scrabbleship

Isn't KMOV in the same boat with Great Day St. Louis? If Better KC is truly dead and Better Connecticut doesn't come back, it may add fuel to the fire of Meredith tapping out of broadcast. Especially if they'd kill the cash cow of the latter as that was winning its slot back in the 3:00 days and all signs pointed to a return to that time/60 minute length was a "when, not if" deal pre-COVID.

The huge problem is that the consistency they want to one-up Today is impossible because Kelly & Ryan is in the way. How toxic would it be to bring back The Chew, or was that name sullied fully because of Mario Batali?

This, for now, is curtains for Meredith's "Better" concept as Connecticut has been on hiatus since COVID hit. Also, Better KC was pay for play? From what I've seen of Connecticut they seem to strain to hide anything of the sort.

Romines came in during the reign of terror of René LaSpina when they tried to become a smaller version of WHDH with Scott Chapin and the dreadful opens of the period. When he got actual power, he took WTEN from a competitive #3 to being #1 in the market by investing in talent and newsgathering which Media General and Nexstar saw as worthy. He's a good add and I think he'll right the ship. Remember, late 2000s WTEN was a debacle a few rungs ahead of "Hey Hey Carolinas".

So the heritage Nexstar stations pre-2012 and some of the ex-Newport stations. There would be 32 conflicts if you assume that WUSA/WDCW/WDVM wouldn't pass muster, going from markets as large as Houston to as small as San Angelo.

If we're not bundling the network with them, Hearst. They and ABC already cooperate with ESPN and the A&E Family of networks and there is zero broadcast overlap. The issue there: Newspapers, namely the San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, plus their four newspapers in Fairfield County, CT. This could end one of two ways: Hearst finally spins off print and broadcast into different entities to end-run the NBCO rules or Hearst goes the the government and says that the NBCO rules are a undue burden on them and that their repeal would do zero harm. Remember, Hearst still has a sterling reputation, just don't tell that to their smaller market TV stations or to E. Jean Carroll.

If its Apollo I have my doubts.

From those I know in the Berkshires, the two parties were fine for years, even when WNYT began signing translators on in the Berkshires and running a (since closed) Pittsfield bureau. WNYT pushed it more out of sour grapes once WWLP and WTEN ended up under common ownership and WTEN began beating them marketwide. Pure Club 13-level spite. I'm more interested in what led Spectrum to drop WCVB there. Their carriage in Pittsfield wasn't that grandfathered - added 1996 - and the "it's the alpha city of the state" angle made it a curio that was tolerated if anything.

I know that WTEN picks up some WWLP stories and vice versa but clearly it wasn't enough. If this feed could get the Patriots preseason games, which Albany stations stubbornly refuse to carry, it would be a proper salve.

Fun Fact: WTTV is now reunited with former sister WJZY. Both former Capitol stations that ended up triggering affiliation swaps in the 2010s.

John Kucko can't even do his mic flag garland anymore and that speaks a ton. What would it take to demonize Perry Sook?

"208" refers to the area code for all of Idaho. Not the first time Tegna has gone full state area code, granted WCSH/WLBZ's 207 is more a Chronicle wannabe. This is the first time Tegna is pulling this stunt on a station that is market dominated. It'll be interesting to see how it pans out, if the sterling reputation KTVB has dating back to the King days will still shine or if this will make Boise a competitive market.

It's not that hard to believe. WNYT is a station which is still stuck in the 90s in many ways - that they kept their 1995 vintage set until 2018 is probably Exhibit A. They never have had a ticker at any time of the day, their morning newscast still starts at 5:00 versus 4:30, their use of WNYA pales to that of WRGB's of WCWN or WTEN's of WXXA even. Much of this is at the feet of their longtime GM, Steve Baboulis, who has been GM since Hubbard took over at 1996, was ND during their worst-to-dominant period, and has been at the station in some form since 1977. For all of the "when (Benita/Jim/Elaine/Bob/Rodger/et Al.) retires 13 will not be the same" talk, when Steve calls it a career you know that stuff's going to go down at the hands of Hubbard...or whoever ends up with WNYT down the road. The "one of the newest members" caption makes me wonder if something else is going to go down. Bob finally calling it a career and someone new doing noon/4:00? Neal Estano re-calling it a career and someone new going on mornings? This could get interesting.

