SS8609

Well if this deal is headed for a fall, Pelosi has until the new year since it's very likely that the Congress (or at least the House) is going to flip to the Republicans. In other words, expect an M&A scenario similar to what existed in the Trump era where you had Sinclair, Nexstar, etc. going on a buying binge, and perhaps not unlike during most of the Obama years where Sinclair began to mushroom. Rather interesting that Black and women advocacy groups have had some tacit interest in this merger considering the opposition from the CWA and especially over the Cayman Islands shenanigans... Prediction: If this merger fails, I see Cox likely being sold off to allegedly "more American" broadcast interests such as Hearst or Graham, though I am surprised the latter still chugs along knowing that the current MO for broadcast TV revolves around big broadcasting companies with more leverage in cable retrans negotiations.

While we're still talking about WANF/WUPA, and also considering the old CBS-Meredith contract ending in 2023 and the ongoing situation with Standard General and Apollo, I shall note of what could have been if not for the FCC + the Fed. If Cox and Tegna were to have merged together, formed a blind trust, compensated Byron Allen, whatever...CBS could have easily traded WUPA and WTOG earlier this year to the combined entity in exchange for Cox's KIRO in Seattle. This would have created the following: In Atlanta, Cox would have had a duopoly partner in WUPA that would have allowed WSB-TV to expand its Action News franchise into the morning (as in 7 to 9 am) and primetime hours, and provided not only direct competition for WANF/WPCH, but also WXIA/WATL and most especially WAGA which has pretty much cornered the market at these timeslots since December 11, 1994. (Most every other timeslot has belonged to WSB-TV since the days of kinescopes and 15-minute soap operas.) In Seattle, CBS would have had an O&O in the Pacific Northwest in KIRO, a CW affiliate with a restored news department + "Tacoma Bureau" in KSTW, and a "CBS News Seattle" streaming channel. As with Atlanta, it would also give KIRO opportunities to air newscasts directly against KING/KONG and KCPQ/KZJO. (KOMO has KUNS for their duopoly, but no direct English-language linear outlet to expand its franchise unless the FCC allows triopolies, dependent on whatever sort of "voices" test may apply.) And in Tampa, where CBS is not very likely to want WTSP given that it's apparently home to the TEGNA graphics hub (the master control hub is in Charlotte at WCNC), TEGNA would have a duopoly with WTSP/WTOG that would effectively compete with WTVT and WFLA/WTTA, and that's not even counting the possibility of WFTS making a swap with Hearst for WMOR (which is in the situation WFTS was in prior to becoming an ABC affiliate - when that station didn't even have space for a newsroom). There is a lot more of what could have been, but for now it is what it is, and the only question now, with the SEC going to ABC in a couple of years (which explains why WSB is very unlikely to want to part ways with ABC, if at all), is where does WANF go from here? Remember that the on-air graphics are effectively using the colors of the (rebuilding) Atlanta Falcons, with no telling as to how many Falcons games will indeed be flexed under the new NFL TV contracts, or even what the ratings will be compared to SEC Saturdays full of Chick-fil-A and Zaxby's tailgates (for which only the latter would be open during whatever Falcons games WAGA does not pick up on Sundays).

In Houston, following Saturday Night Live and the Texas Music Scene (which is actually not a Graham nor KPRC product), KPRC airs Texas Eats at 12:30am. Rather apropos considering how big of a foodie city Houston is from the restaurants down to the food trucks and the prepared foods sections at the grocery store...Even the frozen food section (especially at HEB) is better in Texas! And yes, apparently KPRC has filled the rest of its weekend overnight hours with zombie reruns of Impractical Jokers and whatever cheap barter they get from Byron Allen since he missed out on getting KHOU and the carcass of what used to be Joel Osteen's TV station. As for what I've noticed, once Karamo comes online, whatever they're airing at noon now on KIAH is going to the 4am hour as has been aforementioned by my fellow Houstonian OP. Right now, they've mostly aired infomercials dealing with Camp Lejeune toxic water settlement claims, not unlike what they aired with regards to the Boy Scouts sex abuse allegations. Lastly, on KHOU they have been putting a positive spin of sorts on the "new" Daily Blast Live and even did an interview with Jeff Schroeder (former reality TV alum-turned-DBL host) that aired on its 4pm news Monday. The same show whose half-hour access "recap show" has aired after James Corden's Late Late Show from almost the very beginning...Personally, I wouldn't be shocked if this is just filler until Soo Kim seals the deal and sends KHOU (and WFAA + KVUE) Cox's way...

