SS8609

I actually beg to differ here, folks. Columbus actually has a pretty large concentration of suburbs and exurbs when you consider that Licking and especially Delaware counties have exploded in the last two to three decades, that the nexus of retail in the region has largely spread out further north and east of the city (Polaris, Easton and Tuttle Crossing all opened in the two decades since the first wave of media consolidation took place), and there are many companies in and around Columbus that have become household names in the last half-century (Wendy's, White Castle and the various Les Wexner retail spinoffs come to mind). Also, while the state has largely shifted somewhat to the right as a whole, the metro areas are competitive in various ways, with the prosperous, normally Republican suburbs around the 3 C's very cool to Trump's economic populism and style (resulting in Democratic protest votes from these areas) -- whereas traditional blue-collar Democrats in places like Youngstown and Toledo more or less shifted away from their party given Obama's "bitter clingers" spiel wasn't particularly popular with a large chunk of the blue-collar set. In other words, Ohio is no more a swing state than it was in the past, and it most certainly will be in the future long after all the TV signals have been consolidated onto one frequency. For what it's worth, TEGNA is most definitely not losing anything investing into Ohio and Indiana, and the only surprise about the latter is that they didn't go for WISH/WNDY (which would have reunited them with their former Corinthian sisters such as KHOU and KXTV) though it did not help that CBS pulled their affiliation from WISH back at the start of 2015. Unless the FCC mandated licensees pass an annual "four highest rated stations" review with regards to limits and effectively required Tribune/Nexstar to choose between CBS and Fox in order to keep both WTTV and WXIN, it wasn't going to help WISH's cause which is why they ended up going to a small-scale operator instead of TEGNA. There's also the whole argument that the Wolfe family wanted to sell its broadcast group in one piece, but that argument's already been played to death like a Taylor Swift song on here.

Not in Houston. HTownRush is as unique (and millennial) a name as TEGNA can get for a morning newscast at KHOU, even on one whose lead-out usually trails the ratings, and Wake Up! is already taken by Fox O&O KRIV (which is doing its best to out-TEGNA KHOU in this department). They have been making gains (almost double) compared to last year, but KHOU still trails KTRK (which is always a strong station no matter what ABC's ratings look like) and KPRC (most experienced news anchor pairings + strong NBC affiliation) overall. And that's not even counting la competencia en español (KTMD outrating everyone with KXLN tied with KTRK).

Not to mention Ice Cube also wanted to inject politics and culture into the channels. Which worked out so well for ESPN given the Jemele Hill controversy. No way in hell was Fox going to sell to someone that wasn't going to make the networks laser focused on sports. Only questions remaining will come at least beginning tomorrow when the final deal is announced, whether or not the networks keep their master control in Houston (even though that city's teams now play on AT&T SportsNet's channel there) or move outright to Chicago, and whether or not the channels take on a regional identity (more on that in the Speculatron) or a blanket Stadium brand.

Talk about $10 billion of debt to make it official... Get ready for Stadium SportsNet. And don't be surprised if they work overtime to make the Stadium the primary .2 in all Sinclair markets (and drop the alternate feeds since the Stadium digital subchannels can serve as a backup) when ATSC 3.0 comes a-knockin'!

Call it official now...KHOU has flipped the switch on its graphics. No new downtown studio (yet), no move out of UH either...it just happened without notice.

As of April 30, WHTV will be no more. That's one less LMA for Scripps to worry about. No word yet on where MyNetworkTV winds up, though I wouldn't be shocked if it landed nowhere else in Lansing given it's a dead network walking.

And now Gray is buying most of Schurz, making the announcement at none other than WDBJ. More on that here.

The Texas Belo years are over...just saw during a commercial break that KHOU will be switching over their graphics on Wednesday. Nothing significant from social media just yet. Graphics alone, that leaves just KREM (the last of the King Belo cluster) and the London stations.

No clue as to KHOU yet, but all I know is that the Texans are playing in primetime at home on KHOU Thursday night. That's probably the earliest guess as to a potential change. If not, then KHOU must be preparing for some technical upgrades at their studios, perhaps saving the best for last considering that station's own news legacy (much like WFAA had one). As for KREM, perhaps a graphics change could be in the works as well on Wednesday a la WFAA. The legacy of Belo's unofficial King Broadcasting subsidiary (considering the graphics they all used in Belo's twilight years) is certainly over this week (if not next). Regardless, all traces of Belo throughout Gannett should be gone by November sweeps. The Meredith stations that were Belo (KMOV, KTVK) will certainly be rebranding themselves in many ways since the Belo look on both stations now looks clearly out of place. As seen on YouTube, KMOV isn't even regularly using the package's standard typeface.

Just saw KHOU's Twitter feed...they are showing a G3PO-esque "Made in Houston" graphic under a tweet about a local kombucha tea business in Greater Houston, plus another tweet that shows the "USA Today High School Sports" brand encouraging viewers to ask KHOU which high school in their viewing area has the most spirit. WVEC's website is apparently up and running now...as "13newsnow.com". And KTVB is apparently going live on Sunday...either right before or after Sunday Night Football.

And for the record, I wouldn't be surprised if SFH went away as early as next week. Also wouldn't be surprised if a) they are waiting for the Texans' first CBS telecast to start (not until next week against the Raiders since they are starting this week at home against the Redskins on Fox), and b ) KHOU winds up using the same cut as WFAA. In the meantime, you would be well advised to check the Twitter feeds of Bill Bishop (their managing editor), David Paul (their chief meteorologist) and Doug Delony (their tech reporter/web producer) in the coming days. (And I think it's pretty obvious by "their" we're talking about Dan Rather's old stomping grounds).

Of course, that does not include KTRK in Houston. But it wouldn't surprise me if KHOU drops the game shows in the near future, especially if Gannett decides to go beyond standardizing its news graphics and launch original syndicated programming in the access hour a la Evening/PM Magazine or game shows like the ones Scripps put out. And for the record, didn't USA Today used to have its own bust of a show? KTVK and KMOV will not be carrying a moribund graphics package for long. Especially with KMOV reportedly using cheap Arial instead of the standard Belo font. One would expect "Better" from Meredith than a standard Microsoft font that is only a cut above Comic Sans from a media company on the same level as Hearst, for instance. WWL (and KHOU and WTSP) will probably benefit far more than WXIA, given CBS carries the heavily watched Saturday SEC games. And even the former Belo flagship couldn't get it right about the lesser markets -- talk about no Gannett in Amarillo, subbing Tyler in place of Nacogdoches, and failing to mention Abilene and Waco (or is it Temple?). But 83% is a big number, considering the Sinclair stations don't have as much of a reach in Texas.