mrschimpf

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.

When you are getting paid over $5 million flying back and forth it shouldn’t be a big deal. Carson is only out the days The Voice is live - Monday and Tuesday. He take the red eye out for a Wednesday’s show. I’m sure if they wanted him to appear live they’d have him in the studios in LA.

And don't forget "Last Call”. They worked all of this out already years ago. Meanwhile, DCA-->JFK is no big deal at all. Peter may even just take in the Acela and not even bother with the flights. The route certainly isn't a buggy route by any means at all.

Should have moved her over to MSNBC. Worked well for Briwi

 

As I said before..

Steve Kornacki is going to love his new video walls...

And Kathie Lee and Hoda are giving her thanks for the free studio remodeling with audience they'll be moved into permanently within the month. There's nothing dumber than having your network make this large capital and resource outlay for you and you somehow screw it up.

[MEDIA=twitter]1055489508093972481[/MEDIA]

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6316973/amp/Megyn-Kelly-NBC-just-48-hours-blackface-scandal-paid-69-million.html

In a stronger position she might have lasted the rest of the TV season. But when you have stations free to move her to 10am because "Kelly" and local advertorials do much better at 9am and your only buzz is to continually screw up in interviews and panels rather than content merit...that's the kind of 'bad PR is still good PR' you really don't want going forward.

There has been chatter for years now about Kelly’s behavior and ABC’s frustration with it. They were particular peeved about her “protest” 2 years ago.

She was rightfully angry because they were changing her show because of the random whim of ABC News. She's not part of ABC News, and she had the right to feel offended because of that. She took a week off, came back and decided to go right back to work, speak of it once and let the ratings in the time she hosted with guests speak for themselves. It happened. It's long over. At this point no matter how much influence Ryan might have, it truly is Kelly's and Gelman's show to do with what they want, and ABC-Disney isn't going to let them go to someplace like CBS, which would only be happy to dump Let's Make a Deal and give them full rein.

Men pull this stuff off too, but we don't hear about it in the tabloid media because it doesn't fit their 'all women are difficult and are Real Housewives off-camera' narrative. The lesson; don't anger your talent for fun, because it'll come back to bite you.

Fair enough. But Rubin emphasized executives being fed up with Kelly Ripa's demands and ego. We've seen networks make silly decisions with their personalities just to satisfy an executive's egos. Kelly was considered so profitable and important to ABC that they went behind her back to move her handpicked co-host to Good Morning America. GMA is definitely their priority over her.

The concerns of an anonymous idiot who has been known only as "Sources Say" for 35 years and seems to have a regular feature about "Live! Panic!" in the National Enquirer has little to no say in the matter. Ratings are good and stations across the Big Four network aren't dumping the show, and they only dump it because another station offered more money to air it.. The show has vanquished tens of copycat shows in a way most companies can only dream of. The only time they could have cancelled or took it network-exclusive passed the moment Disney purchased ABC and decided to keep Buena VIsta as an outside syndicator.

It's surprising to us today how some stations in the middle of the country back then didn't have 6pm news and just did 5 and 10 (KMGH in the early-mid 90s comes to mind; WHBQ also was in that situation near the switch, but that was also a sign of deep neglect).

Most stations didn't really all get 5pm shows until the early 1990s in Wisconsin. I still remember when WISN had The People's Court at 5pm leading into WNT up to about 1989.

So we all knows that the GMA's third hour begins one week from Monday. And I was curious to see what WFAA was going to do with the midday schedule. Will they keep the noon news and tape delay GMA Day, etc, etc.

WBAY is keeping their noon show and having GMA Day air at 2pm like they did The Chew. WBRZ, that just seems like some kind of listings error; more likely Wendy goes to 11am, then GMA Day at 2pm.

WBAL seems to make it work on MeTV enough to do a 10PM newscast 7 Days a week. They’ve done weekday 10PM newscasts since March 2012 and on weekends going back to at least March 2016. They did do a 7AM newscast in 2011 that lasted until 2015 when it was exchanged in favor of a 4:30AM newscast on the main channel - from what I understood the cancellation may have been contractual (the success of the 7AM show led them to create the 10pm). They also heavily promote the 10PM newscast in their 5PM show and in ads through out the day.

 

From what I understand the 10PM is very competitive with WBFF’s 10PM newscast.

 

Also it helps that at least in 2016 that WBAL was the highest rated MeTV affiliate.

If they started it out early enough, then they definitely did so at the right time where people in Baltimore didn't care about the 10pm shows and that it was always there. Me now helps by airing Hogan's Heroes in that slot, which many people can take or leave. It also helps that they definitely use it for an NBC backup in the right way, where programming airs day/date/time rather than 'after the 4th hour of Today repeat' at 3 in the morning.