It's WFTV's news (plus Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune) that's propping them up essentially. Also, didn't they used to air Oprah in Orlando?

Not surprised about that given KPRC has essentially become KNBC East (since it is a port city unlike where KXAS is and has ex-KNBC personalities Daniela Guzman and Anthony Yanez on staff), and any day now I expect Graham to cash out, with NBC very likely to scoop up the station and create a duopoly with KTMD, even with the new KPRC+ which could very well be a test case for a potential future independent subchannel with second runs of syndicated shows, additional newscasts, filler and live high school sports (including the very popular Texas tradition of - wait for it - high school volleyball on Tuesday nights...). Also, just for the record, while I am definitely not a soap fan by any stretch of the imagination, the Days of Our Lives finale - set in a mausoleum scene - did not have a dramatic outro. That furthers my suspicion that NBC's earnest efforts to compete with ABC for the afternoon news ratings may be a tad bit underwhelming. Wouldn't be shocked if eventually NBC fills a game show, like Password which has done well in primetime this summer or - prayerfully - a return of Concentration or Sale of the Century, with the latter perhaps as reparations for much of the Jim Perry run in the 80s supposedly being lost, either in the old DOOL slot or maybe in between OG Today and Hoda & Jenna. But if any game show from NBC's past deserves to be brought from the dead, it should be Scrabble!

As a 90s kid - and more specifically a 90s Nickelodeon kid - this is definitely lazy. Though the week after with iCarly and America's Funniest Home Videos seems somewhat better. But if Paramount is just going to go waste on TeenNick, might as well do what NBC just did and free up the linear space for something more useful. Also, look at the TV listings for Nicktoons - almost nothing but SpongeBob. The Nicktoons creative crew has fallen a long way from the days of Doug Funnie and a bunch of "dumb babies"...which may very well accurately describe Viacom's Paramount's cable management. Just like MTV2 is nothing more than "all Snooki, all Farrah Abraham, all the time" now. So much for the secondhand communications facility in Hauppauge that HBO handed down to them when HBO moved to Atlanta...

There won't be a "Daytime Wheel of Fortune" run until Pat and Vanna retire. Also have to consider the void (especially on the coasts) between Nightline and World News Now with 4 a.m. becoming the new 4:30 a.m. When America This Morning (ABC's early morning newscast) starts taping live at 3:30AM in New York City, that gap in between (1:05am-2:00am) will become so small that those who wish to watch same-day repeats of Live! and Tamron Hall will have to make use of their DVRs (assuming that ABC does not pull off what NBC is thinking of doing in primetime) for there will only be 55 minutes in between. Yes, we do get an additional hour in Houston, but it's still so little time to where only a West Coast rebroadcast of World News Tonight and either the Jeopardy! repeat or a rebroadcast of the late news will do.

Last I checked, CBS has Paramount+ and NBC has Peacock (free if you have an Xfinity cable subscription). Fox and ABC share Hulu, but that's about it. Maybe if my scenario where Disney swallows up Fox and Hearst gets ABC with a little drug money from Warren Buffett comes true, Fox will have their dream stream, and Big Ten fans can rejoice.

