mrschimpf

2 hours ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

That doesn't sound right. That's not okay especially in a smaller market like where KNEP-TV serves.

With all of the issues, it may have just come down to that there literally isn't much advertising revenue to support the station even in a part-time bureau state and they were completely under water with the station (over the years the transmitter alone was a money sink which kept breaking down in the core of winter). Some of these smaller markets are down to a state where they're stalled out to the point of ripping and reading from Nixle and Facebook for much of the show (because police and municipal authorities don't want them to go deeper than that and openly obstruct them from doing so) and the only original content left is weather (which can be outsourced) and sports (outside the high school football and basketball regular seasons just a vacuum of time).

2 hours ago, Action Newsroom said:

A standalone ESPN DTC streaming service is officially launching next fall (or as soon as next August). It'll air feeds of ESPN networks and programming, and interactive features like stats and score. Yes, is different from ESPN+.

 

https://deadline.com/2024/02/disney-espn-streaming-launch-date-bob-iger-1235818372/

I would literally pay extra for a 'clean feed' with just a simple scorebug and no tickers; every new sports service seems to think it's required to appeal to the 'prop bet on random Bangladeshi netball at 4:30 in the morning' category of bettors. I really hope that information isn't baked into the video of this service.

On 1/31/2024 at 7:45 PM, MorningNews said:

KTLA also streams on the radio. Might be an LA thing.

Should also mention WGN Radio airs the 4-6 block of channel 9's morning news in Chicago; it's a common thing for heritage/struggling stations that can't justify filling the 5am hour these days with Orion retired and Max mainly focusing on his TV duties (as their farm reports used to fill that 5am slot), and WGN starts at 4am because their overnight syndicated filler (Rich Valdes) ends at 5am ET/4am CT. There are some set aside periods for the radio side to contribute their own traffic reports and you have to assume that the TV side adjusts their presentation knowing that radio listeners can't see images on-screen.

And it just makes me sad that WGN and KABC (which is so badly-rated Cumulus is embarrassed to ask Nielsen rate it) have to depend on TV stations to fill time now.

3 hours ago, LOWERCASE GUY said:

Nah. Too short of a URL

thefinestcitywiththefineststationsintheworldfromthefineestbroadcasterinamerica.com

On 1/17/2024 at 11:22 AM, mrschimpf said:

It really just buys time for the online components; if Spectrum drops them in February, expect the dominoes to fall and for other providers to follow, which is why the NBA set aside games later in the year for other outlets. In Wisconsin, Spectrum is the majority provider, and there is absolutely no way the Bucks or Brewers would stay on Bally if that occurs. Fubo carriage can only overcome so much and it's still going to take several months for Diamond to move from "Baby's First RSN CMS System" (which is pretty much been trashed to hell and back by the Bucks fanbase) to AWS.

And now it's been confirmed; ten games this season among WDJT, WMLW, and Telemundo Wisconsin in Milwaukee, with outer markets still TBA;
 

19 hours ago, Glimmer said:

There was a tidbit in one of the articles when this was going into the market that CMV was telling stations with the current Judge Judy package NOT to pick up Judy Justice; kinda wonder if that’s the reason why a lot of the current Judge Judy station groups passed on this 

Since all the episodes are available on-demand lately it's probably more that than anything rather than CBS mob-tacting them; at the end of the day it's yet another 'if you haven't seen it, it's new to you' syndicated package that fills an easy hour and captures the audience which doesn't want to deal with Freevee. And it certainly isn't original content in 2024.

What is CBS going to do, take away their Dr. Phil reruns? No, not the Dr. Phil reruns from 2018 we air at 4am anyways that OWN and Pluto also air and will clog Merit Street soon, please don't take those.

43 minutes ago, kjohnson said:

If we are "news saturated" that seems to be news to people here.  A quick look at any newscast that KMOV has proves a lot of news is being left on the table. KPLR isn't really producing much of anything, other than essentially a rebroadcast of the previous KTVI newscast. It's leaving KSDK and the Post-Dispatch to find rest of the news out there, but they don't have the resources. We need another functioning newsroom. Spectrum News doesn't really have any sort of obvious presence.

