mrschimpf

On 7/26/2019 at 3:22 PM, Georgie56 said:

 

Never understood stations that have paid programming at 12:30 weekdays. WJXT is also a victim of this.

Blame the networks for not having ever provided a strong way to program 12:30. You've got The Bold and the Beautiful on CBS just eating everyone's lunch otherwise, an hour-long newscast is just repeating the noon all over, or you can go the paid advertorial route and alienate everyone. Someone's going to buy a WORX device and justify the money, and Humana needs to get people to know about Medicare Part D plans at a time they're awake. It's just the way things are and I don't think any lower of a station that does it.

1 hour ago, jerseyfla said:

 

I wonder if this means Movies! or Buzzr disappears from Fox O&Os. I think most likely Movies! but Buzzr has the most accessibility of any netlet out there being on video streaming apps Pluto and Sinclair’s Stirr. So if Buzzr goes it’s not a huge loss.

Weigel owns the other half of Movies!, so you can be sure that the deal with Decades solidifies that carriage (along with H&I). I could see it more being a replacement for Light TV, which pretty much has sunk like a stone to an almost-all Christian station base outside the Fox markets. Buzzer at least has DRTV sales to keep them safe (and since Stirr and Pluto overlay the DRTV ads there, they want to stay on over-the-air whenever possible).

1 hour ago, Spintech33 said:

I didn't know where to post this on this side of the forum.

However, WTTG started their 4PM newscast yesterday and they BOMBED BADLY.  According to FTV. (I believe it too)

Day one of anything (outside of already awful media product that can't be saved) isn't a cause to call it a 'bomb'. You've got staff getting used to a new workflow and probably some new formats to deal with on-air, and technical issues can happen at anything. And it's nigh doubtful that a mere spelling error in a rare breaking news situation is enough to portend the downfall of an entire news operation (and who on earth besides news people follow news directors on Twitter?!).

As long as viewers are watching and advertisers are spending their money, the show is fine. It didn't have the best launch. As long as this isn't its MO going into October, everything will be fine.

2 minutes ago, oknewsguy said:

2 possible options for the FCC to punish Sinclair should this lead to a hearing:

 

`. Sinclair faces hefty fine and apologizes (goes back to some sort of normalcy.

Going by their chicanery involving Glencairn which eventually got legalized later on...this is probably what's going to happen, but also going by 'business as usual', the 'voluntary contribution to the United States treasury' will probably come with a statement where they don't admit to blame about anything. An RKO situation would be a unprecedented, but Ajit actually forcing an apology of blame out of Hunt Valley would be much smaller, but just as shocking (and 45 would probably pressure the FCC to keep the fine at 'a bit of the quarterly statement' levels).

9 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

I find this kind of odd.

 

Madison's ABC station WKOW is launching a midday broadcast at 11am, starting this Monday. Here's the odd part, the newscast will be 15 minutes at length. At 11:15am, it will air a 15-minute local lifestyle program called Midday Madison.

Not really that unusual; the small-market midwestern 'noon show' format since the late 80s is pretty much 20 minutes of news/weather, then the last 8-9 minutes being a local non-profit spotlight or a paid spot for home/medical services. It's just solidifying the format in the schedule. And for now the only thing it's replacing is an infomercial, so until September, taking a 'it's not broke don't fix it' direction is for the best right now.

Sinclair Fox affiliate KDSM/Des Moines had their tower transmission line burn out on Friday, taking out their over-the-air and satellite coverage, and today a tower worker trying to repair it fell from the tower at around 1,000 feet and died. They had already had to delay the repairs a couple days due to strong wind gusts.

On 4/9/2019 at 5:53 PM, Georgie56 said:

 

If there's one thing Gray doesn't do, it's standardization. Though, I wouldn't mind if this package spread to other stations in the group. 

The ticker though...that's always the same. I expect them to get the standard Gray ticker in due time (never understood why the ticker is standard for them but not the rest of the GFX).

Forgetting to do traffic in New York is like ditching the farm report in Nebraska; you just don't do that! Just print out some observations and have the weather person read off the times and show off the map.

On 3/29/2019 at 5:27 PM, hmaxhanson said:

It was a longshot, trying to bring back a dead and buried programming form that no company had any interest in reviving, but I honor their effort, and I am surprised they've managed to make it this far. Could we possibly see Kids Click return in the future as a full network?

If that would have been a possibility, it would have had its own Stirr channel at launch. I knew it was doomed the moment it didn't have one.

The problem was all of the Euro content, which is just too esoteric to market to American children in the right way because American kid's networks run on the 'merchandise first, market second, quality last' model. These shows were never the 'We have a new episode, and it looks like the characters are in some pickle! Will they get out of it?' type of show to market, and that's not what's 'in' right now.

