mrschimpf

I see station divestments...but I also see the possibility of situations such as WTLV getting ABC on DT2, WJAX hosting Fox on DT2, and then WJXX/WFOX sold off to 'minority/women ownership' KNHL-style with their 'owner' as a figurehead and their programming being contractually non-competitive. How the FCC hasn't addressed that station purchasing strategy by now after Sinclair started shifting affiliations from their sidecars...this deal is a regulatory mess that needs to set case law precedent.

Two things; •"Prime"= Amazon Prime now. Branding confusion with both the name and hashtag of #missingonprime, which leads to... •It always feels like these 'locate missing people' efforts are designed not to find people, but get out-of-work LEO 'experts' on to blather on about missing person cliches and fill an hour. Michael Corn clearly wants NN to be a 'crime network' in the vein of the '7:30 morning show murder story' rather than a news network.

And in a long sign of the times, nothing in the FAQ about an audio simulcast on 87.7, which they fought and lost to keep in 2009 (I assume once SBG came in, they said 'stop it' and ended the efforts). One good thing about the phone age is that any TV station can technically be 'on the radio' if their stream audio is converted to Bluetooth/plugged directly into a head unit.

I still remember when they did offer regular CNN( and HLN without a cable subscription, when they had Pipeline and it offered a different news-centric broadcast and CNN breaking news when required. Still a pity that service went down. Honestly, I'd be happy to just pay for CNN at $7/month (if they fix the worst of Zucker's obnoxiousness)...I don't want a watered-down news product. But I honestly still find value in a cable subscription on the TV side, where I don't even have to think about remembering a password/username combo to watch a live event.

A change that should've been made all the way back in 1994 when they bought Paramount, frankly. I never understood why they were so wed to the Viacom name, which has always been associated with 'cheap'.

You can pretty much argue mornings have been a wash to them since March '92 with all of CBS's morning efforts doing zilch, and then losing Kelly & Ryan once WFRV did to WLUK/WLUC in that short period under common Media General ownership. The Entertainment Studios filler is likely at the corporate level where they got stuck with it and backfilled the rest of the CBS schedule openings with their best shows.

The same Buzzfeed writer who exposed Ellen's issues is now after Dr. Phil in a new expose. Color me surprised that the unlicensed egomaniac that forced primetime specials and two fictional retellings of his origin story onto CBS runs an ego-centric talk show full of abuse against lower staff and guests, including the withholding of medication. But really, everything found out here is unacceptable.

Going by the building seen in the window it's the back of the building on the east Stetson Avenue side, and the last Google Street View update last summer, shows a lot of shifts of stuff in that area, including a full-scale remodeling of the back patio/entrance and tree removal. It also helps that a planned hotel project which would have gone up on that site (and cursed this new newsroom for years of construction) failed and it's remained purposefully vacant. Probably extra windows added since that update; the four-pane seen there wouldn't match to those three panes, and again, definitely a part of the site next to it remaining vacant that those windows could go in.

Rickey Smiley is based in Atlanta, thus they feel it's good for the timeslot. And for all that's said, it's very cheap (a few robo-cams with a Tricaster-like setup) and requires little time in the edit bay, fills a half-hour, and branding it as gossip makes it easier on the lawyers. Sometimes, that's all that's needed for a show to survive Fallout-style immaterial.

I would love to say that's true, but if Nexstar would love to go the 'confidential settlement' direction with Michael Corn to get him out, NewsNation would take Jeff in a heartbeat. HLN is surplus thanks to ID, so I fear another tax purpose sellout to Bill Abbott to bump up GAC Family's carriage (even though it seems like he has no damned idea what to do with his own channel outside Christmas and Valentine's Day; airing 80s sitcoms on loop the rest of the time and trying to start a 'culture war' against your old bosses at the Hallmark Channel isn't a programming direction, Bill!). And I really am not loving that CNN+ is becoming 'where the real news is'; they're giving Sanjay Gupta a show there, though he used to have a show on CNN on the weekends, another thing I hate because CNN used to have a varied non-news schedule on weekend of lots of niche shows they got rid of for docs and murder repeats. Why do they need to launch a streaming channel when they have plenty of surplus time on the main network and HLN?! Also everyone's said it; their coverage of Zucker's firing makes it seem like they lost William Randolph Hearst in a mysterious airplane crash, in his prime. They didn't help their 'pop news' rep at all this weekend.

