mrschimpf

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

This may be worthy of it's own thread,  several markets across the country seem to be pre-empting the Stan Lee Tribute on ABC for other local holiday programming.

In the article, Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh are called out specifically.

The Twitter complainers have Internet connections. They can presumably go to ABC.com or Hulu. Or their television provider has on-demand. Just wait until tomorrow.

That said, Stan Lee special IS on WTAE at midnight tomorrow and midnight tonight on WEWS and WXYZ. But I am more forgiving of the show highlighting Pittsburgh microbrews on WTAE; they probably thought some sitcom reruns were airing when it was scheduled a few weeks back.

But WEWS airing The List-mas Holiday Special, a show every other Scripps station would carry at 6am Christmas Day because it sounds like something forced on them by corporate, in primetime, is a 'general manager should be flayed' situation (WTMJ is burning it off Sunday at 1pm between NBC E/I programming and skiing). Looking up WXYZ, that show is Christmas Across America: A "Small Town, Big Deal" Celebration. Small Town, Big Deal is one of those shows that a station airs at 2am on a Sunday morning or against an NFL game if they don't have one and that has zero fanbase. That is also really dumb scheduling.

If you're going to program national syndicated holiday programs in primetime...make sure they're things people will actually watch. One thing to syndicate a different Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, but it's doubtful anyone is going to enjoy A Very Made in Hollywood Christmas or Recipe.tv Hacks the Holidays when they expect much more competent holiday fare from the networks.

3 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

 

In WBAY's case... NO. WBAY is moving ION to 2.6. Yes... WBAY is going to six channels.

It's a really good multiplexer; I haven't noticed any signal degradation on .1 at all. It helps that the .2 auto-weather feed has the majority of its pixels stay in the same position 24/7, so they just have to worry about two small video windows and a thrice-a-day change in their 7-day window.

6 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

Damn. With 16 original shows, ratings better be through the roof.

They don't need to be; I feel like these are shows which would have contracted with networks like CMT, DIY, and Great American Country in the past, but they've both finally gotten rid of any pretenses about being about 'southern living' or 'home improvement.' It's better to outlay money for programming now than three years down the line being stuck running CanCon PPI garbage or like Heartland/TNN 3.0 did, had a 'Be Southern'-?-'Profit!' business plan that ran into trouble when nobody watched has-beens in old Music City Tonight interviews and the licensors and stations gave up on Luken.

19 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

That's, frankly, insulting to any Spanish viewer. 

In Spanish-dominant markets such as LA, Miami and Houston quite a few English-language stations caption in Spanish via CC3 (and in the past carried translated audio over AM/FM). It's at least something, and any little ratings help doesn't hurt in any way. Also...despite all the cash grabs the TV industry and station groups have these days, there's still room for public services like this.

Either way, whatever Estrella's 'official local news window' is, both the 10 and 11pm slots carry reality drivel Estrella allows easy pre-emption for local programming ("Lol : - )", yes, that's its title, is just one of those languageless clip shows like "Just for Laughs Gags" taped in Quebec to grab gobs of CanCon and worldwide syndication cash).

4 hours ago, Weeters said:

To summarize: Tell me something I don't know!

Also, most stations carry a midnight mass instead of late night talk shows because the networks don't provide talk shows on Christmas Eve, and a station not providing a newscast on Christmas Eve or morning is never a bad thing or portends the end of its news department. News folks are humans too and should be with their families if they can (I don't know how many times I've seen posts other places/Wikipedia edits that find not having a newscast on Christmas morning as a personal affront to their moral compass/a travesty).

3 hours ago, 24994J said:

While it is overproduced to the point where it's hard to tell if it's live or prerecorded, WLS will be airing the Disney-heavy 'Magnificent Mile Lights Festival' on a 1-day delay, for what I believe is the first time. Instead of this Saturday at 6pm like in years past, it'll be first-run the following night, Sunday 11/24, preempting America's Funniest Home Videos. ABC's reconfigured Saturday Night Football schedule necessitated such a change.

Surprised there wasn't another bump to The U--er, um, I mean CW26, or even to 7.2. I also enjoyed reading the PR, which outside of Echosmith is a 'who's who of huh and oh they still exist?!' 