WNYT has found their replacement for Greg Pollak, and has made history in doing so. Allison Finch, a current senior at UAlbany graduating this May, is the first woman meteorologist that WNYT has ever had, a good 25ish years since WRGB and WTEN did similar.

If this happens, I so see the TV assets of Hubbard, at least the non-Minnesota assets, in play. KOB is nestled in-between Tegna's assets in Texas and Arizona and WNYT/WNYA and WHEC would be joining this: Buffalo: WGRZ (Tegna) Syracuse: WSYT (Cox) Binghamton: WICZ/WBPN (Cox) Elmira: WYDC/WJKP (Standard) On the New England side - and WNYT probably panders to the Berkshires and Bennington County the most of any Albany station - they'd join this: Boston: WFXT (Cox) Hartford: WTIC/WCCT (Tegna) Providence: WLNE (Standard) Portland: WCSH (Tegna) Bangor: WLBZ (Tegna) The only holes that MechaTegna + non-Minnesota Hubbard would have in the Northeast would be NYC, Burlington, Springfield, Utica, Watertown, and Preque Isle. And I think that Utica might end up off that board as any of these successor companies have a decent chance of landing WKTV. This is nothing to sneeze at. Problem is some of the basket cases there (WSYT, WICZ, WYDC, WLNE) need tons and tons of work.

Under Standard, under Tegna, or either? Under the latter case I can Tegna being a great help in Jonesboro (Memphis/Little Rock), Jackson (Memphis, reestablishing WATN/WLMT's links to that market), and especially Lafayette (Indianapolis).

However bad WLNE and KLKN are, whatever Tegna is doing now would be a marked improvement and both markets are so stale that it would be a breath of fresh air. The real factor here would be the ex-Waypoint stations. Those are hot messes at best and lost causes at worst and would be a massive headache for anyone to deal with. The situation Cox management is facing with the ex-Northwest stations pales to this. On that tangent: If Tegna/Standard becomes a thing, why does the idea of Coxpollo unloading WFXT and perhaps some of the ex-Northwest lost cuses (KYMA and KPVI come to mind) to Tegna sound like a doable transaction?

With all this Coxpollo chopper grounding talk, I wonder what the fate of WFXT's chopper is. Or would the volatile nature of that market make a grounding unfeasible at the current time?

Remember the panic when what was then to be called Terrier Media was announced, that the ex-Northwest stations would be an albatross on the legacy Cox stations? This would make that seem quaint. Standard's stations are all bottom feeders and need work that some C Clarity and NXT graphics and Oooohs just can't fix.

Having known him since his days as an MBTA blogger back when he was a student at Suffolk, good to see a jump. One more gig from the inevitable gig back home (Boston).

Speculatron thread made. Part of me sees this as Florida Man doing Florida Man things or Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud. The other half sees this as potentially catastrophic for Coxpollo. Adding in the ex-Northwest stations, Cox has Fox affiliates in nine other markets. Some of those markets might be a bit difficult to find stations in, The Delta (where Cox has a monopoly) and possibly Jacksonville (WJXT seems to be fine not pursuing a network) among them.

Coxpollo closed less than two weeks ago. Man, that was fast. I'm to assume the issue is getting the legacy Cox stations onto the generous Northwest-negotiated deals.

It looks like Daily Blast Live is slowly being picked up by the ex-Tribune/Nexstar stations. Looking at a schedule for the Hartford market, WTIC has picked up at 12:30 AM which is perhaps the best it can do unless they cut DailyMailTV (3:00/3:30 PM), Two and a Half Men reruns (6:00/6:30 PM), or Big Bang Theory reruns (7:00/7:30 PM) to a single rerun. From the looks of it, WNEP and WPMT haven't picked up so WTIC may be the first to do so.

Things like this make me seriously wonder what Tribune's game with WTTV was. It's like they never thought things through before triggering an affiliation swap that never should have been and has never been executed well. Nearly five years in as a CBS affiliate and what has WTTV really done to generate anything in the Indianapolis market? All I can think of was the stuff surrounding Nicole Pence and her goose had already been cooked back at WTHR even before family ties made her infamous. At which point does Nexstar call it a day and go full WWJ there? Or would CBS not allow an affiliate to get away with that?

Fixed. The 80s were during the period when channel 2 in Boise was KBCI. That said, I wonder if KTVU ever made it out there on cable.