Also wouldn't shock me if this eventually means Notre Dame will be tempted to go to the Big Ten, where they have always long been rumored to have a red carpet invite to join at any time, and would also create a natural rivalry with Northwestern, which like Notre Dame is an academically gifted private school with long traditions in various aspects of campus life including athletics (at least outside of basketball where Northwestern only recently got into the Big Dance), and also have sizable fanbases (albeit with Notre Dame's being far bigger) in the Chicago market for which South Bend has long been a key secondary market for Chicago's sports teams (which explains why WSJV went from ABC to Fox in the '90s with the Bears being a big reason why). As far as Lorne Michaels is concerned, NBC will have no choice but to start its games exactly just after 7PM ET/4PM PT with the window going no later than Midnight ET/9PM PT. In other words, Saturday Night Live is going to become to college football and NBC what 60 Minutes has always been to the NFL and CBS. For instance, a college football game can run for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours, which allows enough time for NBC to carry some highlights in the void between circa 10:30PM and 11PM, allowing for the affiliates to air their drive-by Saturday newscast (which as @mrschimpfdescribed on the TEGNA thread under Corporate Chat recently, is merely about the weekend crime and fire blotter - which is actually quite big in Houston compared to other markets, plus weekend festivals/funruns/rallies and the usual mix of corporate must-runs + human interest fluff from the weekdays) before SNL. If a game goes beyond four hours, then the affiliates can have the option to either push the late news either to a duopoly partner, another company's Fox or CW station with a news-share agreement (e.g. WPGH in the case of WPXI) or even to a sister streaming outlet (like what KPRC just launched under the KPRC+ banner), or simply not air a newscast altogether. Because when it comes to master control at 30 Rock on a Saturday night, even and especially during college football season (due to the political calendar, sweeps and the holiday shows all happening simultaneously as well), the most important job is NOT to push Saturday Night Live past midnight in New York City. In other words, NBC should be prepared to utilize Peacock or even USA in a situation where a Big Ten game goes past Midnight on the East Coast.

If there's a reason to suggest that NBC may be prone to cutting back on primetime, maybe one ought to take a look at how the Big Four networks stack up in terms of when they can fill their local newscast time, which admittedly has become quite more valuable than before in recent years. While politics obviously play a hand in this (especially with a 2022 midterm cycle that is good for Politics, Inc.), it provides stations with a reliable revenue generator as well for local advertisers, especially given that I have started seeing on the Big 3 plenty of direct response ads (e.g. Medicare Coverage Helpline, Bulbhead, etc.) airing where the latest Procter & Gamble product or cheesy insurance company ad would in the past. With regards to Texas, take the Fox stations for instance. In Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston, the secondary Fox affiliates are simply used to provide second runs of most of the Fox O&O's syndicated shows, either utilizing an extension of the Fox O&O branding (as KDFI does in Dallas with "Fox 4 Plus") or a legacy branding most in a market remember (as KTXH does in Houston with "My 20 Vision", since many Houstonians still refer to it as "20 Vision" from the days of Star Trek: TNG, Arsenio Hall and most road games for the Astros and Rockets during the 80s and 90s). Likewise, you have the CBS O&Os having their own duopolies with the secondary CBS affiliate (either the local CW O&O or an indie) airing primetime and morning extensions of their CBS O&O newscasts that go up against the 10 ET/9 CT hour of primetime or CBS Mornings, respectively, as KTVT does with independent KTXA in Fort Worth. And while ABC O&Os don't have their own duopolies, it has begun airing primetime extensions of its newscasts on Nexstar's stations in markets where the local Nexstar station does not have its own in-house news department, with KIAH in Houston airing a primetime newscast from KTRK in the 9PM hour - a relationship that could in the future extend to 7 to 9 AM (unlikely given KIAH has its own traffic and weather-focused newscasts and their own meteorologists) while KTRK airs Good Morning America, a noon newscast against GMA3, or perhaps even KTRK's legacy 6PM newscast should CMV force ABC to carry Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! on all ABC O&Os in prime access or risk losing them to the CBS or Fox O&Os in the future. Ditto with Univision and its Unimas stations, which in Houston carry each other's SD feed on their spectrums. NBC, by contrast does not have much leeway to extend its local news franchises into alternative timeslots beyond the traditional pre-Today, pre-primetime and early evening slots, and whatever opportunity it has to create English-language duopolies is taken by its Telemundo O&Os, as is the case with KXAS and KXTX in Fort Worth, and will likely be the case when Graham finally cashes out of the broadcast biz and inevitably sells KPRC to NBC, making it a duopoly to KTMD which already partners with KPRC on some community relations, news franchise and other matters. If anything, giving back one of the primetime hours to their affiliates in order to free up the last hour of primetime to allow the local affiliates to carry newscasts to generate revenue might seem "sustainable". But with many non-O&O NBC affiliates already airing primetime newscasts on duopoly stations, it may actually do harm than good, and NBC would be better off to beef up its LX sub channels to potentially serve as "backup NBC affiliates" as opposed to radically altering its primetime format to make up for either a lack of creativity or whatever constraints the FCC places on broadcast content as opposed to cable or streaming. (I mean, come on, it can't be the network's fault if Little Timmy gets scarred by some of the more explicit content (e.g. blood and guts on Law & Order, nurses cutting off clothes on ER) that was expected of NBC shows during their "Must See TV" golden age in the 90s!) Lastly, why not utilize a promotion and relegation system with regards to scripted and even some reality programming? Like using Peacock and USA as "farm teams" with the stronger shows being promoted to NBC should something else fail on the (old school) Peacock but could have better value on USA. Maybe use NBC to air the legacy Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU and utilize USA to carry any other extensions of the franchise...

