scrabbleship

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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...

Hasn't WHEC already used This is The Place for a few years? Hubbard NBC affiliates thinking alike? Oh lord, heaven help if that is foisted on WNYT. I know Keynote is getting a little long in the tooth but that wouldn't be the solution at all.

Didn't they own KTVH for a hot minute between Sunbelt/Intermountain West and Cordillera? I think they're frozen out of Montana unless they can get their hands on Cordillera or Cowles. Both groups fit Gray's profile well and the latter has zero conflicts.

WVNY is another (nominally) Nexstar station that does the same. Given their apprehension of programming a 5:00 hour, I wonder if they shed an hour and enter the 4:00 game too.

After being sacked in the "Black Monday" purge when Young took over WTEN from Knight Ridder, Doug Myers began a long career as spokesperson for Albany International Airport which he holds to this day. Somewhere on YouTube there is a 2015 video from WRGB of him remembering former colleague/fellow purge victim Ed O'Brien.

Who leaves or gets bumped to NECN then?

WHDH's Christa Delkamp has left the station after 14 years.

The ticker towards the end of the story mentions New York's indoor smoking ban taking effect which Google dates to July 24, 2003. If the woman at the end looks vaguely familiar to any Boston viewers, that would be a blonde Sharman Sacchetti, later of WFXT and now of WHDH. That pairing was criminally underrated and was a breath of fresh air from the "middle aged man and his meteorologist sidekick robotically yucking it up" shows going on at WRGB and WNYT at the time.

Gough's last day was yesterday. This was reported a while back, he's going on a sabbatical to pursue other projects ranging from writing a book about assorted childhood abuses he survived to focusing on a Sunday morning show he created and produces, Wine About The Weather. The fun question is who will fill his shoes because his doing the late news was an insurance policy for if Bob Kovachick were to retire. They really have no weather bench anymore since their hires the last five years either a) left the market [WFXR's Jason Caterina and KKTV's Jordan Sherman] or b) are longtime vet retreads [Andy Gregorio was at WTEN forever and Neal Estano did THREE stints at WRGB with stops in-between at WJXT, then WBAL]. That morning move is a path of least resistance as who else do they really have? The person they wanted in such a role left the business and all apologies to the weekenders but they've kind've calcified into that role after so long. Asa's a caretaker of sorts.

Charlie Van Dyke was phased out in mid-2007. The exact date for this would be September 6, 2006 judging by the top story being the "first day of school" (two days after Labor Day in New York). This would be the day after they expanded the 6:00 back to an hour in fact. Image wise, the rough period of 1998-2008 were a great time for WRGB with four good theme/graphic combos going from InSink to the first version of Impact. That package getting destroyed by going HD hurt it a ton and the package that replaced it was so bad the Sinclair package was an improvement.

I'm surprised that when WLVI added Buzzr that clearance on a WSVN sub didn't come with.

John Gray and those opens never existed at the same time. Gray left at the end of 2003 after being passed up as Ed Dague's replacement, a position which everyone assumed he would get and probably would had Ed naturally retired. The Gray vs. Jim Kambrich vs. Phil Bayly competition for Ed's 6/11 position was pretty fierce and dramatic in hindsight. In terms of freshening up the market, WNYT made the best move. Gray going to WXXA gave them a shot in the arm they needed badly and took the title of "#1 Late News" until Newport came in (and WRGB started a 10:00 on WCWN). Greg Floyd being exiled to weekends there gave him the fuel to go to WRGB, giving them the stable lead male anchor they had lacked since Ernie Tetrault retired over a decade earlier. Win-win for all involved. Those opens were scenic and creative. The plain station logo/"Live at [TIME]" open was unoriginal as heck. It was still better than the mess NBC Stations had become prior or that Keynote is starting to get long in the tooth though the cold open cut for the 10:00 still sounds good three years after it debuted.

The person who wrote that is one of those WNYT lifers who got hired right out of college and has stuck around for their entire adult life. At the time that post was written, he was their Webmaster, becoming their Digital Manager when that job became a bit more complex. Part of that post makes me wonder. And this might be part of why their 1995 backdrop is immortal...

I know the updated look came in right before the Athens Olympics started. I was out of the area when it happened and when I came back it was a little shocking how well they did it. The 2002-04 "sub look" they wedged into the 1997 opens was flat out awful, a horrible blue/purple gradient, Arial fonts, just a massive mess and unless you poke around the Internet Archive largely invisible. I know that those beautiful opens that went with the first generation of L.A. Groove were junked when the second generation came in. Outside of all of their images in the NewsChannel 13 era, next to the Prime News era those were their best bar none.