On 11/7/2019 at 8:09 PM, zasnynews said:

I’m curious whether this abstract logo will find its way into local station identities and when the searchlights will start to disappear from local stations with the dated, so-called “kite” logo.

A few of those stations will keep the searchlights because they're part of a duopoly where logo design is at priority #543; it's doubtful Disney is going to file a copyright lawsuit denying them use of the searchlights simply because of 32 years of 'prior art' where you associate the Fox network with them. It's the same reason about 10-20 UPN affiliates put in the least amount of effort when they switched from the shapes to the disc logo.

Fox began to downplay the searchlights in the 2000s already and had mainly used the middle pillar of the 'O' and the angle of the 'X' as part of their branding since then; it's just finally leaning full on into the abstractness of their letters to go all-in. I wouldn't be surprised in a few years when they have this established if they try to use the abstract letters as their main brand, though it's not going to happen outside the main network because Sports and News would never go for it.

On 9/19/2019 at 2:09 AM, justin2kx said:

I was wondering what's up with Tony. During the WPLJ Radio Reunion in May, the day before it signed off, there were mentions of Tony being an alumnus of the station but couldn't make it to Reunion Day. Both 'PLJ + LIVE are based in NYC, but i'm not sure where he lives. You'd think if he was in the area, he'd make it there, but that said it raises such warning signs though. God forbid this isn't another Chris Corley or Ed Hopkins. 

Just happened to be up for Live today, and Kelly and Ryan had a couple minutes towards the end of host chat to say that Tony is indeed retiring, and paid a very nice tribute to him.

1 hour ago, montydavis said:

WCSC has been “Gray-ed”. With a new logo.

That looks so much better; the Bell Gothic and stretching just seemed like a completely horrid design to begin with that screamed "2002" and only worked with MySpace profile logos. This looks so much better.

I look at this situation this way ..

Madam Secretary is in its last season and under an aggravating situation where any NFL thing earlier in the day throws off its entire schedule for the night, whether it be a bump of a new episode to next week or to a 9:48pm start. It was airing on time for once at 9pm, and KTVT wanted to see if the tornado developed before going forward because the viewers of that show already get enough aggravation from CBS's scheduling as it is. They went forward when it was clear it was time to jump to live coverage and could argue to viewers 'we tried to air it but it just wasn't going to work out'. They made up for it by staying on late into the night, at least.

Meanwhile, KDFW's 9pm news was only delayed by one minute and they rightfully bumped right into weather at 9:01...while The Rookie is a dog on ABC's schedule, and WFAA probably felt 100% confident 'it'll be on Hulu the next day' would work on that show's viewers (Madam doesn't really have that choice due to CBS All Access).

KXAS of course was 100% dumb, and even dumber when you see their only acknowledgement was a 'go to our website/Facebook' message...nobody was going to be pissed because their show on Cozi was being pre-empted by football! Redirect people to 5.2/whatever cable positions it's on instead of the clumsy NBC local streaming player.

43 minutes ago, DirtyHarry said:

 

All I have to say is that if WBNS Radio ever gets sold, I hope it goes to Saga and not iHeart. Saga is a good operator. iHeart, on the other hand ..

Going by the Scripps Milwaukee MO and since they're both ESPN Radio stations, the WBNS stations would fit like a glove with Good Karma, which is already up in Cleveland and after the WMVP management deal, is a buyer for sure, and they would overpay to be the Ohio State flagship. Saga is more music-heavy outside of dominant markets than a runner of talk stations.

2 hours ago, NewsMaster said:

My only guess is that they'll use WYCU as a translator for WCAX, but Charlestown is at the very southeastern tip of the market. It could also be an attempt to get WCAX coverage in southeast Vermont without irking WBZ. Stay tuned...

Fox or CW possibly? Nexstar has both in Burlington, but there's a whole lot of real estate that hasn't had local Fox since Hearst got WMUR and killed Fox on their translators (their MO for MyNetworkTV right now says it's definitely not for that affiliation).

15 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

The tornado happened during the 4th quarter, the game was not in doubt, KXAS could've cut away and referred unaffected viewers to the NBC Sports, NFL, or Yahoo! apps.

The problem was you are in the toughest position; they probably thought taking social media heat and putting out a quick apology likely worked better in the end than a number of entitled Cowboys fans making death threats and calling for KXAS's license to be revoked because they dared to move the game to 5.2. Sadly, you know any calls for Ajit to make an example of them will fall on completely deaf ears.

