mrschimpf

Adweek, for whatever reason, has decided to restrict site access to TVNewser, TVSpy, and AdAgency unless you sign up. That means unless you decide to make an account, all you can do is read the headlines and comments. It's easily one of the most bizarre and pompous decisions I've seen of a website.

I still use an RSS reader; Reeder on iOS still shows the entirety of articles from the Adweek network and the reading mode on Safari also strips the idiotic firewall.

I'm fine paying for it if it's reasonable. Washington Post's Amazon Prime discount makes it worth it in my opinion. But $35 a month? I can buy an online service like YouTubeTV for that amount. That is way too much.

I get my WaPo subscription through my digital subscription with the Journal Sentinel (a deal made before they were sucked into the Gannett Deathstar), so reasonable pricing and access helps. But $35 for the equivalent of wire service news and esoteric business programming? CNBC asks for $30/month for expert opinions and data, but that's just as unjustifiable unless it's a bulk corporate price.

Is it a different show there? I’d love to see the WPBF version... maybe it’s actually interesting...

You must be picky. You were used to Ellen on WPTV; why do you want her back on that station? Is it because they have higher news ratings?

WPBF is in 720p, WPTV is 1080i; probably more for the visual picture quality than anything (and there are some oddball cases like WBAY, where some syndicated programming seems to have this weird picture effect that resembles that awful 'filmize' effect awards shows have tried here and there).

Another thought. Perhaps Fox could develop programming they syndicate in-house to the other O&Os like Tribune, Tegna and Scripps do. Not all local time may be devoted to a traditional newscast.

They already do with their summer 'pilot season' where the dud shows are replaced with pilot runs that become full-season shows like Wendy, DIsh Nation and The Real did. Unlike the chains though, Fox seems to set them up for national success so other Fox/CW affiliates can take them, rather than being only stuck on Fox and languishing (Top 30 seems to be one of their very few duds from the effort).

If you go to KDNL's Twitter account, they had to completely purge it because it was so linked to the Allman Report that it was basically a duplicate account. That's not good social media acumen, to say the least.

The question should be whether Air Comfort Solutions Chopper 4 survives the station's ownership change whether it be Sinclair or someone else.

Along with KTVI's "Bommarito SkyFOX Helicopter". Why they didn't pull that graphic during their Ferguson coverage remains painful.

I wouldn't be surprised if whatever is on KPLR at those times beat KDNL in the ratings.

KNLC got MeTV in February. I would not be shocked to read a ratings report and see that Carol Burnett & Friends reruns on that station cleaned Allman's clock (and ABC must seethe seeing their 9pm lead-in just plunge at 10:00:00 exactly every night). And with Weigel having good relations by maintaining WBND in South Bend, ABC affiliating with KNLC (and a move of Me to DT3 with a state-of-the-art multiplexer) is a possibility too; despite Weigel's many issues, they have built out from scratch no-wave news departments before, and they'd do it again in St. Louis in a heartbeat.

On one hand I'm really surprised Sinclair fired him, he seemed like a perfect fit for Sinclair culturally and clearly had no problem following the company talking points.....on the other hand when you threaten to "ram a hot poker" up a teenagers butt it's really hard to defend that person and keep him employed.

Not to be a SBG apologist, but at least they made it much easier on themselves by basically leasing the timeslot and Allman having to arrange his own facilities to tape. Easy to cut everything off right away.

On the other hand, whoever is the web person there is being easy on him; content for the show is still not pulled from the website. And according to tweets from viewers, the show still aired tonight at 10! Who announces a firing and then decides 'well he has one more show in the can' rather than cutting ties and grabbing the nearest Gimme A Break! rerun?

Milwaukee PBS got rid of their Traffic Channel on 36.6 in January after the spectrum reshuffle.

 

Since early February, they've re-added the traffic portion but now on Channel 36.3, rotating with weather on the new "Milwaukee PBS Weather and Traffic" channel.

