mrschimpf

On 5/28/2024 at 10:41 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

They do have an awkward and unwieldy logo (the "12" is much wider than the "Fox") so simplifying it for the mic flag was a good idea.

Portland may also have a strong "anti-Fox" sentiment as well, so the less ties to the national news channel, the better.

 

But if Gray is separating network identity for their affiliates, it may be a very tough sell, especially for their longer-tenured affiliates that have co-branded for decades.

As someone in a "12 News" in my town with WISN, I can't object to this, it was known as Channel/TV 12 a whole lot longer on Fox, and as you said it's branding poison. At least for their roster of stations that moved to the Fox with the NFL in the 90s and the charters this might be harder to stomach like KVVU, WXIX and WHNS, but after 2000'ers like KPTV with that longboy logo are probably happy to let it go. They've done a great job transitioning WBRC to call letters first so I expect the same care to be taken with some of these stations, though the subs like WGGB-DT2 and WOVA-LD will be a bit harder to reconcile.

11 minutes ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

I wonder what KCTV5 would be doing on their 5.3 subchannel since This TV is gone.

Listings show they grabbed StartTV, so at least it's something better (if not our board's demo).

Providers have finally updated the schedule for TheGrio, which now might as well be called "Justice Central.tv.two" (I hate their naming scheme), as the daytime schedule is made up of those Sony sitcoms and The Cosby Show, the nighttime is all Allen court shows, and random episodes of sports filler Masters of the Game fills out the schedule to comply with the news requirements left in the BNC contracts.

Zap2it is still showing a This TV schedule on WHDH-DT2, but it might as well be something just to report anything but 'off-the-air' while Sunbeam tries to get new programming arranged.

Harry doing some more Nexstar/Mission stanning about WADL this morning. Unlike Harry Styles though, the broadcasting industry is no longer 'as it was'.

Come on man, this is the worst station in Detroit outside the HC2 signals that seem to exist to give electric companies dependable cash for nothing. It'll still be the worst station in Detroit under Nexstar/Mission, AND we all forget that they won't have carriage on DirecTV once their current Adell contract ends because Mission's RTC people think they can charge a fortune for a CW+ or Foxnet schedule. Kevin Adell, Perry Sook, and Nancie Smith all deserve what they've reaped here.

On 5/25/2024 at 7:09 PM, Weeters said:

The ownership cap on television stations is the least of Biden's worries. I really don't think the general public cares all that much. 

Compared to radio, where Townsquare and Alpha are actively winding down stations and refusing to seek buyers (thus tossing them into the years-long auction process) and Audacy's coldly vicious and sudden centralcasting, the television cap is a smaller problem for the FCC. At least you still have some buyers in the TV market; you're down to EMF and other god groups in the radio industry as active buyers.

29 minutes ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

How in the Florida was WBBH an 'waste of money' for Hearst? Hearst acquired it and WZVN because Waterman Broadcasting wanted to sell the stations off before Edith Waterman turned 100. 

It should also be pointed out that Hearst is a private company, so if it was a waste of money, we'll never know or need to care and obviously the Watermans wanted a steward, not a repeat of Jim Rogers's wishes being completely disregarded by his family for some quick Sinclair cash. I tend to put Hearst in a completely different container than most of the public broadcast groups simply because they do quality things that would be shot down by shareholders and seem to still think of the public as their actual customers as far as television and print, along with online.

41 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

No no. Perry Sook is a pearl clutching, technophobic square. He believes in the sunk-cost fallacy which is why he's stupidly riding the NewsNation bong rip. He is a local manager who's duped everyone into some grand unifying vision that he's pulling out of his ass. Just like David Smith, Adam Symon, Dave Lougee and Bob Iger.

Remember just six years ago after closing on Media General, he killed Hollywood Today Live, not because of its terrible and anemic ratings, but only because of its Hollywood and Highland rent cost and talent. But NewsNation is fine because it uses existing video from affiliates, existing sets and infrastructure at PIX Plaza and the WGN bunker, and depends on talent that costs a third of the major network news divisions.

There are no designs on it topping FNC, nor most of its stations; if they lead, that's sadly just a bonus, and outside a few stations were local management are ensconced and still fighting, it's about getting all the RTC possible, not pulling a WCIA and pissing off their COLs by criticizing local municipalities, and just getting by with finances to the point staff doesn't start circulating union voting petitions. The only visionary thing Perry has at this point is skating by on a 2003 business model in 2024 somehow.

And lord, I've been taking a bunch of studio pictures to upload to Wikipedia; the most depressing and poorly-maintained facilities I've seen are universally Nexstar studios. Outside Gray's WGGB with a slightly faded front sign that I can't knock because it'll be changed and the actual building is fine, along with WFSB (their lighted '3' needs a refacing), the disappointment of seeing how much maintenance has been deferred outside the WWLP and WJET/WFXP studios was saddening on my last trip.