St. Louis before the traditional 'cable guys' got their hands on Charter and moved it to CT is still in many ways, Spectrum's true 'home' market Charter-wise; it's really surprising that they haven't had a Spectrum News outpost in STL for years, and it seems like a severely missed opportunity. I know the big three organizations seem to 'serve' enough, but it's a very entrenched and conservative market where even changing the graphics (as KMOV just did) is akin to a gaudy plastic surgery to the market core in St. Louis County. Some kind of competitor would be welcome, but they have to balance the city and county viewers and find a niche that works.

KDNL's move meanwhile isn't shocking as for their netlet/lower Big Four stations, SBG prefers a small studio to do what they need to do for commercial clients and the occasional public affairs show. I would worry about deferred maintenance for those Cole St. studios though.

58 minutes ago, ATLNewsExpert said:

Since when as "MTP" been rebroadcast on Cozi TV? Just seen that when scrolling. 

I think that was a listing error; had the same old "Bones" marathon for me; they may have accidentally confused the KXAS Cozi channel for the national one because there was a Texas high school sports show after it.

6 hours ago, Weeters said:

If ABC was truly that concerned about St. Louis, then the affiliation would have been taken elsewhere a long time ago. ABC could have even bought a station and started their own news operation if they were that concerned.

And that is a whole lot less important considering ABC News's current direction; if we were talking 2005 ABC post-Jennings with Charlie Gibson and such, that could have been a priority to tie into. But with their news division now hyperfocused on weather, crime, and politics, there's less of a need to drive that full-day viewing, and pragmatically they'd still be deep in fourth even if the news division wasn't mothballed and went through the News Central and 'fake news cold read' eras unchanged with Sinclair.

The move towards streaming and Hulu also makes it easy to just be happy with what you can get through KDNL, and both Disney syndies, Kelly and Mark and Tamron are on their schedule in the morning; whatever complaints they have about three hours (!) of talk/court reruns (!!) in the afternoon and TND, as long as they have viewers back at 7 or online, that's more important now than building around a low-rated news operation, and after The Allman Report, they're probably just glad that Sinclair has stopped messing around with news at all in St. Louis.

6 hours ago, mre29 said:

Maybe Weigel could be convinced to make room for it on KNLC or Scripps could take it for WRBU.

Realistically, Scripps is pretty much done with developing news beyond their odd Alden/Gannettized 'evergreen for the siding companies instead of breaking' direction; an "ABC 46" would make WGBA look like a juggernaut in comparison.

I could still see Weigel do it for KNLC, but the studio issue would be a lot to overcome (do you build in town, on the edge of town, or deep in St. Louis County?), but the problem is the market, where you have to provide enough news coverage of St. Louis City that would be original and worthwhile, but also have to deal with balancing St. Louis County and MetroEast coverage and not alienating those viewers by being too St. Louis-focused (a major issue with Midwest cities).

There has to be a niche to stand out, and unfortunately the only one in STL that stands out right now is the 'cancelled' one Larry Connors, Jamie Allman and Vic Faust have honed, and that isn't Weigel at all. For them outside of dealing whatever wacky things the NLEC does on their second sub in the public file, they probably have fewer headaches just dealing with common MeTV complaints about commercials and schedules and such than dealing with ABC complaints.

You would think Sinclair would be 'all-in' on this new "ARC" concept, but nineteen days later...KUNS is still KUNS, referring to an affiliation it no longer has, while their website for Univision Seattle, along with the domain name, remains up as a dead site, which Sinclair has refused to transfer to Weigel, and the move to KVOS was a short footnote at the end of a newscast that most Spanish viewers already tuned out of because of that betrayal.

There's not even an ARC Seattle section up on KOMO's website at all; its only presence on the entire web (behind several other results for 'ARC Seattle') is a low-viewed YouTube playlist on KOMO. Not even its own channel, but a playlist of videos. For all intents and purposes for the web, channel 51 in Seattle no longer exists, along with the CW in Seattle; they were better off just keeping it on Comet for all the lack of effort they put into this all.

Meanwhile, the Fox renewal that was seemingly less controversial this time (as in no oddball Ion backup plan) reads to me as Fox just not seeing them as any competition to speak of at all for right-wing news. They don't even consider them competition at all.

