Adam MadMan

Lisa Knutson just did an interview for TVNewsCheck about the National Networks' strategy.

Newsy still has to deal with contracts with MVPDs, which prohibit Scripps from moving the network to OTA right now. Once those contracts end, then and only then can Newsy start airing on OTA. As for QVC, it seems like that may just be temporary until contracts run out or Doozy and Defy replace them.

Yeah, just looking at all this, you get the feeling that the decision to dump Qubo and Ion Plus (and Shop) was less about not wanting more channels and more about not wanting to deal with the headache of migrating those networks into the Katz operations, since they just went ahead and started two new dignets anyway. That being said, I remember Adam Symson mentioning in the same webcast where that one user raised the question about Qubo and Ion Plus that he was glad to lower the average viewer age of his networks to being below that of the alphabet networks, if still older than streaming. But considering much of the programming on the existing Scripps networks plus these new ones, I get the feeling his words about "younger audience = better audience" were nothing more than the usual press fluff to get the panicking investors off his back, because I'm pretty sure 90% of these shows skew older.

WBTS/NECN anchor Joy Lim Nakrin is leaving at the end of March. She'll be working for Court TV starting in May.

Thankfully, there have been some internet sleuths who have recorded the switchover and put it on YouTube. Apparently, it happened right in the middle of an airing of Franklin in most markets. Honestly, if I hadn't known about this from other forums, I'd have guessed this was some BS edit done by some anonymous troll. But no, this actually happened (in most markets, at least).

Thanks to Xfinity, we now know what some of the standalone Ion Plus stations will be airing: No real surprise, most of them will be airing Court TV.

The Ion subchannels are all in widescreen now. Figures they wait until now, when the subchannel networks are about to be replaced by the Katz stuff at the end of the month.

I've heard rumors that Inyo or Scripps may end up returning the licenses for the Ion Plus affiliates to the FCC, so I think that may be what happens. If not, then I can see Scripps moving Court TV to those channels, since they've been pushing the name for a while. My big question is how this will affect WIFS in Madison. They've been running Ion Plus on their main signal, and actually added Qubo recently - just in time to have Scripps yank it away from them. At this point, I think WIFS will probably move Ion to the main signal. No idea what'll replace the other signals, if they even do replace them.

When he said "mature", I'm pretty sure he meant "not grown as a brand". Of course, his company decided they don't want to grow the brand, and have put it in the line of corporate fire, like in those stereotypical Mexican executions you'd see on TV. And as for the whole kids thing, Symson said in that same call that he wants diginets to go for a younger audience - which makes the Qubo decision all the more baffling, at least to me. Even if the brand isn't that desirable, Nickelodeon was in a similar state in the early 80s before it turned around under Viacom. Obviously, the times are different now, but it still seems wrong that they're trying to go "younger", yet have decided to leave the youngest viewers of the bunch to digital services such as Netflix and YouTube, like they want over-the-air TV to die off. Basically, it just makes Symson's talk of "going younger" seem like the usual insincere corporate speak, which I'm 99.9999% sure it is.

Scripps had a webcast this morning about how they'll be operating going forward. The only real revelation of the webcast was their rather casual dismissal of Qubo and Ion Plus. Adam Symson said that the services weren't "mature" compared to the Katz networks, and confirmed that the company will go Old Yeller on them so they can use their space for the Katz networks as planned. Basically, he brushed them off as worthless wastes of spectrum to be thrown away (and I guess they don't want their channels on their pre-existing spectrum either). Not what he actually said obviously, but that's what I got out of it.

Viacom, Disney, and MGM veteran Tom Zappala has been hired as Head of Programming for the Scripps networks.

The Ion Media deal is complete as of today.

Not to mention, thing that'd draw CBS to buy stations is the Cleveland Browns, which have only just come out of a long slump. Cleveland sports teams have never done particularly well for the most part. Only the Caveliers have really bucked the trend.

The ghost of KidsClick attacks Sinclair from the grave! The FCC is fining WUTB in Baltimore over the block running Hot Wheels commercials during broadcasts of Team Hot Wheels.

WFXQ-CD in Springfield, MA is the latest station to file paperwork to transition to 3.0. Honestly, I saw this coming a mile away. WFXQ is basically a UHF translator for WWLP, so it makes sense that they'd want to use it for the new standard, after Nexstar failed to sell it in the spectrum auction.

Scripps just announced leadership roles based around the Ion purchase: Lisa Knutson will head Scripps' national networks, while Laura Tomlin will become chief administrative officer.

I honestly wouldn't be shocked if Nexstar starts putting Antenna TV on all of their stations once the agreements with other owners run out (WTIC in Connecticut, for instance, may just lose it to WTNH once Bounce moves to WHPX). Heck, I'm pretty sure the only reason it's not on more Nexstar stations is because of affiliation agreements with other networks, like the Katz and Weigel networks (the former may not be as much of a problem for longer thanks to the Ion buyout).

In other news, Scripps has announced the kickoff of its annual "goodwill = good PR" campaign: The "If You Give a Child a Book" campaign, which seeks to give thousands of books to underprivileged kids.

110? That's around the same ballpark as the Springfield, MA market, where I live. That market's never really been big enough to support three separate news producers. WSHM tried, but in the end, it wound up being rolled into WGGB after the latter was bought out by Meredith, so I'm skeptical whether Scripps can really get any traction in Lansing among the established competitors.

You know, if it weren't for the rights being so blippin' expensive, I'd have suggested that the leagues would just give up on the RSNs and put the games on indie stations (including affiliates of MyNetworkTV, which is hardly a network at all by this point anyway) like the old days. As it stands currently, though, I think streaming services like YouTube, Amazon, or even ESPN+ are probably the most likely candidates to get those kinds of rights.

This. VHF may have been an asset in the analog days, but in 2020 it's an albatross so big it may as well be eating sharks. It's funny how far we've come from the days where Married with Children was making jokes about UHF stations (or more specifically, pre-NFL Fox affiliates) needing large amounts of antennas to get them. Nowadays, it often seems like you need that for VHF.

For now. The second Tegna finds a buyer, I just know they're gonna unload WBNS radio.

NGL, the Triangle has had one of the most convoluted TV station histories in the country. The only stations that haven't really changed affiliations at all are the UNC stations (not counting the NET to PBS transition). Even WTVD used to be the local CBS station before Capital Cities bought ABC. It's kinda like what happened in Boston, but even there it was mostly just the Big 3 stations, and WCVB hasn't left ABC since it replaced WHDH (the original one that aired on channel 5).

Funny thing I noticed: my local Nexstar station (WWLP) is there, but due to how the mic flag was placed, the logo that's most visible is that of the CW subchannel. You can still see the main WWLP logo, but it's a bit hard to make out.