scrabbleship

This is a return to Ion for WSFJ, which had aired Ion (and Pax and i before them) programming before the sale to TBN a decade ago.

There's been a huge dump of 90's/2000's-era WFSB on YouTube and with it comes some questions of what themes they used and when. For starters, here's Mika Brzezinski doing a tease for the noon news the day after much of their viewership was saddened by the Patriots loss in Super Bowl XXXI. The bumper music in the background is the music that serves a the NMSA sample for "News Package II", their 1997-2002 theme which came into play once Meredith took over from Post-Newsweek. Problem is that this clip was 8.5 months before that transfer took place. Funny thing is I remember this being used after Meredith took over as well which begs the question of which theme being which. Also, this clip from the Blizzard of 1996 (or in Hilton Kaderli terms, "Ginger"). And from the file of the other WFSB vet now working on a national morning show:

This reunites Paul with Jim Kambrich, who was anchoring mornings at the time Paul went there from weekends. It'll be interesting to see if the chemistry they had on mornings sticks in evenings 15 years later. Replacing Caiano on mornings is current floating meteorologist Neal Estano who is no stranger to mornings in the Albany market. He was the first ever morning meteorologist in the market when WRGB started a morning newscast in 1988 and later came back to that time period from 2008-2012.

This may be in the wake of getting Jackie Layer from NECN/WBTS a couple of months ago. For their output WHDH seems dead set to not go beyond four meteorologists.

Do sunchannels count in this equation? Doing a count of both markets I don't think a fifth place was possible.

Translation: He'll end up at WNYT when he gets bored with radio. He wouldn't be the first person to go that route.

I thought that the WAVE newscasts were discontinued. Looking at WBNA's schedule all I see is the delayed replay of WLEX's 6:00. Also, if memory serves me right, WSFJ was a lot more secular at that time than WLJC is now.

There is the problem right there. It's similar to if ten years ago someone said "4:00 news can't work in NYC because WCBS failed twice". Some station/timeslot combinations just don't work. NYC is way too play it safe for its own good. That said, a 7:00 worked 30 years ago. Why would it not work today?

There's nobody doing a 6:30 or 7:00 in NYC and Fox sees that going after 2 and 7 at noon is the better move? What is it with this market?

Nobody in NYC is doing a 6:30 or a 7:00, a hole Fox could easily fill, and yet their gift to the market is to go against two other stations at Noon. I don't get the play-it-safe nature of the NYC market, especially given it's size and that there would be more of a market at 6:30 vs. the network news/Feud/reruns or 7:00 vs. Inside Edition/Extra/Jeopardy/Feud/reruns. This is the same market that dragged its heels with 4:00 news to the point that many medium markets had that first too.

The latest entry into the NMSA is that of WLJC, a religious independent in the Lexington DMA, randomly picking up This is the Place. Somehow earlier this week, WTVQ began producing a 9:00 newscast for WLJC and that WLJC took the Antenna TV affiliation for Lexington off of WTVQ's overwhelmed hands. This is the first news sharing arrangement I can think of which a secular station has produced news for a religious station though WLJC's other subs include GetTV and This TV. I wonder if Morris is gearing up to buy them or to set up a situation where Morris cashes out and a new owner of WTVQ then buys WLJC and probably moves MyNet programming there. The owners of WLJC also owns two FM stations which are among the few KLove and Air1 stations that EMF hasn't gotten their paws on yet.

Parting words for the curious. And Dan Levy is as boring as he was when he did mornings at WTEN at the turn of the century. On the same front, former WENY morning meteorologist Craig Flint has indirectly filled the hole left by Jason Gough stepping away from meteorology. Flint is now doing weekend mornings with Neal Estano paring down to solely the noon and fill-ins.

Morning and noon anchor from September 1990 to May 1993, this Schenectady Gazette blurb on his departure will give some insight. His departure cleared the way for John Gray to take the anchor desk in mornings and for Benita Zahn to return to it at noon. In the spirit of this thread, a Live at Noon segment from November 4, 1991 with Brandon Brooks and assorted reptiles and one of the few cases of footage of their secondary set of the period.

UpstateMatters UpstateMatters? CTProud? RIHomepage? WeAreWesternMass? LocalBUF? 757Strong?

This is so close to their original Outlet era logo that it hurts.

He seemed to be a secondary voice to Ed Hopkins throughout the 90s. I seem to recall him on a few more promos. A bonus: The Upstate Ford Dealers ad at 1:02 is voiced by longtime WRGB anchor Ernie Tetrault. I've watched this video several times and I always thought it was Brandon Brooks, currently of KYW radio. Both were there around the same timeframe and seemed a bit similar in terms of presentation and looks. That said, WTAJ in 1986 with the aforementioned Brandon Brooks, at 1:25 teasing some high school basketball highlights some guy named Rodger Wyland would have. What I would give for a pre-summer 1986 WTAJ weekend newscast to surface. Not only did Wyland do sports at that time but their weekend anchor was another name familiar to Albany viewers: Phil Bayly.

WCAX has been doing a dump of assorted clips on their YouTube page, among them is this February 2004 clip with the later generation of Stravinsky and WCVB's Sera Congi.

I think that Fox would have a right of first refusal to re-re-buy and with Boston possibly their odd man out in the Top 20 they may want it back. That and given how they're cashing out of print and possibly radio that Cox may be winding down. This borders on Speculatron territory but a Hearst/Cox lashup would make a lot of sense. I wonder what would happen in Orlando and Pittsburgh though.

Both of these have lingered on the Internet Archive for some time as back in the day WNYT's video was downloadable in .WMV format. The 50th Anniversary was treated as a bigger deal by the morning crew as I remember Phil & Paul having Wayne White (the engineer in said video, who stayed until a year short of his 2015 death) live in studio and at least one other old clip being played. That lost dog story seems to be superfluous on the surface but anyone familiar with the area knows it was a big deal. John Nigro, the pet parent in question, is a major developer of retail properties in upstate New York and while anyone with the means would do that it seemed a little over the top. Also, the graphics blatantly showed that WNYT produced said ad.

A Halloween impersonation prank from WNYT, 2001. This gives a rare glimpse into their former secondary set, eventually disused in 2004 but with the backdrop recycled for their temporary set currently in use. This video began a tradition of goofy Halloween closes at the station which continues to this day

With WNYT's vintage set finally meeting its end, some vintage WNYT. On May 31, 1998, a series of tornadoes hit the suburban town of Stillwater and an archival tape of news coverage made by the town in its wake made its way to YouTube. Most of this is WNYT though there are bits and pieces of WRGB and WXXA strewn about. If you're looking for peak WNYT, this video has it: Ed Dague being Ed Dague. John Gray before his ego got the best of him. Chris Kapostasy weeks before her departure for NBC News. A very young Kumi Tucker and a treat for the Hampton Roads crowd: pre-meteorologist Julie Wilcox before Hubbard screwed her over. Enjoy!

Didn't they rebrand WKTV or at least do a total graphic overhaul once they came in and upgraded them to HD?

Somehow spelling and pronouncing "Pagliarulo" was too hard for Lansing people. "Parker" would use his actual last name when he would be elevated from Freedom's afterthought to Freedom's golden child (WRGB) the next year. Then came his turn into radio as "Joe Pags"...

Lexington borders four Nexstar DMAs: Huntington/Charleston, Tri-Cities, Knoxville, and Nashville. This even before the MG/Park legacy issues specific to WTVQ come into play. Also, Scripps and Nashville .

As much of a mess WTVQ is, it would fit well in the portfolios of many companies. Nexstar, Hearst, Raycom, Scripps...