On 1/17/2024 at 9:06 PM, AmericanErrorist said:

The action isn't against Nexstar but specifically Mission, and the Loudens haven't had these issues.

Yes, but they're not the issue; Mission specifically is and just came from a retrans fine, and you hope the Loudens have made it clear that they will make sure all of the duties are properly carried out, and hopefully they still negotiate RTC itself.

19 minutes ago, TVLurker said:

The RSN nightmare continues.

It really just buys time for the online components; if Spectrum drops them in February, expect the dominoes to fall and for other providers to follow, which is why the NBA set aside games later in the year for other outlets. In Wisconsin, Spectrum is the majority provider, and there is absolutely no way the Bucks or Brewers would stay on Bally if that occurs. Fubo carriage can only overcome so much and it's still going to take several months for Diamond to move from "Baby's First RSN CMS System" (which is pretty much been trashed to hell and back by the Bucks fanbase) to AWS.

Just to follow up on my worst fears, he had his first all-hands meeting today, dragged the entire staff, and went on and on about how he wanted the paper to be Fox 45, but in print. And that his favorite token sidecar/subfarm operator Armstrong Williams (who also took a token stake here) is "a good writer".

Not really broadcasting related, but certainly big news in Baltimore, even with the Sun's decline and influence. The sale and operation is independent of SBG, but the lack of regulatory muscle makes that a comically short hurdle to overcome.

14 minutes ago, Adam MadMan said:

And Kevin Adell's chance of consummating his deal to sell WADL has gone from jack squat to jack...y'know.

He'll sell off eventually, but instead of the big payday he expected like he did when he gutted 910 to become the market's conservative failure station, he's going to soon find Innovate, TCT or WRNN are the only ones wanting to buy. And it'll be interesting to see where Nexstar's equivalent deal with KAZT actually goes.

He had a golden goose in 1994, but those days are long gone.

36 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It's pretty sad that a company as deeply rooted as Scripps is doing this at their TV stations across the country.

Especially in Tulsa with KTUL already white-flagging out; KOTV and KOKI probably appreciate the added viewership, but likely hate the burden put on them because their competitors can't bother with actual news coverage. I'd also love to see how that'll go during tornado and hurricane season, and instead KJRH is airing something about some old building or a cookie shop, while KOKH struggles to cover 2/3rds of the state without diluting the warning coverage quality, and you already saw WFTX struggling with their last coverage thanks to deep cuts.

11 hours ago, ATLNewsExpert said:

Not bad! Like the still Falcons transition WSB used today. Hope that transition animates nicely! Like that infographic here too!

 

IMO from what we've seen this looks like Scripps News meets NewsNation.

The font and look reads to me like a copy of the Fox O&O graphics; if you took away all branding and asked me to compare WSB to WAGA, I would be hard-pressed to tell the difference outside the "5", which has a signature look with Fox's Neue Plck font which isn't in the Coxpollo package.

4 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

I was also surprised at HBO's ratings were that low despite the critical acclaim of a lot of their shows. 

Don't forget though this is counting all 168 hours of programming a week for HBO; they might get great ratings during those two-three nights of primetime, but otherwise it's the 478th replay of "88 Minutes" or "Now You See Me 2". Most of those customers use HBO's VOD service or Max outside those hours. Same with Showtime or Starz; by design those ratings are low because the need to follow a schedule has long been negated and is just there more for DVR scheduling a movie you want to see and FF/rewind without cable VOD restrictions, than actual organic tune-in.

Yet another jump of the affiliation in Phoenix; KAZT will take over on February 1. Nexstar will provide services.

On 1/6/2024 at 10:30 PM, CoopInTheHouse said:

A small surprise was Hogar De HGTV at 154th and Galanovelas at 148th. Hell, the most watched Spanish network of 2023 was UNIVISION at 7th. Just goes to show how Spanish-speaking people don’t respect good TV these days, even if it’s in Español. (Except the telenovelas that has the same amount of budget as the cost of a Subway footlong).

