mrschimpf

On 1/17/2024 at 9:06 PM, AmericanErrorist said:

The action isn't against Nexstar but specifically Mission, and the Loudens haven't had these issues.

Yes, but they're not the issue; Mission specifically is and just came from a retrans fine, and you hope the Loudens have made it clear that they will make sure all of the duties are properly carried out, and hopefully they still negotiate RTC itself.

19 minutes ago, TVLurker said:

The RSN nightmare continues.

It really just buys time for the online components; if Spectrum drops them in February, expect the dominoes to fall and for other providers to follow, which is why the NBA set aside games later in the year for other outlets. In Wisconsin, Spectrum is the majority provider, and there is absolutely no way the Bucks or Brewers would stay on Bally if that occurs. Fubo carriage can only overcome so much and it's still going to take several months for Diamond to move from "Baby's First RSN CMS System" (which is pretty much been trashed to hell and back by the Bucks fanbase) to AWS.

Just to follow up on my worst fears, he had his first all-hands meeting today, dragged the entire staff, and went on and on about how he wanted the paper to be Fox 45, but in print. And that his favorite token sidecar/subfarm operator Armstrong Williams (who also took a token stake here) is "a good writer".

Not really broadcasting related, but certainly big news in Baltimore, even with the Sun's decline and influence. The sale and operation is independent of SBG, but the lack of regulatory muscle makes that a comically short hurdle to overcome.

14 minutes ago, Adam MadMan said:

And Kevin Adell's chance of consummating his deal to sell WADL has gone from jack squat to jack...y'know.

He'll sell off eventually, but instead of the big payday he expected like he did when he gutted 910 to become the market's conservative failure station, he's going to soon find Innovate, TCT or WRNN are the only ones wanting to buy. And it'll be interesting to see where Nexstar's equivalent deal with KAZT actually goes.

He had a golden goose in 1994, but those days are long gone.

36 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It's pretty sad that a company as deeply rooted as Scripps is doing this at their TV stations across the country.

Especially in Tulsa with KTUL already white-flagging out; KOTV and KOKI probably appreciate the added viewership, but likely hate the burden put on them because their competitors can't bother with actual news coverage. I'd also love to see how that'll go during tornado and hurricane season, and instead KJRH is airing something about some old building or a cookie shop, while KOKH struggles to cover 2/3rds of the state without diluting the warning coverage quality, and you already saw WFTX struggling with their last coverage thanks to deep cuts.

11 hours ago, ATLNewsExpert said:

Not bad! Like the still Falcons transition WSB used today. Hope that transition animates nicely! Like that infographic here too!

 

IMO from what we've seen this looks like Scripps News meets NewsNation.

The font and look reads to me like a copy of the Fox O&O graphics; if you took away all branding and asked me to compare WSB to WAGA, I would be hard-pressed to tell the difference outside the "5", which has a signature look with Fox's Neue Plck font which isn't in the Coxpollo package.

4 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

I was also surprised at HBO's ratings were that low despite the critical acclaim of a lot of their shows. 

Don't forget though this is counting all 168 hours of programming a week for HBO; they might get great ratings during those two-three nights of primetime, but otherwise it's the 478th replay of "88 Minutes" or "Now You See Me 2". Most of those customers use HBO's VOD service or Max outside those hours. Same with Showtime or Starz; by design those ratings are low because the need to follow a schedule has long been negated and is just there more for DVR scheduling a movie you want to see and FF/rewind without cable VOD restrictions, than actual organic tune-in.

Yet another jump of the affiliation in Phoenix; KAZT will take over on February 1. Nexstar will provide services.

On 1/6/2024 at 10:30 PM, CoopInTheHouse said:

A small surprise was Hogar De HGTV at 154th and Galanovelas at 148th. Hell, the most watched Spanish network of 2023 was UNIVISION at 7th. Just goes to show how Spanish-speaking people don’t respect good TV these days, even if it’s in Español. (Except the telenovelas that has the same amount of budget as the cost of a Subway footlong).

Hogar is more severe undermarketing than anything else; it was intended to have a broader launch, but WBD happened and Zazlav probably starved its budget and like Discovery Family, it's probably stuck in the hands of some middle manager who doesn't speak any Spanish. And the latter is mainly because it's Spanish TV Land where the same older novelas are ran over and over and the network is a loss leader for TU; they don't really look at the ratings for it at all.