15 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

The fuck kind of slogan is 'Always Now'?

They've branded with 'Fox 19 Now' in all ways for several years, thus they are 'always now'...kinda wish that could've gone for just plain 'Fox 19'.

1 hour ago, Greggo said:

(Also, running an infomercial after the noon ‘news’? Really?)

That sweet Medicare Part D ad money from Humana and the like is too irresistible to refuse. It's free money until December, why not take it?

On 10/7/2019 at 11:19 PM, CircleSeven said:

I said this back in April regarding former ABC affiliate (now Indie station) WPGA.

 

Well guess what? Marquee is buying WPGA for $1M.

 

Knowing how the station deteriorated without ABC, it can be said that this was a huge loss trying to wage a culture war for this station. Over ten years and likely around $10 million to carry ABC, to be sold off for couch cushion money ten years later just because the owner hated Grey's Anatomy because it dared to tackle LGTBQ+ issues feels like karmic justice, and that nobody is willing to follow you to 'family friendly' disasters like RTV and the other Luken nets (whoever steered the way for him to carry Weigel probably saved the station from just going dark completely).

5 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

Ugh, that's so annoying. If they want to play it that way, they should just fold all their RSNs into a single channel and air whatever game is local to your DMA.

Honestly considering the programming of those networks outside of games, it may just be the best direction to have four master schedules to work off from and a few hours for the usual local stuff like outdoors shows and high school sports and cut the lousy hangers-on who should just move to YouTube already. And the DMA thing is definitely going to be hamstrung by whatever the NBA, NHL and MLB tell the networks; I know the NHL would be unhappy to lose the Wisconsin market that currently gets Minnesota Wild and the MLS Loons due to a lack of franchises for those teams in the state.

On 10/1/2019 at 9:18 PM, JCB4TV said:

If Gray needs more bandwidth in NWO, there's WMNT-CD, which shows MNT and other subnets.

I wouldn't even curse a Luken net with that disaster of a TV station; they still run everything in 480i 4:3 and are proud of their affiliation with AMGTV. Gray buying them would be like moving from a Super 8 to the Ritz-Carlton.

1 hour ago, oknewsguy said:

It is what it is and there's really nothing I can do about it because obviously I'm not the boss over the house.

I handle my own cable bill,  but the problem is the way bundling works. I watch nothing on Showtime and only a few shows on Starz a year, but Spectrum won't let me unbundle them from their package (I only got rid of the 'I never watch' Epix when they got new ownership and a new carriage agreement that stopped the bundling), even though they're premium channels that should be optional. I have channels on the higher tier I can't get on the lower tier because Viacom thinks that TV Land is a 'premium' service rather than an ad delivery platform occasionally interrupted by sitcoms, and I watch Younger because it's a favorite show. I like soccer, thus I pay $8/month for the Spanish tier because very few Tigres games are on FS1, even if I never watch the Spanish music video channel.

Equipment costs have also gone up; I'm getting rid of their useless DVRs with a TiVo/TiVo Mini system, but that comes with a learning curve with everyone else in the house despite the $25 savings. I'm preparing to move my 25 year-old landline number from Spectrum to Google Voice, but that has to come with a week of AT&T prepaid because a landline/Google Voice transfer doesn't exist. Companies make it hard to switch or move to providers on purpose.

1 hour ago, jase said:

 

Seems like a one-off situation with the game airing on WCIU. Given that the new season starts soon on ABC, MNF has already begun, etc... I doubt a blackout would last long (if it happens at all). Way too much at stake. 

No, you don't mess with the Bachelor Nation...they aren't going to be happy with watching at 12:37am ever, and in the third largest market? Too much collateral damage. The move is more than justified here.

Plus The CW is in full Cancom Hashmark Summer mode that evening (Pandora and Mysteries Decoded) and knows that this will be the last time this should happen, ever (unless Marquee becomes the new Sportsnet LA and no cable system will pick it up). There's just no issue with this at all.

Finally, DirecTV is suicidal to think their viewers could survive without ESPN. At this point, satellite, like its internet counterparts at HughesNet and ViaSat, is quickly becoming a 'I'll subscribe if I'm desperate/relocated to Western Nebraska' kind of service with a declining channel lineup.