Hogar is more severe undermarketing than anything else; it was intended to have a broader launch, but WBD happened and Zazlav probably starved its budget and like Discovery Family, it's probably stuck in the hands of some middle manager who doesn't speak any Spanish. And the latter is mainly because it's Spanish TV Land where the same older novelas are ran over and over and the network is a loss leader for TU; they don't really look at the ratings for it at all.

Cheddar is going through cutbacks and furloughs itself; you can argue most of the regular business audience has long moved onto more niche services and platforms such as Reddit, leaving these networks to adjust to the most mainstream audience (thus the graphics changes), or like Fox Business, being a barely-disguised annex of their mother news channel. Why wait for your favorite stock to appear on a ticker when you can just call it up easily on any device?

They're usually viewed in public places, but you're beginning to see that slip; many McDonald's over the last few months have switched from the cable news channels to Atomsphere TV, a service purposefully designed to just be visual informative noise without any of the 'here's a story, and now a partisan debate' claptrap of cable news. Businesses are finally realizing that live TV in a public place is just a pointless expense when someone will pay to have you put their experience in for free.

1 hour ago, CTrey98 said:

Not a good move from a fan prospective. The MLB does better than Bally's when it comes to producing the broadcasts, but their pay to watch structure has been a pain for DBacks and Padres fans. Rockies fans will experience the same thing. 

MLB has arranged carriage of games on regular cable TV (usually on the spare channel on cable systems carrying news or filler content), and it's only a gametime broadcast rather than wrapped around wobbly Jenga content to create a 24/7 'regional sports network' that's anything but (if that was true, legend's tennis and poker would not have a home). You're paying the same cost for Bally anyways, so it might as well go to a quality game broadcast than countless fishing and poker shows.

The major issue I have with the editorial is it focuses too much on all these Big Four issues, when the major problem are these subfarm broadcasters like H2/Edge/DTV America, along with Coastal and WRNN that should be operating stations in the local interest, but instead have bought out stations to turn into subchannel farms of absolute low-effort IPTV crap run by the same kinds of people who have made the Internet an advertising hellscape. Or with Coastal and Sinclair, have completely garbage newscasts recorded during studio downtime that are viewer-repellant. Edge Spectrum has been tolling out CP's for nearly 6-8 years with no intention of actually broadcasting, while H2 has wound down networks for filler crap like Timeless TV and Vision Latina and absolutely refused to be competitive.

Even Tegna, Scripps and Sinclair are complicit with this, as outside Ion the rest of their channels are reality glurge only there for advertising slots, and instead of multiple networks like Twist dying because there's nobody watching, they're being replaced with more things nobody is watching.

There should be a local broadcaster running these stations, and the religious broadcasters should be serving their community. They aren't, and the FCC is at least trying something. I understand the justification being the Main Studio Rule repeal, but there should be some kind of local programming on these stations, and not just 'I called some NPO to drone 20 minutes about their stuff, we're good' malicious compliance. There are YouTubers in those communities that could probably fulfill those guidelines better in themselves.

Just stop consolidating and racing to the bottom, broadcasters. You see what happened to radio; don't try to even venture near that result.

3 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

News is being restored to KDNL. They are running The National Desk at 6am, 5pm and 10pm starting January 1st.

The ratings however, will remain elusive as always. ABC still deserves better.

1 hour ago, AmericanErrorist said:

Paramount and Comcast quietly reached a carriage deal starting New Year's Day:

 

https://deadline.com/2023/12/comcast-paramount-reach-carriage-renewal-averting-blackout-1235683726/

I still don't understand how you only make a two-year deal and call it a 'multiyear' deal, especially when RTC deals are usually on a three-year cycle. The two-year cycle suggests either some acrimony from Comcast that they now prefer bi-yearly deals, and certainly panic on Paramount's side so they can keep the unseen lights on for a few of their zombie networks as long as possible.

Going by current year-end cable rankings (the one Variety article I must read at the end of the year), Nick/@ Nite went from being ranked in the lower top 10-top 20 to now #54 by average. There is no literal kid's cable market any longer outside rare events and several series, and by the time any deal for PG is finished, CBS, Paramount+ with Showtime and the library will be the only value left.

On another note, that 21% drop-off for The CW versus Ion and Me is concerning. I expected a drop, but not that hard.