It made complete sense to do it (and they had lots of requests for it once the spectrum merge happened). I always wondered why they didn't make it part of the loop in the first place when they switched to the Local AccuWeather software with non-com tweaks.

It's becoming clear Nexstar is phasing them out. Although I'd be curious to figure out what they could have come up with for the ex-MG markets?

For the vast majority of them the call letter domains are also reserved by Nexstar to redirects, so just a matter of re-pointing the domains.

Yet the vast majority of Nexstar stations seem to be holding on to it for some reason.

Big problem is the Facebook and Twitter dependence on the 'longregionname.com' domains and that you might break links in the archives to them; I still remember a few years ago that WFRV's Twitter account was taunted by the lucky person that got the @WFRV handle before they could get to it (they have to use @WFRVnews) and was offering them a ransom to get it. You probably have a lot of Nexstar stations that have that situation because of the web side stubbornly sticking to the 'ohmyfingershurttypingoutthislongregionname.com' naming strategy. The majority at least have their call letters .com name reserved and redirecting to the main domain, but the web side just doesn't want to do the legwork to make that the main domain. That, and you have situations like Arkansas and Little Rock where 'go to kark.com' won't work because of how complicated that state network they have is.

Checked in with both WTMJ and WGBA and their "Now" treatment; it looks like WGBA is playing it straight with some local content where it's fit in naturally, while WTMJ is giving it a more selective treatment as if it's a wire service, though today was an unusual edition due to Jordy Nelson's release from the Packers and the wait for a news conference with the team (which thank goodness started after primetime and both stations sanely decided to give it the 'more at 10' treatment rather than pre-empt The Voice for it). Oddly, WTMJ isn't using the custom time/temp bug any longer.

Some Pittsburgh updates:

Former WTAE personality Frank Cappelli has passed.

http://www.pbrtv.com/in-memoriam-frank-cappelli/

Still remember Saturday mornings when WISN carried his show (and so did Nick Jr. before they decided marketing was better than educational value). Great guy with a big heart, and Pittsburgh had a deep tradition of great children's shows. He'll definitely be missed.

Have the ratings for any of these homegrown shows been good, at any of the station groups? They feel like cheap filler.

For WTMJ and WGBA, it literally is filler outside of Packers season. In the fall they only have to produce two shows (they cut the three Facebook-only shows on Packers programming nights once they realized nobody was watching). Ten years later and 'TMJ is probably still feeling stupid about letting the Sony game shows go to WDJT.

And the same can be said about Pickler and Ben because despite getting renewed for a 2nd season, it's getting low ratings (with the exception of Nashville where the show originates from)

If not for the national CMT deal it probably wouldn't even have that second season.

Like her former co-anchor Paul Piaskoski, who's apparently pursing a law career via his Linkedin, Michele McCormack has found a career after TV, and has joined the Hunger Task Force as a manger.

WDJT and the HTF do an on-air Thanksgiving give-a-thon...I wonder how that may go this year (they just did a March Madness-themed food drive but Michelle didn't appear there). Hopefully by then everything will be bygones between everyone.

They reported from the scene of a major event. What’s the big deal? If the whole newscast was about the Oscars, then I’d be pissed. But as long as they reported all the news stories of the day, what’s the big deal about the backdrop.

 

I don’t understand why this is a big deal.

Agreed. It's a Sunday newscast, which is usually just all whip-around wire regurgitation stories and 'here's what you missed on the Sunday talk shows, if you care' on most weeks. A weekday, that would have been reason to be concerned. Unless big breaking news occurred on Sunday, there's no reason to worry, and they probably had a backup crew in New York ready to go if they had to go into serious mode.

