mrschimpf

WTMJ seems to have adjusted show opening graphics; instead of the 'one still picture or drone pan, slogans, then fade in to logo' they've had for the past year, it now features multiple images in the open, then the logo in the background with the show title up-front. Also noticing that they have several new chroma-key backgrounds for anchor stand-ups.

ETA - The 5 p.m. open seems to be normal...it looks like the station is experimenting with a new 4 p.m. hour format with Tom Mustin co-anchoring NOW-like national stories from KMGH with local mentions of WTMJ for...some reason? Is this why they ditched the 3:30 show, to try this now?

1 hour ago, LoadStar said:

Guess this is the best thread for it... unless I'm wrong, it looks like for the coverage of the Derek Chauvin verdict, Spectrum News 1 has a national feed going out on the regional news channels. First time I've seen them do live national coverage.

Nationalized coverage has become standard with these types of stories on the Spectrum News networks; usually it's hosted out of either NY1 or the Washington bureau, and of course they do simulcasts of items such as the SOTU and press conferences depending on the local op's discretion.

52 minutes ago, TheRob said:

 

Robert Feder's eulogy talking more about Davis's role in vitalizing WGN News in their superstation era.

6 hours ago, noggi said:

WDJT marks 25 years as Milwaukee's last place news station:

 

https://cbs58.com/news/cbs-58-news-marks-25-years-on-the-air?fbclid=IwAR1PTLD4h5zRwEU6gj0XUrau3zphvSo37rg8t1F90SGva9NTYZtnxqIWqiQ

 

Really, does it need to be phrased so negatively here? They're in my market and they could be a lot worse, like WGCL worse or WWJ-TV non-existent, and they have management which is willing to spend. And when WTMJ is in the market continuing to drag it down, I'd rather watch a great fourth-place news operation trying hard than a third-place one we know can do 250% better (and has). They got to 25 years; there were times we were praying they got to 10 or even five, so it's a major accomplishment to me.

On 4/10/2021 at 1:26 AM, DENDude said:

Is it me or does Nexstar seem to be afraid of digital?  What I mean is, you don't see nexstar stations trying new digital things & live streaming appears to be very inconsistent across nexstar stations .   While KDVR did launch "FOX31 NOW" that is just an online stream & it's minimal effort at that, mainly traffic accidents, weather ect.  

I still remember locally that Liberty Media had a great website and streaming presence for WFRV...and it was gone the moment Nexstar closed on their deal. In 2021, their video presence is pretty much confined to a hard-to-find link on their website, and their live player is so janky, it's better to just adjust your location on Paramount+ if you pay for it, and stream WFRV that way.

I still remember a few years back the WFRV social media guy arguing on Twitter with public @'s towards the holder of the (at)wfrv account who was willing to sell it to Nexstar at a reasonable price (yes, don't take the offer and just get legal to dot those I's and T's to get it)...and now the account is suspended, meaning Nexstar will likely have to pay a lot if they ever want to reduce their address down from the bulky (at)wfrvlocal5

On 3/24/2021 at 3:06 PM, Jakob said:

I noticed that WRGT (now a MyNetworkTV/Dabl station) is simulcasting the 7AM and 8AM news from the Fox subchannel. The rest of there programing is Dabl programing and MyNetworkTV programing weeknights between 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM.

Seems like a contractual requirement of the LMA agreement or to fulfill some well-hidden public affairs remit as part of their license. It seems likely Spectrum also isn't happy to be carrying a Dabl station with main-channel two-digit carriage and asked them to air something local on that station.

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

And since this is Sinclair we're talking about, I wonder what station or cluster will be responsible for the studio portion?  The others in the region seem to have their hands full or like WOLF are coming out of others like South Bend....

WHAM seems the closest that makes any sense and they already provide weather segments.

2 hours ago, Samantha said:

Louisville looks like a tough one to crack as it does not have many LPTVs.

If not a station purchase, as WMYO-CD has always tried to program for the Indiana side of the market (including an INN newscast in the late 2000s on their old sister station WWJS-CD), I could see them push for WISH simulcasts on their schedule. WBNA is also a possibility.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

What could go down at KFDM just goes to show you why Sinclair is in the predicament it's in.....