Cheddar is going through cutbacks and furloughs itself; you can argue most of the regular business audience has long moved onto more niche services and platforms such as Reddit, leaving these networks to adjust to the most mainstream audience (thus the graphics changes), or like Fox Business, being a barely-disguised annex of their mother news channel. Why wait for your favorite stock to appear on a ticker when you can just call it up easily on any device?

They're usually viewed in public places, but you're beginning to see that slip; many McDonald's over the last few months have switched from the cable news channels to Atomsphere TV, a service purposefully designed to just be visual informative noise without any of the 'here's a story, and now a partisan debate' claptrap of cable news. Businesses are finally realizing that live TV in a public place is just a pointless expense when someone will pay to have you put their experience in for free.

1 hour ago, CTrey98 said:

Not a good move from a fan prospective. The MLB does better than Bally's when it comes to producing the broadcasts, but their pay to watch structure has been a pain for DBacks and Padres fans. Rockies fans will experience the same thing. 

MLB has arranged carriage of games on regular cable TV (usually on the spare channel on cable systems carrying news or filler content), and it's only a gametime broadcast rather than wrapped around wobbly Jenga content to create a 24/7 'regional sports network' that's anything but (if that was true, legend's tennis and poker would not have a home). You're paying the same cost for Bally anyways, so it might as well go to a quality game broadcast than countless fishing and poker shows.

The major issue I have with the editorial is it focuses too much on all these Big Four issues, when the major problem are these subfarm broadcasters like H2/Edge/DTV America, along with Coastal and WRNN that should be operating stations in the local interest, but instead have bought out stations to turn into subchannel farms of absolute low-effort IPTV crap run by the same kinds of people who have made the Internet an advertising hellscape. Or with Coastal and Sinclair, have completely garbage newscasts recorded during studio downtime that are viewer-repellant. Edge Spectrum has been tolling out CP's for nearly 6-8 years with no intention of actually broadcasting, while H2 has wound down networks for filler crap like Timeless TV and Vision Latina and absolutely refused to be competitive.

Even Tegna, Scripps and Sinclair are complicit with this, as outside Ion the rest of their channels are reality glurge only there for advertising slots, and instead of multiple networks like Twist dying because there's nobody watching, they're being replaced with more things nobody is watching.

There should be a local broadcaster running these stations, and the religious broadcasters should be serving their community. They aren't, and the FCC is at least trying something. I understand the justification being the Main Studio Rule repeal, but there should be some kind of local programming on these stations, and not just 'I called some NPO to drone 20 minutes about their stuff, we're good' malicious compliance. There are YouTubers in those communities that could probably fulfill those guidelines better in themselves.

Just stop consolidating and racing to the bottom, broadcasters. You see what happened to radio; don't try to even venture near that result.

3 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

News is being restored to KDNL. They are running The National Desk at 6am, 5pm and 10pm starting January 1st.

The ratings however, will remain elusive as always. ABC still deserves better.

1 hour ago, AmericanErrorist said:

Paramount and Comcast quietly reached a carriage deal starting New Year's Day:

 

https://deadline.com/2023/12/comcast-paramount-reach-carriage-renewal-averting-blackout-1235683726/

I still don't understand how you only make a two-year deal and call it a 'multiyear' deal, especially when RTC deals are usually on a three-year cycle. The two-year cycle suggests either some acrimony from Comcast that they now prefer bi-yearly deals, and certainly panic on Paramount's side so they can keep the unseen lights on for a few of their zombie networks as long as possible.

Going by current year-end cable rankings (the one Variety article I must read at the end of the year), Nick/@ Nite went from being ranked in the lower top 10-top 20 to now #54 by average. There is no literal kid's cable market any longer outside rare events and several series, and by the time any deal for PG is finished, CBS, Paramount+ with Showtime and the library will be the only value left.

On another note, that 21% drop-off for The CW versus Ion and Me is concerning. I expected a drop, but not that hard.

10 hours ago, T.L. Hughes said:

Dabl rebranded/relaunched as a Black-focused comedy network a day earlier than the linked schedule indicated, switching formats at 6:00 a.m. ET today (December 29) with two back-to-back airings of The Parkers. This is the new logo:

(Also, this Dabl discussion should probably be moved to the Paramount thread in "Corporate Chat".)

Just one more note before it's shifted, it looks like according to the privacy policy on the website the network is now under Weigel's control with their '26 N. Halsted Chicago' address; PG still owns it altogether, but it's Weigel doing the actual selling/programming, which is a smart move to disambiguate it from the zombie networks and provides hope it'll have those smart folks behind it who know how to program and promote it.