9 minutes ago, CircleSeven said:

It looks like they took the "3" from a sign out of a street corner. This is not a TV logo, it's an outdoor sign. I swear you can't get any worse than this.

Someone saw the "3" in the universal film leader and decided 'hey, this is good enough';

It's just kind of blah...WISC did a much better rendition of the 'circle 3'...hopefully it has a little more life in actual use. I understand minimalism is the new thing, but this is absurd.

Personally, "Go on 3" would be a better name for that because it's a known term.

Spectrum is dumping the Fox College Sports networks in mid-October, and FIOS has also removed them, which sounds like an immediate Sinclair decision. Probably figure on some kind of "Stadium/Diamond/Marquee Extra" service starting up in the next few months so that the games that usually would air there live will be transferred onto there, or for Stadium to eventually return some games to SBG stations as they did in the ASN days.

It also looks like the FSN's are still carrying the lower-tier Big 12 games. I'm kind of thinking at least until May outside of graphical changes, the channels will still be carrying Fox's properties until the offseason where a long-term agreement can be made to offload them to other networks or the Fox Sports app gets a lot more content in the meantime.

19 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

As for overflow Fox Sports programming on the RSNs, those can possibly move to Fox Business when the markets are closed, similar to CNBC. 

FBN is already the overflow network for any 3:30 games on Fox which can't start there when the noon games run long, though that noon slot is wide open. The big problem though is these business networks just need to let go of the infomercial lifeline already. In 2019, nobody is stopping on CNBC to watch infomercials on Saturday mornings, and NBCU does know that, throwing on any sports they can, when it works for their schedule.

16 hours ago, NEOMatrix said:

Sinclair already did their contribution to patriotism with the flag graphics. They don’t have the extra money to do the anthem like Gray, CBS, and Nexstar are doing.

Some individual stations do play the ancient Air Force film on transmitter maintenance/Sunday nights; usually it's just replacing an Ad Council message, so there doesn't seem to be a universal anthem policy there.

The Nexstar/AT&T dispute is over, just in time for the NFL preseason to end...

On 8/27/2019 at 2:56 PM, DirtyHarry said:

 

There is something about the production value of their in-house stuff that strikes me as cheesy. I don't know if it's the graphics, the lighting, the intro or what, but there is something about these bits they produce that really get under my skin and it has nothing to do with the content. It just looks small market to me for some reason and Sharyl Atkinson is a pro so her show shouldn't look like this. (Just my opinion.)

It doesn't help that all of the shows out of Washington seem like they're taped in off-hours to only to air on WJLA as if they're covering their 1982 Sunday morning public affairs obligations. They're using people used to producing local shows that still produce them as if they're local shows (and if Armstrong is taping at WEYI or WPDE, it's public access quality).

4 minutes ago, channel2 said:

Local stations don't want children's programming other than what they're federally mandated to run anymore. They can only run twelve minutes of ads per hour, they can't run ads during the shows featuring characters from the shows (the cereal-hawking past of many cartoon stars wouldn't fly now!), and they probably wouldn't be able to get good-quality product anyway.

At this point, those stations are competing with kid's phones and tablets for their overnight social check-in. The KidsClick lineup was all Euro rejects (look up "Playmobil movie"...they aired the Playmobil show to an audience of crickets, and the distributor is desperate to make that film work in the States), and the cereal manufacturers have long adjusted to all-ages marketing. The days of kid's ads as they were in the 90s are long over.

18 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

One question on Sinclair's show Full Measure with Sharyl Atkinson. It is on practically no non-Sinclair stations, yet Soledad O'Brien and Greta Van Susteren have been able to get good coverage outside their companies.

It's totally in-house...and even locally on the area Sinclair stations it's usually either in the 'OK it's out of the way' slot before the political talk shows, and in markets with only CW or MyNet it seems to air either very early or late on Sunday nights (WVTV/Milwaukee airs it Sundays at 10pm where Sunday Night Football pretty much scratches its ratings). There's just no point when the show is just posted to YouTube and SBG's digital channels like Stirr can also put it on.

Meanwhile Armstrong Williams gets his show into deep late night...and outside of the before-show app push on the local news app, you wouldn't know they have a Wednesday night show with Eric Bolling they foist onto their station websites.