 

Not only did they take over KBTV (thanks to Nexstar selling it out to Deerfield)

 

They made a major expansion at their facility about 5 years ago...

 

which is located RIGHT on the access road by a major junction of I-10....

 

Then came the "move" of KBTV to KFDM, consolidating their grip over both stations.....

 

And now this.  What a waste.

How do you not realize that placing a TV studio next to a major highway interchange for a coast-to-coast highway, especially in Texas, where 12-lane highways are always in planning, is a bad idea? Then decide to expand that building without a simple check with TxDOT to see if they plan to expand the road in the next decade?

Talk about the ultimate in bad planning. I know there are stations along interstate or equivalent highways, but they're usually placed on stretches where an interchange isn't ever going to go (WGBA or WMTV) or far and overlooking it (WWLP, WVIT, WCVB), not where a 0-digit interstate changes from north to east and is forever being finessed to fix a curve.

2 hours ago, Jakob said:

I'm not sure if this was mentioned already, but WVAH is now a affiliate of Decades. Fox programing moved to WCHS DT-2. According to Wikipedia (I know there not a reliable source) Sinclair didn't give a reason for the change at all. This happened in the beginning of February.

Likely related to Columbus, Cedar Rapids and Dayton; WCHS is Sinclair, WVAH is Cunningham. Both are on UHF, so there's otherwise no technical reason for it.

1 hour ago, Surplus Engineer said:

It's about money. If they looked at the books when they were making the Ion purchase and saw that Qubo and Ion Plus were losing money and HSN/QVC were in the black, then guess what they keep.

They probably would have kept Ion Shop if it made them money too. You know somewhere in Scripps, there's someone who currently has a lot of regrets they didn't keep Shop at Home or the O&O stations that used to make up that network (along with viewers, since most went to the RNN infomercial/one talk show network or TCT).

1 hour ago, Samantha said:

 

I suspect that, in the coming days, a lot of the subchannels that are duplicated between Scripps-owned stations in the local division and the Scripps national muxes will move over for good. You have to think they are working to have a standard mux of channels but that the existing carriage agreements with other multiplex holders (such as Univision) are impeding them.

 

Keep in mind that in 2017, Univision signed a renewal with Katz until 2024. So it could be quite a while.

I forgot another issue; Journal used to be really stingy with subchannels with Charter and Time Warner, so in a few places like ex-Charter markets, they've never had any subchannels on their systems, and Scripps hasn't corrected that oversight, so they're going into a situation in some markets where they have to deal with both Ion and Journal's negotiating errors restricting thier leverage to get the Katz networks on. My system only has Bounce TV from WMLW, and lost Grit when WCGV went off the air, so we're literally missing most of the suite in my market.

End of an era in Milwaukee...master control for WTMJ/WGBA/WACY is now at WRTV in Indy (and KMTV in Omaha is now out of WTKR/Norfolk).

With the Good Karma Radio stations beginning to plan a move downtown and no more HQ uses, Radio City is going to have the reverse problem from KMGH...too much room, but the space gained is likely way too small for personnel and television studio uses.

2 hours ago, Requiere said:

I honestly feel as though Scripps did not think this through. There are now three CourtTV Mysteries, one on WPTV, one on WFLX, and one on WPXP.

I pity the poor cable companies tomorrow that have to either take 'why am I not getting (new network) that just popped up on Ion' because of their painful dependence on must-carry agreements on the main channel, having three of the same network on because Ion plopped Ion Life on a main channel in the market that used to be TBN/CW/some other network, or missing channels because you know there will be a station carrying a Katz subchannel that'll be like 'well (bleep) you too' and throw it off their lineup in spite the moment the clock strikes 6 tomorrow morning.

Milwaukee's situation is such a mess with the Katz networks spread among WTMJ, WMLW and WPXE, and Green Bay the same with WGBA, WACY, WFRV, along with existing coverage of Ion on WBAY that you know will be gone soon to create another Ion/MyNet Frankenstein lineup on WACY.

