mrschimpf

Considering WLBT's Civil Rights Era history of being unapologetically racist to the point of FCC license revocation threats and an entire housecleaning of management...no sympathy for Barbie here. If this is some other station and an outlier incident, a warning would be fine, but she should know both her station's turbulent history and her own HR issues of the past.

And it's all over; Newsmax will be back on DirecTV tomorrow, with the agreement also specifying that the free network availability on everything from YouTube and every AVOD service up to barbecue grills and Yeti coolers being ended in the coming months.

4 hours ago, bixpchiphead said:

Take that up with Fans of the Stillers, Pirates  and Penguins, all the same black and gold...

And whoever created the city's flag and seal...who got them from William Pitt's standard. that's where the colors came from in the first place.

33 minutes ago, mightynine said:

Wonder if they got a C&D by this Weather Command:

 

https://www.weathercommand.com/

I was waiting for this to happen since that company has been around for decades.

3 hours ago, wabceyewitness said:

Exactly what I was thinking. He’s still on air so there’s no way for him to claim right now that they’re sidelining him. They can ask him to report from the field or any other studio as they please … I’m sure we’ll see a “Rob Marciano has departed ABC News and we thank him for his contributions to our organization” statement in the near future. 
 

 

Yeah, this is much more likely; better to just run out the clock. And most likely, the harassed employee is a lot more important to GMA to retain rather than a guy who they can replace with a surplus of available talent who is drama-free.

8 hours ago, Daybreak said:

WOW...There has to be more to it because how swiftly they got rid of Amy and TJ, they cannot possibly allowed this to go on and he's still on the air? 

I'd assume it was a three-party deal where the victim pretty much said 'fine, but if he comes near me again' and management said he wouldn't and blocked him from TSS. He's more a roving weather reporter anyways so his in-studio appearances were limited to begin with (usually he's stuck near the GWB for a location shot, as Ginger does for WNT within sight of the Tappan Zee).

On 3/15/2023 at 1:13 PM, johnothy said:

Does this mean Dr. Phil is no longer in production with new shows?  It seems odd that the show wouldn't even finish out the season with new shows through May.  KDKA is wasting no time with a replacement.

It's replacing a couple of Family Feud episodes on WPCW; probably more that the station would rather have local control than waste yet another hour about exaggerated 'horrible teens on TikTok'.

Just as I feared...YouTube TV is up to $73.

The Texas Rangers are proceeding to walk away from Bally after the bankruptcy.

38 minutes ago, JCB4TV said:

The article is paywalled, yet, Astros, Rockets negotiating to take over AT&T SportsNet Southwest.

Which essentially resets (outside of Comcast) the channel's original ownership group, funnily enough. Unlike when the channel started though, the Astros are in a much better financial (and competitive) position here, and you don't need to bang a trash can to know that.

If the carriage of KAUT (with its dead "Freedom 43" military gimmick that somehow continues from the Zell era unscathed) and KZUP-CD (a dog of an LP station that has no reason to exist) increases YTTV prices nationwide, there aren't going to be a lot of happy viewers out there. Good that they got their CW and MNTV affiliates lit up (which should have been there at launch) along with their Big Six market stations, but I fear the RTC costs will make this a poor value for the service going forward outside Nexstar.

I doubt it's because nobody's watching, but more that Jewelry TV is offering much more money for the space than the A&E programming license fee has justified two separate gendered networks so far. At the end of the day, it's a rerun feed and Scripps isn't going to dump money into a network that's doing nothing, when JTV can dump money into them and give a sales cut.

Also most of TR's programming was the dregs of A&E, and they ran away from Dance Moms once it became clear everyone in the cast outside Abby would just like it to die.

34 minutes ago, Nelson R. said:

 

If I wanted to watch Dateline I would watch it in syndication or on MyNetwork TV.

At the same time; there are cases where you can see it in syndication, on MyNet, Oxygen, True Crime Network, ID and the Peacock Dateline channel! 

9 hours ago, TexasTVNews said:

 

She can get PO'd all she wants, but the deal will die and that's that.

And she hasn't lead the organization since the 90s. Why ask for support from someone who was never in the post-Comm Act age?!

2 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

New M&A.

 

Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc. (owners of the Spanish TV network Mega TV) is selling its stations in Florida (WSBS-TV & WSBS-CD) and Puerto Rico (WTCV and its satellites) to Voz Media, Inc. for $29M ($19M for the FL stations and $10M for the PR stations).

Going by just a check of their website they pretty much sold out to the Real America's Voice for Spanish speakers. This may be as interesting as that radio sale in Miami a few months ago to watch (as in either a trainwreck or fireworks).

2 hours ago, T.L. Hughes said:

The CW claims the network’s first LIV tournament broadcast averaged more than 3.2 million viewers across linear and digital during the period from February 24-26. (Note that the data cited used info from iSpotTV and internal results by both The CW and LIV.)

I do love when a company cites 'the numbers are up some certain percent from the programming that previously aired there'...and the comparison is literal infomercials, 'E/I' programming, outdoors shows that take 28 minutes to shoot a deer or catch and release a fish, and the 854 sports profile shows which have seemed to suddenly become endemic on weekend CW/MNTV schedules. There is nobody under 60 without a streaming service watching those stations on weekend afternoons.

1 hour ago, Adam MadMan said:

And here comes the defense squad.