I couldn't even watch WFXP in Erie because Mission is STILL in a fight with DirecTV involving RTC a year and a half later; at this point when do you just give the hell up on Mission and DT2 those affiliations a la Sinclair, because you're just pointlessly pissing off willing viewers over petty matters.

14 minutes ago, TVLurker said:

So Nexstar is just like Sinclair then? They're going to hold on to their stations until they're either broke or the FCC deals their hand.

 

I thought you were cool Nexstar.

If they wouldn't have bought LIN with Frankly I'm sure we'd be still seeing their 2000s web design in 2024, no doubt (the two-hour newscast delay certainly shows that). Most of their 'new sets' are repainted hand-me-downs, Newsnation seems to be frozen into a 2007 understanding of cable news and their personalities, and The CW today is programming-wise the second coming of PAX TV with a few sports packages which were Speed Channel, Fox Sports Net and Golf Channel filler in the 2000s.

I still remember arguing with a creative last summer about how All American was only renewed by Nexstar for tokenism reasons (she was convinced they were all in and had no idea what Perry had done in the past) and now that prophecy is coming true with even The WB/CW's longest-tenured actor Jared Padelecki about to lose a job for the first time since Dean was written out of Gilmore Girls in 2005...he got an entire two month break before Supernatural. It's sad when the most consistent thing on their schedule now is the 3-hour Hearst rent-a-block on Saturday mornings, and I'm damned sure they'll eventually offload that and tell their affiliates 'we're done, you're on your own'.

10 minutes ago, Rusty Muck said:

They really should be begging on bended knee to find any affiliate in Detroit, Tucson and Miami, because there's no options available in either of those markets and they can't buy their way out of this crisis they placed on themselves, nor do they have Gray or Sinclair ready to bail out their sorry butts this time.

 

But I guess Uncle Perry wants to play pretend media mogul because something something "plan".

If they have to CW+ cable-only those markets it'll be devastating, and you know cable/streaming companies would want a big cut to take a market-only channel like that in 2024.

50 minutes ago, Nelson R. said:

Why would WJZY carry it? The article clearly states that Fox O&O and WCCB are carrying it, not Nexstar, and Fox sold WJZY/WMYT four years ago. 

Just noting something that sticks out like a sore thumb as WJZY does carry most of the Fox First Run schedule besides this show. I understand exactly why they wouldn't carry it, but that it's unusual for Fox to crawl back to their old affiliate to carry something.

The Deadline story, and bait for the Speculatron because it also involves a syndication deal to carry it with WCCB, not WJZY.

4 hours ago, jjj said:

 

Something is up.  TheGrio just eliminated their only two original shows and their schedule is now just a bunch of Allen/ES shows.  They've been losing affiliates and their coverage of the US is now under 45% according to Rabbit Ears.

If you look at the schedule though, which has been wrong as of late; currently they seem to be carrying older Sony Black sitcoms and random infomercials on the ex-BNC cable feed, and the stream has a random Serena Williams documentary. Something is going on when you get three different programs on three different ways to watch the same network.

1 hour ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

Okay, that's the comment of the year by this point. 

 

And it's something agreeable. Sinclair be trying to cut costs and you get Kansas City which got lucky to be removed from the Sinclair curse over in 2005. You should be lucky that you don't live in a Sinclair Broadcast Group Market, because well... they almost bankrupted KSMO-TV before they sold them off to the then-owners of KCTV5, the Meredith Corporation. 

I swear it was a miracle sent from God that Sinclair was pretty much required to build-out a new studio for WVTV/WCGV after their 2010 flood; I really do think they were trying to stay in the old studios and cheap out before it became clear it was not going to work. And I do remember by the time KSMO was sold it was pretty much running on fumes and its WB affiliation was the only thing keeping it from dying completely.

Kim Godwin is out as ABC News head.

52 minutes ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

Standard? No pun intended, but that one came out of left field. You’d think Reinsdorf would just repurpose Stadium into the new RSN.

 

I’m not sure how Standard is going to be able to run a regional sports net when it seems like they can barely run their local TV affiliates.

You would have thought they would've wound it down like Legacy did when Gray was able to end the charade with them and after the Tegcoxpollo deal died, but I guess someone needs to keep WLNE off life support until Sinclair finagles the ABC affiliation onto a WJAR sub; might as well be them. And they've had more deals die than actually go through.

And again, Chicago has another pointless sports channel move like when Fox wound down FSN Chicago, and with no full guarantee of carriage like NBCSN offered via Comcast, two teams in terminal struggle with an owner headed the same way, and the Sox threatening to move down 65 to Music City (just don't talk to me about the actual team). It's no wonder Chicago remains a strong sports radio town with all these changes.

16 minutes ago, JTT said:

NBC could put the show on Peacock.