13 hours ago, LoadStar said:

Did the Brewers really have a viable option other than Sinclair/Bally Sports?

 

As far as cable channels, there isn't really an alternative to the RSNs, and Bally Sports is the only one in this area.

Spectrum News 1 was really the only other choice as a statewide cable network, and that came with the handicap that it would only be on Spectrum, so the Brewers really had no choice. And going with Weigel would've meant re-stringing together a disparate network of broadcast stations which outside of WMLW, would've been likely a bunch of subchannels already in flux with the Quincy deal and minus Sinclair stations.

The Brewers already saw what a disaster Victory Sports One was for the Twins; there was no way they'd launch a one-team RSN in 2021.

The Brewers are sticking with Bally Sports Wisconsin on a multi-year agreement (though how many years hasn't been announced). No on-air changes to personnel. The Marlins remain up in the air with a 2021 TV deal with BS Florida/Sun.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Despite all of the options out there, there still seems to be no perfect TV option. 

 

Going way back into the dark ages of cable tv (for me) was the 40-channel Warner cable lineup that split CNBC with WKBN out of Youngstown and C-SPAN 2 with BET.  That soon expanded to 70-ish channels with a new fiber optic platform, and to the temporary disgust of their customers, a cable box REQUIRED for any channel above basic.  They soon relented, and moved the expanded basic back to unscrambled, and kept the higher tiers on the box. 

I still remember the days where we had to have a box because our city's build out had "A" and "B" lines which required an A/B switch and made recording from a VCR a guessing game (I went on a vacation hoping I recorded the ALF finale movie on ABC on the A side...only to come home to two hours of Saturday night CNBC on the B side). Despite that, we still had some split channels into the 90s until Charter bought our provider and implemented one-line service, then digital cable. And we didn't even get BET until 2012 locally.

And in that time, we've lost channels because our city was classified as a Milwaukee market city, but Green Bay channels are also in our market, so as networks who don't care about decades-long relationships between viewer and stations, we lost the UPN/MyNet, CBS and Fox stations from Green Bay because of network greed. Thankfully streaming for most of them makes catching their news easy (except for Nexstar stations), but it's aggravating to pay so much a month for all this service and your provider doesn't want to deal with blackout hassles just to keep offering a Fox station from out-of-market, lest they lose Fox News next time because of bitterness on Rupert's end.

2 hours ago, Samantha said:

KBCB Bellingham, WA, is being sold to Radiant Life Ministries for $7.74 million. It had been owned by Venture Technologies.

 

That valuation definitely reflects the fact that Vancouver and Victoria are in the signal contour...

Not much of a loss from the $10 million Fox was going to buy it for in 2014 when they needed a backstop just in case they couldn't get the terms they wanted from Tribune for KCPQ pre-Nexstar purchase.

Fox of course is pretty happy now with not having to run "Fox 24 Seattle" and a WBTS-esque mess of a translator network with a main tower 80 miles from downtown.

1 hour ago, Kenneth Kissel said:

If this is the case, Why does DirecTV and Dish have the option to get the NY and LA locals in most satellite plans for an additional fee? 

All addressed by the STELA act; local stations have blackout rights to overlay O&O's, no matter what, and you have to go through a process that includes actual U.S. mail in order to convince your local station (even a MyNetworkTV affiliate) to watch an OOM station such as WWOR or WABC, and you have to show literal proof, including pictures, documentation and video to show 'yeah, I can't get this station at all by antenna, I can't get cable which offers it, and I'm out of range of a streamer to get this station'...and maybe they'll approve your request, but that's also a crapshoot.

1 hour ago, channel2 said:

I'm also under the impression that the TV business has more or less given up on children's shows on linear. Cartoon Network has basically packed it in (if only they hadn't ditched the multi-generational angle they had in their salad days!). The Disney Channel and its offshoots seem to be dying on the vine. Nickelodeon is still one of ViacomCBS's crown jewels and that NFL simulcast indicates some sort of self-preservation instinct. The fact that they have so eagerly flogged their '90s heyday and decided that we didn't have our fill of Rugrats in 1999 helps.