Not to mention Rachael Ray, which like Hot Bench and Seinfeld reruns also disappeared when KUBE got turned into an all-shopping channel. Last I checked, that show has been renewed for a 17th season. Some thought it would have gone to Ellen's old time slot or even in the hour between KHOU's 10pm repeat and the CBS Overnight News, but instead Tegna is sticking with an hour of DBL in the former and infomercials in the latter, sensing that they're not going to invest much into it nor WFAA and KVUE before handing those stations over to Cox. Also shall note that We the People with Lauren Lake (2:00pm double run on KTXH) is one of Byron Allen's court shows. The rest will not be airing in Houston apparently. Not that they matter...

And not just any NBC O&O - but the mother church at 30 Rock...

This is definitely spot on. It's not going to necessarily boost their ratings, but to bring back the fanfare (as ABC did during pre-vax COVID and as NBC will always have even after John Williams is gone) is golden. Then by your logic, CBS should do one for KTVT with the red and star accents...

And...speaking of TV Passport, this is what I found for KTXH's broadcast of Pictionary in two weeks at 4pm (one run, followed by Family Feud at 4:30pm): "Allan Thicke hosts America's favorite board game." Yes, there was a Pictionary game show that did air in 1997. Aired at 12:30 p.m. on KPRC, and then as it struggled became one of the many shows that KPRC chose to air in the late night hours AFTER a bunch of Trash TV talk shows + their 10 p.m. news on repeat before airing Conan O'Brien at 2am. Alan Thicke is sadly no longer with us, and there's no - dare I say - "Blurred Lines" about that. It was also distributed by the former syndication arm of ABC that evolved into Worldvision, now one of many companies absorbed into the CMV fold (save for the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that ended up in Ted Turner's possession) courtesy of Aaron Spelling, Blockbuster Video (no surprise since Spelling was originally from Dallas and so was Blockbuster) and eventually Viacom and Paramount. CMV, as we all know, is also distributing the new Pictionary with Jerry O'Connell. Yes, we all know Youngstown is quite a slow-paced community. Never mind the on again, off again issues with Lordstown and other big news stories surrounding the deindustrialization and its tragic effects, though it wouldn't surprise me if being family-owned by a now-sold daily newspaper in the same market may have played a hand in them waiting this long, seeing that there's really only two TV news sources in town now. Pretty sure they're on the sale block in the near future...

It's the same with KHOU at 3pm. No updates yet from them or advertisements about what's going to replace it since J-Hud is going to KRIV/Fox 26, which also is getting Sherri Shepherd and Pictionary. iCrime (as the OP posted) is on KTXH and it will be airing at 1pm followed by a double run of We the People with Lauren Lake at 2pm. And...KPRC will be airing NBC News Daily at 1pm and still airing Dr. Phil at 2pm. Houston Life remains at 3pm. KTRK will still be airing Jeopardy! at 11:30am. No big changes anywhere on the schedule there either. Thank God for DVRs, but it wouldn't shock me if SPT eventually decides to condition renewal of their contract with ABC O&Os on airing it in a more amenable time. That would require KTRK drop the sacred cow of its hourlong 6 p.m. news, though...and you can't put it up against Wheel of Fortune on KHOU. KIAH still lists Relative Justice and Lauren Lake's Paternity Court - for one more week until Karamo comes online at Noon.