That's where those pointless world feed highlight shows go to die, nobody would agree to that. Best place would be USA NBC-wise.

5 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

Yikes! Blatant speculation ahead...Does this leave room for Sam Champion do national weather content (not the weekends Since Sam apparently works 4 days a week). 

I think it's more likely they have one of the GMA guys just do more of those than anything so they get more out in the field more. By the end the only thing Rob did was pointless live shots in front of the Tappan Zee that Ginger or any ABC news staffer in the New York metro could've easily done, and just shows that at that point it was just a countdown to when he was going to snap. Like Matt Gutman he's just an ego anchor (️) dragging everyone else down and being known more as an HR headache than a reliable worker. I just can't see Sam willing to take on a higher workload when he's approaching his golden years.

On 4/18/2024 at 10:07 AM, Action Newsroom said:

Dr. Jennifer Ashton is departing from GMA3 (as co-host) and ABC News (as chief medical correspondent).

I haven't been following GMA3 as much as I did in the past but probably for the best; she was likely exhausted from last year's drama and the GMA3 health segments had been becoming fewer and fewer on their show (or getting into the paid placement territory that she knows are no-gos).

"Live at Lunch" sounds so vague title-wise it feels like they start the newscast whenever they finish off their chips and Snickers, rather than noon, and knowing how busy lunch places are you'd expect it to be 12:43pm.

20 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

We can only hope Nexstar is not that stupid.

 

But then again, they still have NewsNation as a home for any disgraced journalist.  Is that actually doing better / making more money than WGN America?

The primetime staff probably makes more than the actual channel grifting off Nexstar's national ambitions. They had that Beavis and Butthead skit on SNL and when they highlighted it on air it was pointless because NN is so undefinable and nobody outside PIX Plaza actually remembers it was supposed to be spoofing NN.

But as for WGN, I hope creative just refuses outright to make the entire logo pumpkin orange.

3 hours ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

If TNT doesn’t pick up a package of games, I just hope one of the other broadcasters picks up the Inside guys. It would be a shame to lose that show like this.

NBC usually does a great job with transitions (outside Al Michaels, but that's more him than him), and like NBC basically grabbing the entire ABC MNF crew when they got the Sunday night package, I would expect them to just grab most of the Turner personnel and mix with their own. And though I love Mike Breen (and it depends if they switch it to a Super Bowl-like rotation), to finally give Kevin Harlan a Finals call would be amazing alone.

On 4/25/2024 at 6:09 PM, Rusty Muck said:

Because Disney only treats WPVI as a budget line item that generates a boatload of money in revenue without any effort. Disney is only focused on Disney+ and the soulless meat packing plant that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's it.

The only reason they put WLS on UHF (their only one there outside KFSN) was because Chicago is truly OTA heavy and they had to do anything to do so because they were in the same boat as WBBM, and at least as a very last resort you can get WABC/KABC waivered on satellite.

As the sign in Wells Fargo Center says, Philadelphia is "Comcast Country" and there's a back-rub relationship to drive viewers there rather than trying to get them to watch over-the-air on that cruddy signal. For now at least you can get it on UHF through ATSC3 through WPSG, and since its in 1080p that's how you should get it anyways. But agreed, the subs they have are just needless noise and ABC should just send Localish to Internet-only at this point and relaunch weather stations.

It's so odd to see Miss USA/Teen USA finally thriving again on The CW after years in limbo post-2015...while Miss America is stuck behind a $35 paywall on a niche pageant streaming site the same way something like international sports such as kabaddi are. Before the end of the decade we may be considering Miss America history out of their stubborn pride.

On 4/22/2024 at 3:03 PM, mer764KCTV5 said:

Adell already has issues with The CW, Nexstar/Mission and The CW (Check September–November 2023) so there's no way that the CW is EVER in the near future gonna end up on Ch. 38. It's gonna end up on Ch. 4 on an subchannel; and forget about WJBK. That Fox O&O Affiliate is NEVER gonna get the CW, so is any of the Canadian stations. (CBET and CHWI)

The funniest thing to come out of this would be AMG then getting legally involved in this mess because their oldest This TV affiliate gets bumped off or moved down on WDIV, or even more comedic, the CW is stuck on WDIV-DT5 because Graham doesn't want to get their Cozi and MeTV fans tangled up in multiple channel changes either and remains loyal to Byron, Weigel and NBC.

I'd say Sunday at 6 is the perfect time; few are watching, but the ones who do will provide feedback if something went wrong, or for the 11. You never want to launch at 4 on a Monday and then everything breaks down minute one, whereas you can dump to an infomercial on Sunday evening without even a whimper.

I can confirm that logging in via Google worked just fine (along with my TVNT 2FA credentials, which I crossed my fingers would still work).

It's going to be stuck in appeal purgatory for quite awhile (and of course...2025 and a certain result can toss it completely), but the FTC has now voted to nullify all non-competes.