 

Scripps bought ION because it's cheap and hugely profitable. Qubo will never be a factor without significant investment, and reruns of 20-year-old Nelvana shows aren't going to cut it.

It's pretty much a certainty after this next retransmission cycle, Disney Channel and Disney XD are done. They've already killed the channels in Europe, Australia and Asia for a Disney+ focus, and it's only accelerating since COVID-19 (the only advantage Disney Channel has right now is its live-action shows are closed-set by design). Cartoon Network is losing product to HBO Max, and Nick is surviving on SpongeBob reruns and stunts.

Qubo also tried the multi-gen strategy with the Filmation library earlier in their history, but for the most part the nostalgia of He-Man was of the 'only thing on for kids at the time of day' type of nostalgia rather than it being good, so it died off.

But what did kill off Qubo was the horrid management of the 'i for Infomercial' era of Ion which decided to go hard on must-carry of their main network, but shrugging off carriage of the subchannel networks when there was plenty of room for carriage, despite plenty of viewer demand for it at the time. Once the digital transition came and other station groups and network owners argued for 'main channel/subchannel' carriage, it was just another bottom-barrel subchannel like RTV or TheCoolTV

3 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

Will Qubo & Ion Plus be closed or converted into digital services?

 

Ion Plus; guaranteed to be closed. Their schedule is just second runs of crime series and Cancon already on the main Ion, so the 'waste of spectrum' comment is on the nose. Qubo has pretty much become the last resort network for children's producers to take their shows, so outside of mass E/I credits to keep the main Ion schedule kids-free and little cable/sat pickup, it's probably done too.

And not commented but for sure done; Ion Shop. The days of all-informercial channels are best left to cable systems now. Also expect them to reel back paid religious time solely to Sunday mornings.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

According to Rabbitears.info, WTTE's FOX feed is now on WSYX's feed as 6.3 (or 28.3, which is WSYX's actual channel....confusing, isn't it!)

 

They're still on WTTE 28.1 as well, but for how long?  WWHO 53.1 (still maps as such, is on WTTE 27.6)

February 3, TBD on 28.2 moves to 28.1.

3 hours ago, simtek34 said:

 

My O&O, KMSP, stopped the special report after the Bret Baier show. I found a stream from a different Fox station that had the special report continue up to the end of Hannity before Fox ended it themselves. Didn't know they had The Ingraham Angle on as well. Did it have the standard Fox News Channel logo (Blue box with White lettering, clock in the red sliver underneath) or the Fox Broadcasting version (which is a White box with a Blue lettering, red sliver has no clock) version of it? That would help know if Fox offered it or if you local station just simulcasted the FNC feed. And yeah, nobody on from 7-10ct should do a Special Report.

It was definitely the blue FNC cable feed, not the white no-clock Fox logo that was part of the SR all day. WITI aired regular Fox primetime beforehand.

Anyone seeing FNC and Laura Ingraham tonight on the O&O's after Fox primetime (or before on the West Coast)? I put on WITI to get the weather, and saw FNC on the air rather than the local 9pm show.

I don't think this is the smartest thing to do tonight by any means. 

1 hour ago, TheRyan said:

I wonder how it is that Scripps can get WSYM's in-house newscasts going in mere months after the announcement, yet WSFL still doesn't have their in-house newscasts more than a year later after the original announcement.

A Fox affiliate newscast in a market where WLAJ long ago tapped out helps for sure, and people will be happy for an alternative to Gray/Nexstar (and Journal was a hamstring to them until Scripps finally came along).

Miami is an extremely over-newsed market where an NBC-owned station struggles and the Spanish stations dominate. It would've likely launched already, but with The CW literally carrying what is usually Saturday afternoon sports filler in CW primetime in months because of production stoppages with their regular shows...do you want your newscast lead-in at the start to be "America's Christmas Choir Challenge" or "World's Funniest Pets"? You'd be suicidal to launch a newscast now with Associated Television drivel.

It's a Christmas Eve miracle . Nexstar and Dish have come to terms, and WGN America will be added to Sling TV in the near future.