newsbot

That's been their format for several months now. They're pretending it was all their idea but we know better. WGME and WMTW are blowing away WCSH on actual news coverage while WCSH tries to distract viewers with whiz-bang graphics and new sets and while some of the veteran reporters are still doing good work, they're sending out MMJs fresh out of college who have no clue what they are reporting about on a lot of stories.

WHDH (7News) was pretty fortuitous branding considering they lost their NBC affiliation.

An animated Paul Bunyan has taken his axe to WLBZ2 and rechristened the station as NEWS CENTER Maine - but the old WLBZ2 logo still appears on the station bug and promos. In another ident, a lighthouse shows the old logo pointing left and the new one pointing right - with the new one eventually taking over the frame

It's true that WLBZ has been a semi-satellite for years, but in promos and station imaging it would always be referred to as WLBZ2. This might be an indication that things are about to change.

First Tegna took away WLBZ's newscasts; now they appear to be taking away its branding. Look at this tag that aired tonight on a promo for Daily Blast Live.

WGME added a 7PM newscast this week, shifting Entertainment Tonight from its longtime home to 7:30PM. The Insider was cancelled by CTD, which created the vacancy. Sister station WPFO's 6:30PM newscast was cancelled last December after a two-year run.

As of today WMTW is back in the midday news business. The station cancelled its noontime broadcast a number of years ago to carry a succession of hourlong talk shows including Steve Harvey and, most recently, Wendy Williams. Access Hollywood (airing out-of-pattern) fills the second half-hour of the 12p-1p weekday block leading into The Chew. Tracy Sabol solo-anchored today's newscast; not sure if this is a permanent arrangement. Fun fact: The news of Hearst's purchase of WMTW first aired on one of their noon newscasts; I was in a Tweeter store at the time.

A local gas station is playing clips from MSNBC. I would have thought they were aiming at the Tesla charging station market.

Okay, I think I've figured out what is happening. The direct link posted by CircleSeven works in my locality, but when attempting to access live newscasts via NBC Boston's homepage there's a key next to the link and when the link is clicked you are redirected to a page with a prompt to authenticate. Perhaps - and this is just a theory - NBC has disabled front page links to their live newscasts in non-O&O markets.

It wouldn't surprise me if that happened. On the NBC Boston stream you have to authenticate with your cable provider in order to watch, so Raymie might be right that it's tied to the overall programming.

As an aside, NBC Boston now geoblocks its live news streams outside of the metro.

NH1 might have been a flop, but Bill Binnie is an absolute financial genius.

I'm surprised that Meredith hasn't unloaded this raging dumpster fire of a station; instead they doubled down and purchased WPCH from Time Warner. The station's toxic reputation has to reflect badly on Meredith's corporate image.

WCVB now uses this cut on the 10PM newscast on MeTV.

WMTW is using emoticons to gauge viewer reactions to the Comey hearing. Looks like fodder for FTVLive...

My heart bleeds. Nielsen had ample opportunity to fix its diary markets but did nothing.

Sinclair is dumping Nielsen for audience measurement in all its markets and going with comScore http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/104783/sinclair-turns-to-comscore-for-all-tv-ratings

Gray is suing eight individuals for targeting a WSAZ-TV/Huntington, WV anchor with threatening phone calls http://wvrecord.com/stories/511121277-wsaz-tv-sues-eight-individuals-for-harassing-phone-calls-to-news-anchor

I wonder if he'll be replaced; sports coverage on local broadcast TV is an endangered species.

Has ION ever turned a profit? They lost $23.3 million in the last quarter alone.

WCVB/Boston anchor/Chronicle co-host JC Monahan has left the station. It was announced in February that she would not be renewing her contract. Since then Emily Reimer has assumed Monahan's previous duties at the anchor desk, and earlier this month it was announced that Shayna Seymour would take over as co-host of Chronicle. Monahan's next destination hasn't been announced, but she has tweeted that an announcement would be forthcoming on July 1. It is widely speculated that she will be joining fellow ex-5'er Phil Lipof at NBC Boston.

I'm not so sure about FTVLive. He should know better than to attribute NBC Montana's ownership (and editorial judgment) to Sinclair (ownership change is pending, but Bonten still owns and operates the station.) Even the Huffpost article that started the feeding frenzy eventually appended a clarification that Sinclair hasn't taken over.

Derrick Santos at New England One says the ABC O&O story is bogus. He's a far more trustworthy source of Boston media info. Can't believe that Newsblues went with this unsubstantiated nonsense.

We shouldn't give ourselves that much credit. Both operations are in Gray's wheelhouse - small-market stations that are ratings-dominant.

The Oxford County (Maine) Sheriff"s Department held a press conference at noon today confirming that WCSH meteorologist Tom Johnston was the subject of a gross sexual assault investigation. There are no other suspects. Johnston committed suicide last month. WGME covered the presser first, while at WCSH, a visibly distressed Cindy Williams joined it in progress several minutes later. http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/04/police-tv-weatherman-tom-johnston-was-lone-suspect-in-sexual-assault-case-would-have-been-charged/