Which is telling considering I just noticed (as a NON-soap opera and NON-viewer of The Talk) that Eric Braeden was on The Talk either yesterday or today. For those who may be wondering, he's the actor behind Victor Newman on Y&R, the mustache in his previous years (given my mother and her mother have been longtime viewers) being a dead giveaway. The Bell heirs sure take care of their actors quite well. Not surprised that WYFF carried Donahue considering they were the Multimedia flagship early on until that swap with KSDK in St. Louis earlier in the decade (which Multimedia took advantage of to launch Sally Jessy Raphael). Being 35 years old, you are not alone in being shocked about what your market (or other users' markets) used to air. I was shocked to find that Channel 2 (KPRC) originally had Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! at first until '86 - I thought they had been on KHOU the whole time before Jeopardy! jumped to its rightful place at KTRK in 2015. Going back to what I have discovered about Houston, one KPRC promo even showed clips from both game shows as well as The People's Court, Family Feud, plus some show with Richard Simmons in it circa '85...Seemed as if (Donahue on KTRK notwithstanding) KPRC was the go-to for first-run syndication before Belo used its drug money from The Dallas Morning News + WFAA to prop up KHOU with both of Merv Griffin's game shows + Oprah when KTRK turned them down, due to the 6pm Eyewitness News being a big cash cow (especially with Marvin Zindler), as well as their unwillingness to cancel Million Dollar Movie and let go of its film editors during a time when the oil bust hit Houston's economy so bad one fine dining restaurant had a three-course "Oil Barrel Special" for the price of crude. In any case, the Million Dollar Movie went away, which could have given KTRK carte blanche to pick up all three of the shows that they turned down, but even as the rest of the ABC O&Os picked them up, Belo most likely spent bigly to keep all three from moving across the street - wouldn't shock me if they conditioned WFAA's continued broadcast of those three shows on KHOU also picking them up in 1992, along with Entertainment Tonight right after the 10pm news, followed by talk shows hosted by Whoopi Goldberg, Rush Limbaugh and Jane Whitney. (ET went to KPRC the following season right after the 6pm news as David Letterman crossed over to CBS (and KHOU, albeit at 11:05 p.m.).)