Yeah, because iCrime, the Bryron Allen SAG Card Court Show Mill and The Balancing Act are the most illustrious programs on broadcast television, Harry. Pleeeeeease! It's a bad deal for everyone.

2 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

All this could have been avoided, by the way, if CBS ordered Entercom to change KDKA’s calls when it was sold. Sinclair made KOMO radio do just that when it was sold to Lotus, so nothing is sacred.

I'm surprised it was a twenty-year grant of trademark for Audacy rather than just five. At least one situation's seemed to go well outside CBS; WTMJ-TV is "TMJ4", and WTMJ is still "Newsradio 620", and they both made clean breaks, while KMOV just changed it back in 1988 after being sold to Viacom I and there's never been an issue between them and 1120.

Meanwhile there wasn't much issue with the WBBM stations in Chicago (which has finished the "Newsradio 105.9" transition without much issue, and B-96 just mentions calls at the top of the hour). And KYW...at least "CBS 3"/"KYW Newsradio" is easy enough to differentiate. Even WCBS is fine with "CBS2", "CBS-FM" and "Newsradio 88" (which feels like it'll be sold off sooner than later with the WINS newsroom merger).

Then you have branding disasters like the LA/SF KCBS situation I mentioned a few pages back, and the WBZ stations with '''three''' different owners (and an FM with headache-inducing sports hot takes a la KDKA). The KDKA mess is a quagmire that can only be fixed with either a format blow-up (not happening) or AM being sunsetted (more likely), while KDKA-FM just kinda exists without a provocative sports format.

And this isn't CBS-related, but Disney just needs to pay off Cumulus already to yank the KGO calls of 810; they in no way should be associated with degenerates talking about betting on Montana State-Glendive vs. Central Tennessee Presbyterian girl's volleyball, and KABC might as well just be sold off to VCY already because it wouldn't even be a good station under Salem. WABC just has too much tradition and differentiation, though (not a station I'd listen to, but at least the billionaire is putting in effort there).

ESPN's version of the pitch clock; a little more naturally integrated into the box and it slides in and out (though since it's the first game they've done it's taken the producer a bit to remember 'oh yeah, pitch clock graphic, shoot!' and slide it in).

I expected low numbers, but not to the extent that an Ole Miss/Mississippi State Raycom game in Montana would get. There are Gravitas/Pureflix weekend movie packages that have better ratings, yeesh!

I tuned in for a few moments out of curiosity, and the presentation remains confusing (golf teams, but someone wins? And a crowded NASCAR-esque scoreboard) and it felt like something that was created to fill time on Golf Channel.

1 hour ago, Myron Falwell said:

Here's the thing. This deal would have failed anyway with or without Gigi: a 2-2 deadlock still sinks the deal.

 

Standard General and Apollo had one full year to get this right. Either party could have offered to divest market conflicts in Atlanta, Seattle and Jacksonville. Apollo could have asked the deal be amended so they don't get WFAA, KHOU, etc. Standard could have offered Graham an olive branch and their pick of a station or offered them a stake in the company. Soo could have shown the bare minimum of humility and self-awareness instead of saying the same boilerplate talking points over and over again.

 

This is a textbook case of how NOT to conduct an M&A. Soo came off as a belligerent novice in the field of business that for some inexplicable reason previously managed to merge Young, LIN and MediaGeneral out of existence.

At the very least he could've just been honest and DT2'ed an affiliation onto one station like Sinclair has done. It's brutal and turns a station into the equivalent of a bot under whichever widget salesman now 'owns' the station slumming it with Dabl, but it would have passed the FCC. I hate to say it (as they deal with Diamond because they had to do that deal or the great RSN reckoning would've happened in 2020, not now), but Sinclair learned their lesson the hard way with the Trib merger and now their DT2 strategy is FCC-smart. Stantegnox was never going to be a reality in this environment, under this setup, and with as much horse-trading as the hard computer in a Monopoly video game just being brutal.

Bally just going with the 'we have until April' mode of where to put the pitch clock (this is on the Brewers broadcast).

I think what the PR doesn't say is (or the trades) is whether the show will remain in Chicago at NBC Tower or not, or moving shooting somewhere else like WCIU (Weigel's non-subfarm stations have carried him through his entire run and they probably pushed for Byron to get him in exchange for bulk renewals). If it is that, and they continue to pursue regular cases (the Judge Mathis case submission page is still live), then maybe Byron is giving the show a budget? Or at least letting Chicago TV actors do something besides slumming it in the One Chicagoverse?

On 2/10/2023 at 12:23 PM, CircleWXYZ said:

Just speculation, based on some questionable decisions WDIV has made, in relation to NBC.

If these rumors were true NBC would have left them long ago during the '94 affiliation switch. Yes they do pre-empt stuff, but it's 2023; whatever they pre-empt is on Peacock within hours, the days of Matlock movie pre-emptions for make-goods are over, and it's local programming pre-empting NBC shows, not whatever screed Franklin Graham has cued up to air nationally. WDIV and NBC are fine.

As for the Rich Fields stuff it makes the move to George Gray make much more sense in hindsight.

I continue to be amazed by WDIV; still carrying This on their DT2 after all these years, but they took it for their MeTV channel instead. And I'm guessing Adell probably played hardball as usual and they were like 'nah, we don't need WADL' in Detroit.

And if you absolutely bet on KUSI taking the rights you would be rich...it's the least-shocking result with that station.