundlun has COVID and at minimum her Better Connecticut co-host, morning meteorologist Scot Haney, is quarantining as well, doing the weather from home as had been standard practice at the outset of COVID. The rest of their morning team is in the studio as of this morning, I'm surprised they haven't had to self-quarantine as well as a precaution. For a clearer version of that image, click here.

Bumping because there has been some confirmation of who did what. In a year end piece for the local publication Seasons of Connecticut, Dennis House confirms that WFSB laid him off. (link is to a PDF, relevant statement is on page 44). This might be more at home in the Meredith thread, but how bad off would WFSB have been to lay off who arguably was the face of their station with no avenue to a replacement. Especially with everything else going on - pandemic, election, societal strain, trauma from Denise's passing.

More WNYT fun: Weekend morning anchor Jill Konopka's last day at the station was Tuesday. Some clues to her fate are in her farewell Facebook post. https://www.facebook.com/JillKonopka/posts/2891089431112205

Looks like WNYT has made a partial decision to fill the big shoes being left after Jim Kambrich retires tonight. They've made a solid pick here, Mark Mulholland has gone from weekend sports to (after an absence) running the Saratoga Newsroom to now weeknights on the anchor desk.

This works better in concept than in practice. An identical thing happened in 2012 when WGBH took over much of the operations of then-NHPTV - WGBH was taken off of Comcast systems in New Hampshire and Maine, NHPTV was taken off of systems in Massachusetts - but it's never that cut and dry. Even today, WGBH and what now is NHPBS are both carried on Directv, Dish, FiOS, RCN, and non-Comcast systems such as Spectrum, Metrocast, and TDS. Also, even with WMUR superserving New Hampshire it isn't like WCVB ignores it totally. More people in New Hampshire watch WCVB than you would think and even with the PBS example there wasn't some backlash, especially from WGBH supporters in New Hampshire,

Comcast to drop out-of-market Hearst stations on 38 different regions effective 12/2/20. Some of these make sense as much as the replacement is inferior, such as the ancestral carriage of WTAE in the Wheeling and Clarksburg/Fairmont DMA's or WCVB's carriage deep into Maine and Southeast Connecticut (which was simsubbed and syndex'd into oblivion). Some of these are disasters waiting to happen, such as a fair chunk of the New Hampshire part of the Burlington market losing access to WMUR or Bristol County, MA losing access to WCVB.

Hearst and Comcast are doing some pruning of adjacent market stations effective in December. Some of the prunings are going to be met with some resistance, the biggest one probably being the removal of WMUR from the Comcast system serving Claremont/Hanover/Lebanon, NH. Waynesville, GA is right behind as of this they would have zero ABC service of any sort. Other fun droppings: A lot of out of market coverage for WBAL where WGAL, WRC, WRDE, and WCAU have a presence, anything out-of-Boston-DMA for WCVB (which is going to go over well in Bristol County), ancestral WTAE territory where WTRF/WBOY's .2's have a presence, WXII in the Roanoke DMA (IIRC significantly viewed), and WVTM in one of the Atlanta DMA counties in Alabama. This has shades of the Comcast/Nexstar purges a few years back.

I thought it was more Media General wanting to even the score after CBS left WISH in the dust.

His age (57 in December) might be a strike against him in the book of Tegna. Which is ironic given how if Tribune was still around they'd have done it in a heartbeat, they did so for a 70ish Al Terzi after WFSB pressured him to retire. If he stays in TV, I'd put them a little behind WTNH. It'd be instant gravitas and credibility but for how long. As it was, Dennis was down to the 5:00, 6:00, and Face the State on Sunday mornings (which taped Thursday afternoons). I honestly see him tackling new media and/or the political realm before a return to TV.

If the FTV Live post about WFSB and Dennis House parting ways is any indication, confirmation that WFSB shot themselves in the knee. He'd be a good get for WTNH on paper, but I'd put money on him going to WVIT. They have a habit of getting people that WFSB has cast aside and they're based in West Hartford, a town Dennis has championed and calls his home. That is if he doesn't dabble into politics now that he's lost his home of vetting candidates. Or writes the book that he's teased about writing (he'd join Kara on the bookshelf).

I would buy the didn't renew part, especially considering that the way he spoke about WFSB was akin to that of being family, a fact compounded by the fact he met his wife there. Not only is she still on the payroll, her show in Better Connecticut returns in two weeks after six months of COVID-hiatus. Another thing to consider: Dennis' heart possibly hasn't been in anchoring since Denise's very sudden passing and the logical solution (Dennis/Kara as a pairing, it's COVID proof!) just couldn't work between Better taping at 10:00 AM and their having two kids at home. I don't think he heads back to TV this soon, I could see politics, I could see something else in the media, I could even see him helping out Denise's husband and daughter with the nonprofit they set up in her memory. This picture was on Dennis' Instagram story earlier today and very similar one was on Kara's. At first thought it comes off about the new month and their son's birthday being today. In hindsight, it seems like an omen.

I think you'll see a horse race market a la Albany with no clear dominant station. It also wonders whose decision this was: If Meredith wanted him out, they shot themselves in the knee. If Dennis wanted out, it was another bad wound for a station already taking wounds. Oh, the station also has no male bench. Mark Zinni's a great guy but he can't do everything.

28 years and one day after starting at WFSB, Dennis House and the station have parted ways.

I wonder about Super Towers, the shell owned by the chief engineer at WPRI/WNAC that exists to hold the WNAC license. Given the grandfathered LMA status of WNAC, would Mission be able to take that on?

I've found it somewhat amazing that Charlotte goes from 3 stations at 8:00 to zero at 9:00 and that even WBTV saw it not worth doing a 9:00 by going the lifestyle route instead. 9:00 is very low hanging fruit especially since most of the markets of size surrounding Charlotte are already there.

The one thing that could get Nexstar out of Billings is to work a deal in which the KULR news department transitions to KSVI/KHMT (syncing all of Cowles' Montana stations with ABC/FOX) with KULR being spun off to Sinclair with a Billings bureau set up. Would probably be better than the status quo. This is why I also mentioned Utica, a market where Nexstar had literally nothing - Clear Channel took all of WUTR's equipment at the last second and sent it elsewhere in the ex-Ackerley CNYSG, took years to make something, and has done nothing outside the barest minimum of 60 minutes on WUTR and 30 minutes on WFXV. That and what they haven't done in Binghamton could be harbingers though that could also be issues Newport left to fester.

Outside of this run-around to control WPIX, when has Nexstar used a shell to enter a new market? I think that Nexstar is holding out to buy Vision Alaska cheap and get the whole state. Problem is that operation is so eviscerated that there might be a good chance they either go full Billings and exist newsless or go full Utica, booting NewsNet out and taking years to build a skeletal department to satisfy the bare minimum of ABC/Fox. That might be why Nexstar passed here, an all-or-nothing strategy versus Gray.

The funny thing is outside the meteorologist role it's been pretty stable in mornings for them. Not unlike WRGB which still hasn't recovered from Ed O'Brien passing away or WNYT which has as much of a revolving door. Last I checked they were neck in neck with 13 in the mornings.