So far for 2022-23, here is what I do know (or at least can speculate) about Houston: KPRC (Ch.2/NBC): One of the biggest repeat offenders (Conan O'Brien in the 90s, anyone?) of jumbling around NBC's schedule. Entertainment Tonight will still be on at 6:30pm, along with Dr. Phil at 1:00pm with Days of Our Lives at 2:00pm, repeating at 1:05am. The locally produced Houston Life (3:00pm) does not appear to be going anywhere. KHOU (Ch.11/CBS): Not sure as to what will replace Ellen at 3:00pm, or whether or not Great Day Houston (9:00am) remains given that show at last check still is produced in COVID mode. Even if not this season, Wheel of Fortune (6:30pm) could still move over to another particular station with a certain set of mouse ears for an antenna, but until then we'll have to see what Cox does with the station once they take over - either an afternoon hour of Daily Blast Live (if that hasn't been canceled or dropped in preparation for Tegna's sale of 11 to Cox), or perhaps even Dr. Phil, Drew Barrymore (2:00am (!) on Ch.39 now), Kelly Clarkson (definitely more likely Ch.2 though) or Rachael Ray (which has not aired in Houston since KUBE/Ch.57 became an all-shopping tax write-off for Richard French). I will be shocked if they retain Daily Blast Live in the post-James Corden 12:37am timeslot. The main late night Saturday/Sunday CMV serial block (SEAL Team, Bull - both of which no longer air on CBS) might be changing along with Canada's Murdoch Mysteries late Saturday night, but I could be wrong. KTRK (Ch.13/ABC): They will still have Live with Kelly and Ryan at 9:00am and Tamron Hall at 1:00pm, plus Jeopardy! at 11:30am, Inside Edition at 3:30pm and the West Coast feed of World News Tonight after Live and Jeopardy repeat and before Tamron repeats. Next year could certainly be different if 13 were to pick up Wheel and Jeopardy! for prime access (a major improvement for the latter which has to be losing valuable ad dollars in Houston at its midday timeslot, ironic considering the original NBC Jeopardy! aired at lunchtime), but it's hard to justify them dropping their 6:00pm news (or preferably shipping it off to Ch.39) this season if at all. I predict that reruns of The Good Doctor (which is a current ABC show) and 9-1-1 (which is on Fox, not ABC, but is linked corporately to Disney via 20th Century Fox) will replace Wipeout and Castle reruns that air on late nights after Ch.13's late news and Texans highlights shows (for which the latter has low expectations, but at least got rid of their problematic QB who is now Cleveland's problem). KTXH (Ch.20/ MyTV Ind.): Mostly just repeats from its sister station (Fox 26) and the carcass of MyNetworkTV (seriously, kill it off already), but with The Real gone the only things they really have going for it now are The 700 Club in the mornings, 25 Words or Less and Family Feud in the late afternoon/early evening, and off-net Modern Family and Big Bang Theory reruns as well as The Simpsons in prime and late night. I could actually see two particular talk shows debuting on Fox 26 airing their reruns here though. They will have to fill the void where Schitt's Creek and 2 Broke Girls are disappearing in the latter group as well; perhaps American Housewife will go here since it aired around the same time as the latter years of Modern Family on ABC. Access Hollywood is airing in late night at 11:30pm, and might actually benefit from moving over to Fox 26 (see below). KRIV (Fox 26): Wendy Williams has given way to Sherri Shepherd and Jennifer Hudson is coming here as well (as @H-Town TV Fan has already mentioned). However, the cheese holes on Fox 26 go well beyond Wendy - Nick Cannon and The Good Dish are both gone, and there's no telling whether or not Judge Judy's highly rated zombie reruns remain at 4pm. Extra and TMZ Live likely are staying put, as well as the Kelly Clarkson Show (unless that goes to KPRC since KHOU would be more likely to pick up Dr. Phil than Kelly Clarkson to replace Ellen at 3pm), and I could see Divorce Court getting a better timeslot than 1:30am. Pictionary definitely will be airing on Fox 26 along with You Bet Your Life, and could be primed to lead-in to Fox 26's 5pm news if they do the smart thing and move Access Hollywood from late night on KTXH to 6:30pm after its 6pm news (and against ET on KPRC), though I imagine TMZ (which is actually a staple on Fox O&Os) would be preferred over Access here. I'm surprised Dish Nation (1:00am) is still even on. KIAH (CW 39): They'll still have their morning weather and traffic show in the mornings and Judge Mathis and The People's Court afterwards, but Lauren Lake has a new courtroom show courtesy of Byron Allen (which effectively replaces the one that's airing now after Relative Justice in the noon hour), but it's fair to say Karamo will replace Maury (1:00pm) or Jerry Springer (3:00pm) with the former being prioritized more than Springer's in terms of reruns; I see Springer's reruns actually airing in place of the canceled Judge Jerry at 4:00am and Steve Wilkos will still be airing at 2:00pm. The early evening reruns of The Goldbergs, Last Man Standing, Black-ish and Young Sheldon will likely still be there, but I am predicting reruns of The Neighborhood will replace reruns of Mike & Molly or Mom after Two and a Half Men reruns. I know Mike & Molly's reruns are going bye-bye, but I'm not certain about Mom though I will be surprised if they are still on this coming year. Daily Mail TV (3:00am) is gone, and will likely be replaced by Entertainment Studios filler programs, reruns of daytime talk shows or infomercials. Ch.13 will still air its 9:00pm news on Ch.39, but I think they'd be wise to fill the midnight repeat slot with either Friends reruns (which chiefly air on the weekends) or Seinfeld reruns (nonexistent in H-Town since that was the last syndie program Ch.57 dropped when it became a shopping channel) since occasionally they end up not airing the repeat, either airing Friends reruns or a weird combo of partial infomercials and endless advertisements (as happened last Friday night) instead. KTBU (Ch.55): This is the wild card in the whole, longwinded discussion about Houston, and since Quest (the network airing on 55.1) is still going to be a Tegna property and can easily be moved over to the KHOU signal, while the station is primarily being used to give KHOU a UHF home to make up for whatever shortcomings its signal has on its main VHF-based facility, I'm sure Cox will want to take advantage of this extra real estate space to launch a new indie station on the primary Ch.55 signal. The big downside is that the syndicated offerings are likely to be slim pickings for this year and there will likely be a lot of filler programming here should they go the indie route, though it may give Ch.11 an opportunity to air additional newscasts of its own (9:00pm, 7:00-9:00am while the main Ch.11 carries CBS Mornings), etc.) over on Ch.55. If anyone has anything new about Houston (including where iCrime will wind up, likely Ch.39?), feel free to fill me in...

