Adam MadMan

Leno was just an attempt to cheap out while keeping the timeslot. This sounds more like a scorched earth strategy, and one that's a million times more attractive to the affiliates.

Remember when I mentioned that one Civil Rights organization that backed the deal? Well, a bunch of state Black Caucus leaders are pushing for this deal under the same grounds.

Funny you mention Bozo. David Arquette bought the character last year and is looking to bring him back to the limelight. That said, I don't see any evidence that local TV stations are part of the equation. As for local stations making more diverse programming, I think the last major push for that kind of thing came from USA Broadcasting, who used WAMI in Miami as model for CityVision, which was supposed to be a group of stations emphasizing locally produced programming. Unfortunately, the WAMI experiment was a ratings disaster, and the rest of the USA stations abandoned the idea of a big local push in favor of just being run of the mill independent stations at a time when The WB and UPN were pushing those out, and Barry Diller gave up on the whole experiment within a few years, selling the stations to Univision to form the basis of Telefutura, now called UniMas. I can imagine the failure of the CityVision concept left a massive stink over the concept of local programming outside of news and pay-for-play, and it's probably why stations haven't been more daring. Still, that was in the late 90s and early 2000s, when cable was at its peak and internet video was barely a thing. Maybe it'd work better today, but I can still imagine some executive thinking back to CityVision and saying "Nope! Not again!"

Civil Rights organization Arc of Justice thinks the merger is a good thing, pointing to Soo Kim's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Since Nielsen has dropped its TV Station Index, the FCC is looking for another way to figure out where a given station's DMA is.

Who's doing their business planning, underpants gnomes? I got confused when I saw the name on the list. When I went for Google, it just sent me to radio.com, the website of Audacy (formerly Entercom). I had to put in the actual URL to get the right page. Needless to say, I don't expect them to win either.

Sinclair's Comet diginet ran a Planet of the Apes movie marathon last weekend, and somehow got 1.5 million average views on it. I'm not sure how exactly they're counting those numbers (I've noticed Litton pulling some monkey business with their Saturday morning E/I fare, adding up the total viewers of all the shows rather than an average), but whatever the case, Sinclair's not passing up the opportunity to brag.

*takes close look at photo* Yes! He is coming to my market! (note the 22 News mic flag) Always nice to have my area acknowledged, even if it is an obvious corporate mandate. Yeah, yeah, I'm a sucker for cheap heat...

It didn't work for Sinclair, why would it work for Appollo?

The sad thing is, it's still more competitive than WRDC ever was.

Looking online, the only major Spanish station in the market is Univision affiliate WLLC-LD, which doesn't have an in-house news operation. Also, WSMV used to run Telemundo on its second digital subchannel, but dropped it in 2010.

Update to the Hearst Media Production Group news: the Litton name is being retired, as HMPG becomes a unified producer for all Hearst-derived TV programming. Litton's website now redirects to a subpage on Hearst's site. Three Litton alumi are taking executive roles in the new subsidiary (founder Dave Morgan and CCO Peter Sniderman retired at the end of last year): Former Litton CCO Bryan Curb is now executive vice president and general manager of E/I programming. Angelica Rose McDaniel, formerly exectctive VP of strategy and creative development, will oversee entertainment. Chris Matthews has been named CFO, more or less the same role he had before.

Gray has announced new appointments for WGCL/WPCH: Kim Saxon from WBTV as news director and Josh Morey from WBRC as creative services director.

IMO, the idea of trying something different isn't the issue. If anything, I'd gladly welcome experimentation. I feel like local stations can produce more than just news and lifestyle shows, and making different kinds of programming would at least help stem the loss of viewers to streaming at least somewhat. That said, the implication I get from this new show is that it's basically gonna be a clone of The Daily Show; that is, a "comedic" retelling of current events while cracking a bunch of wheezy, stale political jokes done better elsewhere. That's not an experiment, that's just cheap and dumb. At least, that's just my guess. If I'm wrong, feel free to tell me. Believe me, I'd be happy to hear it.

Hearst has launched Hearst Media Production Group to make programming for multiple platforms. Frank Biancuzzo is heading the new department, and Litton Entertainment and Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien will be part of its output.

I was listening to Nexstar's earnings call while working, and at one point he mentioned that only 16% of people in the country recognized the NewsNation brand, even admitting that 84% of the US "has no earthly idea" what it is. At least he's honest that nobody's watching...

Jonathan Katz is gone from Scripps.

Oh my GOD. They actually used a fan logo for their official website!?

That makes sense from that market's perspective. The video I shared said that WWLP did this sort of thing in the past, but that joined Nexstar in the Media General buyout, so I believe they did this at least three times before (I'd say four if not for the pandemic). WJZY, of course, joined Nexstar just before the shutdowns, so they didn't get to promote the event that year.

Same thing's going on in Western Massachusetts.

Not that it matters anymore; Sinclair bought Fisher, and Sinclair only cares about TV; hell, they just announced they'd sell off their only radio assets. Hence why this application's been made.

Sinclair is giving a big push for its diginets Comet, Charge, and TBD, and apparently it's been doing well for them. The same article suggests that Stirr is being used as a testing ground for future diginets.

MeTV has been on a roll. They've been consistent in getting top-notch shows, they produce a late-night movie show, and they've even added a classic cartoon block with Warner Bros. and MGM shorts, something I don't think anyone was expecting. I can see them coming out just fine. After all, Weigel's been adamant about expanding their reach, and they've been buying stations in markets beyond the Great Lakes region they'd long restricted themselves to as a means to that end. That MeTV's been doing well in certain demos doesn't surprise me at all. A lot of their programming doesn't really have any equivalents on other OTA networks, even the Big 5, and they just know how to pick the best shows.

I remember hearing somewhere that Sinclair liked that MyNet didn't force retrans like The CW did. For all the good it did them. The telenovela thing bombed like a B-52, and nothing else they did besides SmackDown afterwards fared much better. Now it's basically just prime time reruns, assuming the local affiliate doesn't just shove it off into late nights. Sinclair bet on the wrong horse, which is a shame, considering some of their stations could've been prime CW affiliates. While WCWB (now WPNT) and WTVZ didn't have a prayer thanks to CBS owning WPCW and WGNT respectively, I've heard of some other cases where The CW landed on a weaker station due to Sinclair's initial disinterest, like KCWX in San Antonio (though KMYS did eventually realize their mistake and swapped networks a few years later).

That's my market. Better keep my eyes peeled.