Adam MadMan

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.

God, I love that song. As an animation nut, I myself will mostly remember him as the guy who greenlit Scooby-Doo, which has gone on to become one of the longest-running franchises in the history of television, with new incarnations coming out to this day.

Just watch as these newscasts bomb against the established news shows in their respective markets. I don't think audiences will take to this, especially if they're not even making the newscasts within the market.

In hindsight, it was pretty stupid of WATL to reject the idea of affiliating with CBS. Yeah, I know CBS was falling during that time, but its original choice of UPN wound up being a total bomb of a network, and the WB didn't fare that much better (outside of Kids WB and the teen stuff perhaps), all things considered.

From what I've heard, WJZY as a Fox O&O has been nothing but a disappointment, so I doubt Fox is all that sad to see it go, even if it is an NFC market.

Sheesh, WBNX must've really pissed off The CW (or vice-versa) for the contract to be cut off early like that. Either that or the network hates smaller owners. After all, we'd seen this before with The CW and other networks, where the smaller owner was shafted in favor of the big boys like Gray, Nexstar, and Tegna. In fact, when ABC abandoned family-owned small marked station WKPT in favor of a Nexstar-owned station, ABC all but stated that they wanted to ally themselves with a big corporation and that the loyal family-owned station could go to hell for all they cared (obviously, they didn't say it that way, but considering the tone of the announcement they might as well have).

And here come the P.O.'d big market NFL fans. Dish had better hope they can get a deal with Fox soon.

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I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty annoying that we've gotten to the point where our national anthem has become a hot-button political issue. If you like having it played on TV, you're a fascist, and if you don't, you're a communist. There's no pleasing anyone anymore, is there?

We all saw this with KidsClick. They certainly tried to get it into as many markets as they could, especially with its deals with This TV and later TBD. But outside of the Sinclair markets, nobody bit. I know a lot of people will guess that it was because stations weren't willing to give their time to a kids' block in the age of Netflix in YouTube (especially when one false move in the advertising department could get them fined), but while that may certainly be the case, I seriously doubt Sinclair's negotiation skill with other station owners helped in that regard.

It probably doesn't help that the prerogative came from Pai's FCC, and of course, they're conservatives, everything they do is EEEEVIL! But honestly, I think they did something right for once. While I don't think kid-targeted shows on commercial over-the-air TV is inherently doomed (especially with the decline of cable), streaming services and the still-intact ad regulations are making the job hard enough that the smaller stations (CW, MyNet, and indies) aren't willing to take the risk (Sinclair tried, but never really knew how to handle it), and obviously if the Big 4 had their way, they could just cram the time full of news and sports (especially ABC with its lucrative college football rights). And besides, it's not like kids were watching the Litton stuff. If you look through the FCC's database, there's data suggesting that most of viewers (about 1 million on average per Big 3 show) are actually older people who didn't bother changing the channel after the news ended.

Either Fox is gonna go scorched Earth on the station or do nothing. No way in hell they're gonna sell a station in an NFC market, not even a dysfunctional one.