And trust me...if it was up to station's general managers able to cancel out corporate, paid programming would have been the only thing airing in that time and they would have refused the shows. WVTV in Milwaukee never found any local advertisers and it was a PSA/in-house vortex of zerors coming into the station. And as it is, TBD's promo department is clearly the folks trying to work their way into the main networks like Comet and Stadium.

7 hours ago, ttvn2000 said:

 

These folks do not deserve all the hate they're receiving.  This is not an actual newscast, but instead a video made for the school district - to help with a social media campaign "encouraging students to do well on their tests."

 

 

I'm not saying I hate it; kids aren't the primary audience for morning newscasts by any means (before school live TV and kids are a buried-and-dead audience when Snapchat and Instagram exist, no matter what Sinclair and the kids cable networks think). But the use of Internet slang by adults who you associate with being completely sober talking about a house fire up in Maumee is just plain jarring. And television stations have good cooperative relationships with local school districts (see WITI's decades-long segment with Milwaukee Public School students who get to read the lunch menu and any 'weatherman comes to your school' initiative). But if this was the Toledo schools coming in and specifically asking for this kind of encouragement...it was a swing and a miss by that district.

So...is this a record for TEGNAization with WTOL's morning show crew, even without the Newzatonix chanters and graphics? 'Enjoy' this painful 53 seconds of 'how do you do, fellow kids?' where Gray HQ is like 'yup, we made the right call in keeping WTVG'.

2 hours ago, hfiles said:

Could it be something where they're trying to prevent confusion in areas where the markets overlap?

WTMJ & WGBA seem to handle using the same GFX without someone confusing them (outside their weather branding).

2 hours ago, nbc4ne said:

I’ve been reading on ABC’s Facebook page that a lot of people want The Chew back. I’m not sure why.

Because GMA Day/Strahan and Sara/Why Does This Show Have Tables In The Audience?!! is a complete mess and it's lost a quarter of the viewers with what is the local advertorial hour format taken to a national extreme that plain doesn't work. At least The Chew had some originality and an educational remit to get it by, while its replacement is just plain filler.

Looks like Gray is ramping up a competitor to the Sunday morning shows (and Full Measure). They've hired Greta van Susteren as a national political analyst with two shows in development, along with being in the Gray DC bureau's live/tape hits to their stations.

2 hours ago, mightynine said:

In a move that makes zero sense, WWL-TV will start paid interview hour...err, I mean local lifestyle show Great Day Louisiana Monday 1/21 at 9 a.m., bumping Live with Kelly and Ryan to their sister station WUPL. Great Day Louisiana will follow similar shows on other TEGNA stations, based on the show demo reel that's just clips of other markets.

 

I guess TEGNA decided they could drag WWL's morning ratings even lower.

This is beyond inexplicable. If this was Steve, Dr. Oz or Wendy, I could maybe understand why...but this is still the number one 9am syndicated show. It's outlasted 20+ clones. And you replace it with the same round of roofers and questionable plastic surgeons that pollute the airwaves in other parts of the day? And you shove that show off to a MyNetworkTV affiliate where it leads into...Sister Circle, which has its own completely incompatible audience, and the audience flow just dies even more from there.

They cancelled The 504 a couple years ago; why not bring that back (yeah, it was DOA leading in and out of MyNet, but still)? It seems like a novelty name for the process that Tegna puts their stations through to bring them in line with corporate standards is spreading, and sadly, there's no cure.

If I'm laying down odds, it's 75% Disney-ABC tears up their deal with WWL and bumps to WVUE in September (WDSU's stuck with Today's Third Hour, and WGNO has Wendy and even with a complete Nexstar "Local"ization, that part of the schedule needs no changes).

On 8/20/2018 at 5:28 PM, hmaxhanson said:

 

I know it was announced a month ago, but I think STIRR is a ridiculous name. Is it an acronym for something? I would also assume the entertainment shows and movies will be coming from MGM like Comet & Charge.

Bumping this up since STIRR launched yesterday and it's....really good. I tried it out with WLUK and it's got a good design behind it, all of Sinclair's subchannel networks (in Milwaukee they only have Comet so it's good to have access to them in some way), along with Buzzr. It looks like they want to put on syndicated programming eventually when the syndication industry finally finds a full-show streaming solution (so...seven years from now ), plus local news streaming/on demand in their major markets. I hate to compliment the evil empire, but they made a good app here.

1 hour ago, C Block said:

 

It looked nice at the time, and I’m sure you could dig up a post from me in which I would have been very complimentary of KMGH adopting the Scripps look. But it now looks three steps behind everyone else in 2019. The chip/gizmo box was never a good idea, and I don’t think it has always translated well onto all of the stations that Scripps has purchased in the last few years. More than any other station group, so many of the Scripps stations look like they dumped their legacy logo into the default templates with few modifications and called it a day. 