Just in case anyone was interested in what happened if a Scripps station decided to choose the oddest colors possible for their graphics...here's WCPO with orange and black Bengals colors in their L3's. Be glad Seattle doesn't have a Scripps station or a team in the Super Bowl; they could be worse.

WKTB has had full-power standard definition simulcasts on WPXA, and now WSB because the range of the WKTB signal is anemic. But important here; they do have an existing news operation which has done well in the awards department, so Gray is smart to snap them up at that price and give them a true HD simulcast in the market, along with a local ad agency targeting minority audiences, so it's more a $15/$15 million deal for both items, not overpaying for a station on autopilot without local deviation (and which has had solid local ownership before this point willing to pay for subchannel simulcast deals to better the hand they've been dealt). Of additional note...this WGCL news share deal made with Univsion's WUVG in 2017 will likely come to an end, suggesting that it's possible the WKTB buy-out came as a result of the new TelevisaUnivision deciding to put actual resources into the WUVG news department and kill the Meredith agreement.

In 2022, that 'falling windows and breaking building' open does not look well at all.

ShopHQ was killed ASAP, and they plan to re-launch the station as it was this month, with its pre-RNN and ShopHQ management intact (see comments). Right now it seems to be carrying a simulcast of their Vuit channel, including newscasts and skycams, and extended newscasts will be naturally a part of the new KIKU schedule.

I do think they should take the opportunity to take their current physical channel number and brand WWJ by that. "CBS 21" would be a much better branding and outside a very few in the Toledo Strip who might get confused by WPTA, there wouldn't be any other objections.

CBS has an odd non-holiday Friday golf day this afternoon with the Famer's Insurance Open from San Diego; it's the third round today rather than the second, thanks to Sunday's AFC Championship (Jim Nantz will be calling the tournament from the GEHA Field at Arrowhead pressbox in Kansas City), which means everything from 5pm-8pm ET (minus an hour each time zone) will get pre-empted. WDJT in Milwaukee is thus airing the J!/WoF block at 3pm (yes, WoF at 3:30pm. Someone on Twitter expressed skepticism that this will actually happen but it's scheduled so...), while this time Dr. Phil gets the 2am shove-off. Before you ask about Boston (which may not actually happen because of this year's Noreaster of the Century about to sweep in), they're both on WSBK instead at their usual time tonight. ETA - And yes, it did air at 3:30 on WDJT.

The comic book look is so...overdone. It just feels like they wanted to have their own 'image trademark' like their buddies at Dow Jones have with their 'hedcuts' in the Wall Street Journal...but it turned out looking like a bad educational comic. I don't understand why they never beta-test these fonts either, they're too bold, and the small-caps cause eye-strain as you try to figure out what letter each is. Notably, they aren't showing any graphics involving FoxBet or their Super 6 contest in that article. One day, sports betting will be inescapable on Fox Sports, and like college rankings (I will never care that someone ranked a team #17!), they'll just add more unneeded visual clutter.

PowerNation usually doesn't air OTA outside the old Raycom base, so probably don't expect it to come there. And it's unlikely PTTVS! will be gone before September at the earliest since they still have talent contracts to fulfill on the publishing and broadcasting sides and to give Gray time to figure out if it makes more sense to keep the show as contracted, expand it chain-wide, and stop carrying ET and Access, along with fitting the existing Meredith advertorial shows more into Gray's verticals like Moms Everyday or Ask the Expert. Also to be noted; it airs on several ad-supported streaming services as part of People's "People TV" channel, so DdM might be willing to keep it going to have content for that.

They did sell out WCVI to Lilly for $85k, so they must've needed some quick cash to fight some immorality, or gave up their battle against Satan in the Virgin Islands. But I do suppose you're right there, but still, looking at others like VCY America that took full advantage of the spectrum auction, if it gives them lots of money, they'll take that to spread their message over standing still in their home market.