What would help is if they use their lower-thirds to identify who's anchoring on GMA as a substitute, or just a bare VO at the top. Their stage left substitute anchors vary between a number of interchangeable white men and the only way to know who they are is if the correspondent mentions their name during a toss; it's annoying to the viewer (I know WNT is always going to be "with David Muir" even if Elmo's anchoring). It's almost like ABC News doesn't want to identify anyone unless their contract specifies they must be or like Tory Johnson, makes money for them.

5 minutes ago, CircleSeven said:

ls this Fave TV?

Fave's schedule is more reality-based, and there's no sign in their schedule of a merger at all, outside of Fave adding Everybody Loves Raymond to their own schedule at the beginning of the year.

On 12/18/2023 at 8:01 AM, mrschimpf said:

Another ETA - WXSP's translator network is the ATSC 3.0 lighthouse though, so I do agree with TB that it seems WOTV-DT2 is likely to carry it just because they have room for another 1080i sub and Dabl is easy to dump.

And just out of curiosity about what 41.2 will air, it looks like Dabl is completely done after December 29th; according to its national schedule it's becoming yet another Paramount Global specialty with their networks that need to die; a rerun feed of 90s UPN/WB sitcoms; no network name known yet, so expect another big exodus of stations at the end of the year switching networks on their Dabl subs. The network's social feeds haven't been updated since mid-September so it already was on borrowed time.

2 hours ago, mre29 said:

 

What the hell is an "all-name team" and do the athletes have a say in whether or not they're on it?

 

Sigh...

 

College football with college-level humor, because that's what sports coverage really needs. Enjoy, sports addicts fans.

 

The county it's in doesn't support it at all, and though they'll have to tone down the language for the FCC, sadly there's nothing that says they can't promote their betting interests or nonsense like their over/under parlay cover line, so if you're a fan of Wyoming or Toledo, you're probably turning down the TV and listening to the radio call instead, just so you don't have to hear them heap abuse on a player in case he did something that loses them money, like they did with their basketball tournament the other month.

For GR most likely it'll replace WXSP's primetime with CW rather than being on a sub of WOOD or WOTV, of course. And here the CW should've been on WXSP in the first place to begin with.

ETA - B+C says WOTV will carry it and cede ABC (likely a misreading), but the Nexstar PR doesn't clarify which station among the three will carry it.

Another ETA - WXSP's translator network is the ATSC 3.0 lighthouse though, so I do agree with TB that it seems WOTV-DT2 is likely to carry it just because they have room for another 1080i sub and Dabl is easy to dump.

The station pulls the signal every single time even if the provider offers to keep the station on while the dispute is hashed out at the old rate, which is always refused because they don't want one day at the old rate.

The provider can present their case all they want; when Specturm pulled Tribune stations years back, they reminded viewers that they barely watched WGN America and it was a lousy value to keep for the consumer. But the appeal to emotion by the station/network (a la Dora being used to guilt readers into spamming Time Warner Cable to not pull Nickelodeon) always wins out.

1 hour ago, CoopInTheHouse said:

I can think of a few exceptions.

 

And believe it or not, these are all not owned by Gray.

1. WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia
2. WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina
3. KIII-TV in Corpus Christi, Texas

The guidelines made clear it has to be added anytime the station does a logo refresh; as all three haven't done that in decades, they get to keep their logos plain (though there are wedged-in added logos for use on Hulu and ABC's live streaming portal). Hearst's stations could have also done technically with their stations like WISN and WCVB but they complied voluntarily to add it in.

NBC Nebraska has split up into two different brands with the Great De-Peaocking of 2023; the eastern part of the state is now branded as "News 2", while KSTF in Scottsbluff now goes by "KGWN Scottsbluff", drawing from their Casper sister. WLUC has replaced theirs with an outline of the Upper Peninsula, which had been in their pre-1990s logos before their Amazing Technicolor CAD Explosion®® logo was a thing (it'll be interesting to see what "Fox UP" becomes because...how do you disambiguate that?)

1 hour ago, stevieboy247 said:

The Pirates are staying with SportsNet Pittsburgh, and will co-own the network with the Penguins.

Since the only realistic choice was Sinclair (no way current era Cox would pay to add it to PCNC and KDKA+ isn't quite developed yet), it was the best choice, though hopefully that plain-Jane NESN template is gussied up a bit by next season.