Anything short of creating a new theme that evokes a certain famed six-note signature for the Texas Cox acquisitions (and in the case of WFAA, reverting to News 8 and calling the 10pm newscast the “Update”) would be a huge disappointment…There, I said it! ”Working in the Spirit of Texas…this is the News 8 Update!” And for the record, this thread belongs under Corporate Chat…

I do know that many NBC affiliates (including several TEGNA ones) air Your Move with Andy Stanley (whose father is none other than In Touch host Charles Stanley) following SNL, along with select CBS O&Os after James Corden's usual Friday repeat. Yes, he is a megachurch pastor like his father, but it feels more like a self-help/motivational speaking type of ministry program with a night vibe of sorts, and certainly neither like his father's more traditionalist program nor the sort of "fire and brimstone" stuff on the "pay-for-pray" channels that would never make it to air on a secular network affiliate let alone after "those demonic late night shows". I also know that KHOU and other CBS affiliates - O&O and affiliated - have usually competed with SNL as of late with serial reruns from CBS (which is famous for warehousing its serials for long runs that can be sold into syndication for barter advertising profits). Though in the 1990s they did program the standard issue weekend repeat of Jeopardy! and Siskel & Ebert (which I recall KHOU broke into by way of CBS News to announce the death of Princess Diana), as well as reruns of "Must See TV" staple ER to compete against SNL locally. It now airs reruns of SEAL Team and Bull from CMV + Murdoch Mysteries via CBC's global syndicator on late night weekends. (For those keeping score, KTRK routinely broadcast movies on the weekends well into the 2000s - it now carries reruns of Wipeout and Castle, plus a weekly Houston Texans newsmagazine on the weekends that's not much to write home about given their current team barely qualifies for middle school football.)

They would have to find a new host though...Dan Abrams just signed a content deal with TEGNA through his Law & Crime venture.

I can actually see where Disney acquires FoxCorp (they already market Disney properties during 9-1-1, Tucker Carlson and NFL broadcasts) and sells off virtually all of the assets that were previously Capital Cities/ABC to Hearst. Hearst would then ask for a temporary cross-ownership waiver to keep the San Francisco Chronicle and Houston Chronicle (which actually launched KTRK along with KTRH radio) while it lobbies the FCC to repeal the cross-ownership ban (which IMHO is an outdated rule that has no relevance in today's media environment). There even exists a possiblity (as has been bandied about many times) that Hearst could even sell the newspapers. This would mean that Hearst would have total control over ESPN, A&E and Lifetime, which would allow them to further integrate their cable nets and ABC without corporate red tape...in other words, get ready for occasional Lifetime movies and Live PD specials on ABC in addition to the various ESPN crossovers to ABC including a potential move of Monday Night Football back to ABC (where it should have remained). It does not necessarily mean Hearst would have to sell its non-ABC stations though...I could actually see Hearst keeping WBAL and flipping it to ABC since they've owned that station from the very beginning...1948 to be exact, which would make selling WBAL too bittersweet for Hearst to do just to buy a major broadcast network. They really could care less if Scripps objects since it is a major ABC affiliate group, WMAR is not a very strong performer for ABC and Scripps already owns a number of NBC stations including WTMJ and WPTV. Not to mention the fate of Hearst's indie station in Tampa, WMOR, which either could be sold to Scripps and paired with their ABC station WFTS or paired with WFTS should Scripps flip it to Hearst in exchange for some non-ABC Hearst stations like KCRA/Sacramento and WESH/Orlando. Also, ABC has nowhere near the O&O gravitas that CBS, Fox and NBC have (albeit inflated by Telemundo in the latter), so if they're going to boost the distribution of its Localish diginet and potentially others as well, making a major play for O&Os could be the smart thing to do. And if Warren Buffett wants to get involved with his money like he did when CapCities swallowed up ABC with a (giant) big gulp and flipped two of their CBS affiliates to ABC, he might even dangle WPLG as a carrot to the stick, which would make Miami a five-O&O market (including the two Spanish behemoths based in Miami). That is what the course of action should be, but it's just my two cents. Capeesh?

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'!