I think of that every time there's a CW or CBS dispute; CBS Corp. kept that station after the first Viacom split for some reason, and it isn't to give Start TV main-channel status or for their morning weather block. Also in the digital age, LeSea/Family might be a little more willing to take a major network affiliation than they were in the 90s since they can just move their main channel schedule to DT2, so WHMB could have also been a last-second candidate. Can't be pre-emptions, because most of the specials in the UP are pretty much WLUC's provence, and there's no real football or basketball team which would require special coverage. But going too far with sponsorships definitely seems like a good reason, as WFRV is very apt to do that. Green Bay has really taken to sponsorships of individual news and sports segments, but most of the stations manage to keep a good line about their 'non-official' Packers shows, while "Green and Gold Nation" is very close enough to get NFL scrutiny if they go too far. Another possibility? The market is very heavy with casino ads the numerous for regular/Native American gaming options throughout the UP and Northern Wisconsin, and with sports betting in Michigan legalized, they may have taken a few too many risky ads and sponsorships during CBS Sports coverage in local time that made CBS uncomfortable.

My error in haste; I have no idea what Rewind's schedule looks like since there's no affiliate I can get in my area (I only get WFRV through Paramount+ since CBS only assigns WDJT to cable), and that entire network launch itself was confusing so I didn't know what was Antenna-exclusive or Rewind-exclusive. That they were able to get anything as far as unique logos and the tech equipment to get it done in only three days is yeoman to me, even with P+ just being the CBS East Coast feed for Marquette right now (still remember WDJT's quick run-up in '94). Meanwhile, you could sense the shock from WJMN's news staff, and that their logo was so wed to CBS, Nexstar never thought of having a network-neutral version, where most station logos can easily have the network bug easily excised with a click...just so badly done. I also figured the .2 was the easiest place to put it for now, as Weigel was just as in the dark and has to do their own changes on the MeTV, H&I, and Start websites (along with social media notices), so Lilly gave them some time to make sure their side of the transition was clear. There's also getting streams up, both on the website and through Vuit (which means that Marquette can access their news streams outside WJMN on one website).

With WTTV in that group, imagine that Tribune spent all that money to take the affiliation away from WISH...and CBS could have taken it away yesterday and went back to WISH by this morning. This is the poker game they played and lost, AND they also lost most of their staggered contract expirations throughout the country having to accept a bulk agreement. I'm not the biggest VCBS fan, but even if broadcast television is allegedly 'declining', the networks still have all the leverage against station groups.

From the sounds of it, VCBS was hours or minutes away from giving a 'take it or leave it' offer for negotiations that had gone to overtime, and Nexstar tried to see how far they could go...and once they took it from WJMN, they cried uncle. Seeing all the well-in-advance 'we've renewed' agreements for other groups, then this rushed announcement where most of their CBS affiliate body was day-to-day since New Year's...not a good sign for Nexstar.

As for the CBS/Paramount+ feed (thanks, Chrome sensor coordinates!), if you're in Marquette, you're seeing the raw network feed, PSAs and all for now there, including dead air. Still with the WJMN logo.

At least for question #2, it's likely that Weigel has a rock-solid contract for the DT1 channel, but I would think there's wiggle room on that. But more than likely, it seems likely they wanted to keep their MeTV carriage as-is on cable and satellite, so they agreed to put it on DT2 and take new channels for that, though they are taking over the HD channel of WJMN on Spectrum (so yes, they'll have in HD by the morning; it looks like a hasty Wiki edit just to get it in the article). But I think for 1 and 3...at least with WFRV and WJMN, Nexstar has struggled with those stations, and there have been long-simmering transmitter issues going back to the digital transition, with WJMN having an unusual number of CP filings. In Green Bay, WFRV is well stuck in third place behind the WBAY/WLUK horserace, with WGBA/WACY well behind (at least news-wise, but they have the official Packers deal and NBC's ratings), which Scripps seems to be content with, and WFRV was the odd station out; it and WJMN should have gone to Four Points, then to Sinclair, but CBS sold it alone to Liberty, then to Nexstar, and since then the situation has been unsettled, especially with a lack of investment in syndicated programming for both stations. And though this belongs in spec, really, though WBAY is doing just fine with ABC, Gray would be happy to get those CBS Packer games back on WBAY and take back the Eye. With Sinclair having leverage with ABC, them taking it for WCWF wouldn't seem out of left field to me at all, leaving WFRV with either The CW or trying to go it alone as an indie news-heavy station (wholly unrelated to the CW sale). I don't want to say WJMN is making me nervous about moves in Green Bay, but the haste of the WJMN pulling suggests there might be some horse-trading or discontent between Nexstar and VCBS. As to WLUC not getting CBS; it would likely be an FCC no-go, and CBS would not want to be third priority on one station. For WBKP/WBUP, they're probably just fine with ABC/CW and saw no need to change affiliations.