And yes...WBFF being the Sinclair Death Star in the market helps with alternatives.

It's too bad, but 4 1/2 years is a long time for a news & local show on a diginet-subchannel. Most news in the DFW area that was made for (or repeated on) an indie or subchannel there hasn't lasted very long.

The big problem with subchannel news is three things; people who shun you because you aren't airing what's on nationally at that time (probably one reason Hearst can't make their MeTV shows work), lack of promotion, and horrid advertising. WITI couldn't sell an ad to save its life on Antenna TV when they had to shift the regular shows there during the World Cup, so it was a continuous loop of PSAs and the occasional national class action ad. And most of the time whenever you try to market a network the way it wants to be (Justice Network wants you to air local pieces, the long-dead TheCoolTV wants local artists to submit videos), nobody cares. They just see it as another place to watch reruns of a certain genre or don't even think of it as an OTA subchannel, especially on cable.

Considering how utterly abysmal KABC 790’s ratings have been over the past decade (a mediocre AM-only signal in a really big market where talk stations struggle in), it almost sounds like Cumulus is slow-auditioning Edwards and Lucey to re-team with Jillian.

The last book has them #40 in a 50-station metered market, only above KLOVE/Air1, Spanish sports talk and tied with a Persian station. At this point, their ratings and schedule make WBAI look competent and altogether in comparison.

They weren't the only one-- KSTP did it too!

The upper Midwest started as the Northwest Territories; the claim is definitely there.

Ok. Hearst did drop those networks off of WCWG. However, they left Bounce TV (also a Scripps network) on the lineup. Escape and Laff may stay for all we know.

Big difference though is Bounce has a quality rep and original programming going for it, and an obvious viewership base in the market Hearst wouldn't ditch (thankfully Scripps isn't tinkering with that so far). Escape and Laff have none of that going for them and have little to no local advertisers wanting to burn money on those networks.

I know this is not the speculation thread but...

 

8.1 = ABC

8.2 = Me-TV

8.3 = H&I

 

51.1 = CW

51.2 = MyTV

51.3 = Escape

51.4 = Laff

 

I may be wrong, but that's how I see it.

They'll dump Escape and Laff first chance they get; those aren't networks Hearst has affiliations with solely for quality concerns, along with them being Scripps networks. I could see them also killing the "WPME" schedule off to remove the confusion of the Ion deal and move the 10 hours of dead weight to 51.1's overnights and bump it up to 1080i when they merge their MC in.

Better than "WJLA 24/7 News". Good lord that open VO is awful. "From WJLA 24/7 News, You're watching WJLA 24/7 News Evening Report, On Your Side..."

 

I mean it's a mouthful. Just call it "24/7 News" and be done with it.

Better yet, "24/7", then "Evening Report" (keep 'on your side' confined to consumer/enterprise reporting like it was intended). The entire thing is a word salad and you've got the circle 7 highlighted enough where that just stands alone.

If they do move it to the 9am hour, it'll most likely not occur until sometime next year at the earliest.

Once again a reminder; Kelly and Ryan are in syndication. They aren't universally on ABC stations. And said ABC stations with the show aren't removing that show anytime soon from 9am, and Kelly Ripa would burn ABC for millions if she was shoved out of her longtime timeslot by the O&O group and ABC affiliates. The show basically dies with her...and she's staying healthy for years to come.

That said...GMA Day is a title clearly come up with at 4:59pm on a holiday Friday by some intern who had no idea what the branding manager wanted them to do, and is shockingly horrid. Did someone else trademark Good Afternoon America in the interim or something?

A little more on Colleen Henry from the Journal Sentinel (no painful Gannett autoplay on this one); her husband beat some pretty aggressive cancer and they're off for well-earned relaxation in Puerto Vallarta. Her loss is big for WISN, but they have so many veterans and prime talent there that will take the baton in her absence and honor.

ETA - Even as she got a salute at the end of the 6pm show, she was still working a story in the top of the show about kids abandoned in a car at a local casino, doorknocking and confrontation of the kid's mom and all. Gotta have massive respect for still putting in good work on the last day!

ETA - Here's said valedictory in full;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=jcFh8N6aSUE

DTV America only buys low-power stations. WBNX is a full-power outlet, so I doubt if they would buy it.

True, but it's right up the CNZ wheelhouse; both have the same MO of packing a signal with 8 subchannels and collecting whatever comes in. But from now on out that's spec anyways.

This is much worse than the Evansville situation where WTVW had to step in as WAZE's utter incompetence forced the CW to put the affiliation there ASAP.