WTMJ/WGBA at least throw on some kind of identifier for some big stories into that box, along with their Packers coverage, but usually when I watch, that box effectively becomes dead space that I completely ignore. The Media General Jimmy Hart version that Nexstar has dispensed with aged just as badly, and sometimes the gizmo box would glitch so we'd see the off-air dimensions screen or it would appear in full on-screen if the producer accidentally switched to it.

On 1/3/2019 at 5:59 PM, Mrtraveler01 said:

 

I like how they publically dump on WGN America saying "it's a channel "very few people watch". Not exactly professional even if its true. These ever increasing retransmission fees for OTA channels are pretty idiotic and a big contributor to the rising cost of cable. Ironically by doing this, broadcasting companies like Tribune are driving viewers away. That said Spectrum couldve worded this a little more professionally. 

MyNetworkTV affiliates have been dumped on much worse in these disputes; Time Warner pulled the Journal stations and pretty much said 'all their stuff is on other networks and streaming already or is awful; you are missing nothing'. When WGN America gave up for whatever Cancom drivel that's cheapest for Tribune to buy as they waited for Sinclair to take it over, it basically became a dead zone of nothing. I dumped it the moment they killed Manhattan, and their hasty cancellations really came back to bite them, since Rachel Brosnahan, one of their leads, is grabbing all the hardware for her role in Mrs. Maisel.

But to add to this, it looks like Fox played 'uhh, what firewall?' with Fox Sports Go tonight, perhaps with NFL prodding. FoxNow is currently blocked out for Spectrum customers in Tribune Fox markets for regular Fox livestreams, but I had no problem at all streaming the wild card game on my Apple TV through Fox Sports Go. Even if it hasn't worked, Fox Deportes on-screen and Westwood One on radio would've been just as as good of an experience. And I can just wait to watch Bob's Burgers for one day on Hulu. But I loathe to think what the sports bars with Spectrum must do to get a signal if they don't think ahead of time.

54 minutes ago, DENDude said:

I have seen a crawl on KDVR warning about a possible blackout on Charter & Spectrum systems in Colorado.   Interestingly enough i haven't seen it on KWGN which is odd because they are Tribune, duopoly stations.  

They haven't been doing crawls or announcements on WITI, sticking to the top banner to the template website (though they have one promo which tries to say 'you could lose the spectre/the full spectrum of Fox 6 programming' like a bad dad joke writer got in the fun). Charter never has really got into pulling a channel at all (outside the weird issues involving the cheaper TWC contract and Univision this year and Viacom's self-induced idiocy last year, but those were anomalies), so they must think they can get this settled easily by Tuesday. Whatever the case it's only for the short term thanks to Nexstar, so they'll only be making a deal for the short term.

55 minutes ago, CLETVFan said:

WJW has posted a site for viewers who have Spectrum cable that they might lose the station on New Year's Day.

Usually Spectrum losing Tribune/WITI in Milwaukee would have had the state of Wisconsin threatening to take control of Spectrum to force Packers playoff games on WITI to air. This year, there is not that leverage.

On 12/16/2018 at 9:46 PM, Weeters said:

If affiliates wanted to program an extra hour in the morning that badly, the 4th hour of Today wouldn't exist or it would be optional. I'm not sure why people on here think the affiliates want an extra hour of time to fill in the mornings.

They don't.

As long as TPIR, Y&R and The View still exist at that time of day to Hoover up the eyeballs (and Wendy to a smaller extent), those NBC affiliates don't want to be stuck with that timeslot; 10am-noon on an NBC affiliate is a black hole where the worst of syndication goes to die otherwise. The same stations are still dealing with Santa Barbara's cancellation forcing them to fill the 3pm/2pm timeslot 25 years ago and outside a few lucky stations with CBSTD shows or Ellen, have never figured out any way outside of fluff talk or Access Live to have a pulse there.

2 minutes ago, ColDayNews said:

I’m not a big game show guy but why don’t the CBS O&Os have Wheel or J?

ABC just offered a ransom to keep it on their O&O's to the 40th year and keep it from moving to Fox O&O's. All about money, in every market. 

I was wondering why TVNewscheck posted a sudden WDJT evening opening last night, just seemed so sudden. But if you get a #3 market job, you jump, and jump fast like Kate did.

2 hours ago, mre29 said:

I wonder why they singled out those four stations.

 

All of them seem to serve some part of Virginia so they could likely try to cluster a case of lack of basic community service.

The situation was a hoax.

WISN got burned by a in-market swatting hoax story last night during prime time they had as breaking news before the police said 'it isn't real' (and had to air a DWTS dance during their late news because of it). The 'details' may have also either scared WEWS from sending out anyone, or based on their sources, they may have decided there was more smoke than fire in what was going on.

When it comes to any of this, you don't want to be the station that gives the most attention or credence to a swatter and show 'this is fun!', so WEWS's caution was appropriate here. If the story grew, they just would have been late and had to catch up, and only the promo makers would have cared in the end.