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Dan Lampariello exits WGME for WBFF

WHDH/WLVI/WSVN owner Ed Ansin says he wants to die with his boots on - and he's gunning to swipe the FOX affiliation in Boston away from Cox/Apollo's WFXT
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2020/01/01/whdh-owner-ansin-still-charge-want-die-with-boots/OUdRVkqeC7AtU5c1YGlr4J/story.html

Tracy Sabol exits WMTW after 14 years. She joined the station in April 2006 as a weekend anchor/reporter. She was promoted to weekday evening anchor in 2010. She's leaving to be closer to family in the DC area.
https://www.wmtw.com/article/tracy-sabol-1577836429-maine-wmtw/30371383

Ever since Bill Green retired from WCSH/WLBZ last month there was some question as to who, if anyone, would pick up the mantle of chronicling the state of Maine on a weekly basis. It appears WMTW may be taking baby steps towards establishing their own franchise. Veteran WMTW anchor/reporter Steve Minich hosts "Total Maine with Steve Minich" on WMTW sister station WPXT on January 4th.  So far it's only a OTO compilation of content that has already appears on weekday newscasts. Despite WMTW and WPXT being Hearst stations, they didn't bother with the Chronicle branding (which WMTW uses infrequently for hour-long "specials" which preempt ABC prime time programming.)

Edit:
Kind of inauspicious start if you ask me (they aired it instead of their usual 7PM newscast that would ordinarily air in the time slot whenever there's a sports overrun on WMTW.) Typical half-hearted Hearst Portland move.

I never really cared for "This is Home," and I'm generally a fan of warm-and-fuzzy Gari packages ("Hello News" especially.) Our local TEGNA stations even continue to use "Good News" for their winter storm coverage.

12 hours ago, TheRyan said:

C Clarity is and always shall be one of the worst news "music" (noise) pkgs ever made.  They need to go back to This is Home as a first step.    That would at least remove the inappropriately silly sound to the newscasts.  That alone would make some improvement.

Heck, I'd settle for the Rampage package at this point...

19 hours ago, detroiter313 said:

Isn't this the same Joel Cheatwood who originated the tabloid concept now in use at Sunbeam WHDH & WSVN?

Yes, with the important caveat that WHDH's transformation was very watered-down compared to WSVN's and tailored to the sensibilities of the market.

Cheatwood's time came and went with Sunbeam. I feel badly for all the Tegna stations that lost all that institutional knowledge through early retirements in pursuit of that elusive millennial audience (to say nothing of the veteran talent who were traded out for cheap, fresh out of J-School MMJs.)

I assume that these overnight clearances for DBL are just until legacy syndication deals are over and done with then they'll clear it in early fringe eventually. Here in Portland WCSH isn't very aggressive in the syndication market so they clear DBL at 12:30PM and from 4-5P on weekdays. Likewise, they cleared Harry in afternoons and overnights when that was a thing.

On 12/20/2019 at 8:09 PM, TexasTVNews said:

 

Any word on the premiere date?

Good luck finding it in your market what with all the group owners glomming onto the subchannel real estate with crap like TBD and whatnot.

7 hours ago, jbnews said:

But a must-run like this is harmless...

It still takes time away from local news content - and you can bet they can't bury it like Sinclair stations did with Boris et al.

Here's why ROH is shilling for the Health Alert Hotline...

https://www.cagesideseats.com/2017/6/7/15758064/pro-wrestling-wwe-television-viewers-getting-a-lot-older-study-finds

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

They still have Full Measure with Sharyl Atkisson and America This Week with Eric Bolling.....

does this mean we'll soon see Cooking With Boris?

Allegedly Boris is being reassigned to sales - how, exactly, that will be carried out is anyone's guess.

19 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

This only commits Sinclair to ending a certain type of must-run. Note that Sinclair is committing themselves to more "investigative journalism", not specifically local reporting.

"Therefore, we will be expanding our local investigative journalism footprint in our daily newscasts."

In other words, more time for political ads.

9 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

 

Hopefully this means they're moving away from the must-runs. 

I hope all the groups will do the same, including Hearst and Tegna.

NECN is almost as bad, acoustically speaking, and they're owned by Comcast.

WCSH/WLBZ's Bill Green has retired after 47 years. Unlike the station's 207 franchise, Bill Green's Maine retires with him.
https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/entertainment/television/bill-greens-maine/bill-green-has-one-last-thing-to-say-thank-you-maine/97-50e4ab10-838b-4cc2-9d10-507b4c1eeffe

On 10/30/2019 at 5:51 PM, scrabbleship said:

My guess: Sarah Wroblewski, formerly of WFXT and a very good friend of Niles, gets the morning slot

My money's on Wrobo, too.

On 10/7/2019 at 12:45 PM, TheRolyPoly said:

 

OMG! I hope so. That would be a miracle!

It sure would. Consultants have an expiration date, and Cheatwood's was years ago.

On 10/3/2019 at 1:33 AM, DirtyHarry said:

 

Not fair. If you can't sell ads, you can't keep the place running. They can't sell classifieds because of Craig's List, department and appliance stores no longer can advertise in papers, car dealers use mostly digital platforms these days. Most of their profitable clients are gone. Without advertising money, you can't have as much staff. What they are trying to do makes sense in the current environment.

About the only reliable source of income newspapers have these days is public notices. Here in Maine there was a push to eliminate public notice advertising in newspapers, as newspaper circulation has fallen precipitously and government entities can publish public notices for free on their official websites or on Facebook or Twitter, but the newspaper lobby managed to nix that idea.

Cunningham Broadcasting-owned Portland, ME FOX affiliate WPFO expands "Good Day Maine" to the 8AM hour starting today, extending the morning franchise to 4-1/2 hours a day overall (4:30A-9:00A), the first 2-1/2 hours being on Sinclair-owned CBS affiliate WGME, which produces GDM. Of course Cunningham is a Sinclair shell company to get around duopoly rules.

On 8/28/2019 at 7:31 PM, Info Junkie said:

WNYT’s been phasing in Steve Stone for their promos, specifically for TV advertisements. Don’t have any footage of it currently.

 

Makes you wonder if Ed Hopkins is retiring or if he just passed away. He is still doing promos for the news and the opens, of course.

When I was working in radio Ed Hopkins was our voice guy. That was back in the '80s...

Just now, ns8401 said:

I’m not a lawyer but that argument doesn’t sound like it would be easy to prove... at the same time I know of at least one guy that offered to work for $1 and was rebuffed...

There's a difference between an older employee volunteering to work for peanuts versus receiving an insult offer to stay aboard.

Just now, ns8401 said:

Has anybody simply tried offering the veteran talent less money to stay? Sure you can purge them but if you can make them cheaper instead of canning them I’d try that...

That's often an invitation to an age discrimination lawsuit. Early retirement is seen as a cheaper way of easing out older talent.

2 hours ago, channel2 said:

Veteran talent gets paid more. They seem to have less and less interest in maintaining viewer relationships or talent continuity, and more in doing everything as cheaply as they can.

In addition to saving on veteran talent salary and benefits, younger talent is seen as more compliant about doing the crap that owners like Tegna foist on viewers like their obsession with social media.