At this point I see only one fate for WBNX; DTV America or CNZ buys it and turns it into the market's place for subchannels of last resort (like WIWN and WTSJ serve in Milwaukee) while burning off the syndication contracts for a year or two (WUAB just grabs a bunch of the better stuff and ditches their bottom feeder shows). They're the only ones who would pay whatever Angley wants for it; the other three would pay much less and likely use it for something more inane like giving the Justice Network full-market coverage.

How does one go from filling in on a flagship network news program to the lowest rated revolving door in DMA 10?

If you're not WSB or WAGA, it seems like Atlanta stations like throwing money at high-power talent or ex-CNN'ers (especially those who didn't want to do 'here's the story, here's the panel, I'm the referee'-style anchoring) in order to try to beat those stations. I don't think it's really worked though.

BTW, how come Sinclair hasn't tried to syndicate KidsClick to CW, MyNetworkTV and independent stations outside of the group's portfolio? The 2018-19 season would be the best opening to offer it to other stations.

They're picking up the literal dregs of kid's programming, stuff that does fine in Europe but no sane kid or parent in America will tolerate (this is the third attempt to make Oggy & The Cockroaches happen in the States after it bombed on Fox Family and Nick after the dumb 'naked woman in a picture' controversy that killed it off Nick). That, and there's virtually no ad inventory and it's all promos after a year; the only reason Garfield stayed on in syndication for years was because General Mills picked up the bill for the Program Exchange and ran their ads on it. You have to think inside of most Sinclair stations that pick it up, they're pretty annoyed because that could easily be infomercial money they're losing on yet another Hunt Valley experiment.

WUTB is channel-sharing with WBFF, according to Rabbitears, but apparently it no longer airs MyNetworkTV. According to WUTB's Q1 Children's TV Report, it currently airs TBD.

Schedule shows it's still carrying a full syndicated schedule; TBD is DT3. And as far as the station ID issue, the calls and COL are all that are needed, so anything that contains the words 'WBFF' and 'Baltimore', no matter what, that's a legal ID. It could read 'This is the secondary subchannel for WBFF, My TV Baltimore', and that's legit. Radio though requires calls then COL just because of the medium.

For the record, MTV-U isn't dead but its more redundant now as CheddarU has already started broadcasting.

Why Viacom hasn't just killed all the SD video networks (I know the answer, and it involves the symbol $ and retrans) is confusing. Now that MTV Live is the only network carrying them in HD format, watching them in stretched out SD seems like a dumb thing in 2018 when a simple query gets it on YouTube easily.

Didn't years ago WTVC do a newscast that was very similar to this, blatantly calling it "NewsChannel 9 For Women"?

WOTV still has their 'for women' gimmick, but now it's mostly just medical segments and purposeful scheduling of programming under Nexstar (thankfully).

Well... actually... ION was on WBDT 26.3 from 2015 until just recently moved into WDTN 2.3 in February.

 

Plus, WBDT carried ION's previous incarnation as PAX from 1998-2004.

But they never officially had a Cincinnati station that could make a claim for must-carry; WKOI is one of those two-market oddballs that equally covers Cincinnati and Dayton now. The most that happens really is Spectrum can't sell ads any longer if Ion forces WKOI's channel on via must-carry over the national cable feed (like most markets, I don't expect qubo, Life or the infomercial pipe subchannels to be picked up).

They'll probably just use WDLI for Ion Life, just like WLWC.

And barely a soul will notice in reality.

Also Ion will be acquired four stations from TBN (Ohio's WDLI & WSFJ and Indiana's WCLJ & WKOI).

 

WDLI will duo with WVPX in Cleveland, while WCLJ will duo with WIPX in Indianapolis.

The latter two already channel-share with those two stations, so it's yet another 'main channel partner buys the other' deal among the many TBN and Ion have done. Meanwhile, WKOI finally will get Ion into Dayton/Cincinnati. You have to begin to wonder how much more pulling back TBN will do on their OTA stations at this point outside the Top 25 and Nashville, as they seem to be struggling.

My editor's note is this: Somewhat surprising with the news, but felt the GMA expansion was a long time coming due to its status + competition. How damaging would've if they moved 'Kelly + Ryan' a hr. back? They're 'cousins'.

That show is in syndication; it isn't a universal show on all ABC affiliates. They can't and would never be able to move it up or back because of the various contracts they have with individual stations (including CBS/NBC/Fox affiliates). I'm surprised they didn't just bump The View to noon and try GMA at 11am, where it would still be the actual morning.

My question is how WFAA will handle the 3rd hour of “GMA”, since it aired The Chew at 11am CT, followed by the Noon news.

There are a lot of these issues coming; WFAA actually delays it a day to carry it at 11am, while several stations delay it until 2pm same-day because they've got their own noon newscasts. On a big breaking news day? Nobody is going to be watching a tape-delayed newscast from the day before or even three hours.