Tegna-itis claims another victim - the First Radio Parish Church of America will cease operations after a 92-year run

http://www.newscentermaine.com/video/news/bgme-first-radio-parish/97-8018630

Seems more like the sad thing that's claiming all the other ministries on radio and television unless they aren't prefixed by 'mega-'; budgets, an ignored kind message, and no real successor to those who pass on. That's how the Green Bay Sunday Mass on WBAY ended up going away; the media person in the local diocese passed away and the church didn't have anyone else to do it (WBAY was originally owned by the St. Norbert's order), so they went with a generic brokered national mass. And thanks to infomercials and house-flippers, the time is easier to sell to them than precious studio time with staff on hand. It probably would have been gone with Hearst, Sinclair, Ion or any other station group.

There's a station in the Cleveland-Akron market that is for sale, according to TVNewsCheck:

 

CLEVELAND, OHIO CLASS A TV FOR SALE

Excellent market coverage of over 2.5 million people in the Cleveland DMA, including the urban and suburban areas of Cleveland and Akron. Pre-repack Ch. 16. Post-repack Ch. 27. 15KW at 1000ft in the Cleveland Antenna Farm. New transmission equipment. Contact Bill Klaus at 330-671-3351 or [email protected]

That would be W16DO, part of the old CAT network that was done in with spectrum cash-ins.

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/111131/gray-creating-fargo-duopoly-with-kcpm-buy

 

And here we go again with Gray. This time they're buying KCPM in Fargo, to create a duopoly with KVLY (NBC).

It's a good buy and will definitely easily get a failing station waiver; the former ownership literally kept it on the air with duct tape and dental floss and put zero effort into tech and station presentation (and it's mostly been playing FCC keep-away with long silent periods).

The sale shouldn't have even been needed in the first place though; remember, they had KXJB but the then-strict FCC then had them sell it off to become a subchannel machine under other ownership. But in any case, Retro TV is dead in North Dakota the moment Gray takes over.

Now let’s have a look at WIAT’s mess of a new look (I hope this soon gets pushed aside for the Nexstar CBS package):

That looks like something some teen kid Wikipedia editor who has been blocked 19 times with 17 sockpuppets came up with trying to make up a station. That barely-visible text thinness is the polar opposite worst from WJZ's Fat Helvetica.

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2018/1/23/out-the-door-in-milwaukee

Here's FTVLive's take. Amanda Porterfield will replace her as I saw on FB mentions.

They confirmed it today on their Facebook; totally bright idea as they got negative feedback about it, definitely.

I don't think its a Spanish indie. I think its affiliated with Azteca America.

Another article mentioned that AZA moved back to their previous WPMF-CD in November 2017. WSVN apparently stopped airing Estrella back in July on their subchannel (it's on a light bulb with the calls WVFW-CD right now), but nobody actually noticed until just now they carry Light TV. Which just shows how these new subchannel networks carrying the same six MGM shows are getting no buzz to speak of.

The Cowboy Channel? Where did that come from?

It's what used to be FamilyNet (the 'barely alive' Retro TV of the pre-digital era when it was owned by the Southern Baptists); Sony tried to make it a MeTV killer under a lease from the new owners Rural Media Group (RFD TV) for a couple of years, but it didn't move the needle that much, so Rural took control back in July and put on their rodeo/western sports archive, along with westerns and such. On another note, Sony's Get TV has basically become the home of old Sony sitcoms after their Antenna TV agreement expired at the end of 2017.

It's definitely not an equivalent for Encore Westerns by any means.

Well... its now Milwaukee PBS and I agree, they should.

Bah, force of habit. I moved all the MPTV things on Wikipedia to Milwaukee PBS and I still call it MPTV sometimes.

Given how wpvi is so dominant I was wondering how in the days of analog broadcasting their audio feed on 87.75FM rated? Would it be rated at all?

As a television station they probably didn't subscribe to Arbitron (I know WITI promoted their 87.7 availability but they never showed up in a radio ratings rundown). I know WRME-LP in Chicago does to Nielsen Audio so it's possible, but until the 2000's it was just considered a radio dial quirk and not a viable business plan.