mrschimpf

Someone forgot to check the website design using F12...

Also interesting that WITI isn't grabbing it, even as a YBYL replacement (I'm sure they're all excited to have Seinfeld back at its God-given 10:35 timeslot, fingers crossed),

I really do think nothing at all will change at KCAL; it's just something to ward off a domain haggler from grabbing any city/channel name combo CBS has. "Miami33" just seems like a haggler asking an insane price nobody would pay, and it's doubtful anything will change with WBFS, but they bought Florida33 for the same reason. CBS still does have the WLNYTV.com domain for those curious.

On 8/22/2023 at 2:30 PM, Matt S. said:

WESH: either ET (which has been on at 7pm for at least 15+ years now and has been on WESH in the 7pm hour since 1981) or access hollywood is going….somewhere may only be as far as wkcf. but they’re starting the 7pm news wars here. their own 7pm news will be going against WKMG’s decade old news starting 9/11. the rest of the schedule should be the same, we’ll find out when 9/11 gets here 

ET's probably the show staying in primetime, even on WKCF, but at this point it does feel like a long decline for ET's schedule access (Hearst will pre-empt ET on their stations for anything because that late night replay gives them a huge cushion to work with). Unless you're a CBS affiliate you're just over carrying what seems to have become a paid program for Paramount Global properties and an entertainment news org which isn't really trying as much as they did in the past. In the reverse Access will stay on WESH (even post-Seth) solely because it's NBC produced programming on an NBC affiliate.

1 hour ago, gbsgeo said:

It is unusual for the DFW market considering how all the stations treat the 6pm newscasts as almost their flagship evening newscast. 

The KTVT show was never evergreen though, and we have nearly 20 years of data to show that the J!/WoF block doesn't damage any newscast or early prime ratings if it's carried at 6pm Central and makes all the other shows more important overall.

1 hour ago, CircleSeven said:

I'll Believe it when I see it. It's a shame that were's just about nine days away before CBS pulling the CW from its stations and Nexstar has yet to announce which stations will get it in the four remaining markets. Including (no one mentioned it yet) Seattle.

And the Sinclair renewal is still in flux with no public announcement. Even if WPNT shows CW on the 1st, until that deal closes it's officially "To Be Announced" for all CW Sinclair stations down the line.

As someone who's watched a 'First Alert Station' for several years (WBAY), everyone just kinda gets used to it after awhile and adjusts where and when to say it. It's only the first few days and graphics haven't rolled out yet; give it a bit of time and it'll work better once they figure out the proper points to brand it. 

I'm not finding that link on their site (unless it's in the paid section), and why would a radio site care about a broadcaster that got out of said industry five years ago?

51 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Could some of these late additions be due to the ongoing strikes?

Like what happened in 1988, it's likely that as far as sitcoms/dramas (what few are left), they'll wait to launch those until the strikes are settled; also expect Kelly to launch late, and Tamron and Sherrie to focus on different topics so we're not getting into 'cast members from non-union Tubi movies' territory as far as guests.

6 minutes ago, racefan_09 said:

Would not have expected to see the Raycom look for a team outside the southeast, interested to know the story behind that.

KVVU is the Raiders broadcaster so it makes all the sense here.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

This may be a one-off, but the Chiefs-Saints game (New Orleans Saints network) is running on WKRG 5.3 (MeTV) in SD. Usually, these games run on the main WKRG feed.

 

Is Nexstar so beholden to CBS that they can't pre-empt the Big 3 basketball game going on at the same time?  WFNA has LIV golf as well, as well as being home to the Bucs network.

 

WLOX is airing it on 13.1 (ABC) and it's airing on their flagship station, WVUE Fox 8 in New Orleans. 

On the Saints website, it has Gray as their TV partner, but WALA is not carrying it.  They still may be under contract to WKRG, and once that lapses, the games will likely move to WALA.

The St. Jude Championship is on CBS (Memphis event, so pretty nearby), so it's likely much more that than the basketball, and CW is running LIV Golf, so off to 5.3 it goes. The latter is likely more corporate interference than the former for St. Jude.

17 minutes ago, Viper550 said:

According to the Colts' network, the Bills have re-located to Indianapolis but are still playing in Buffalo.

Someone take the graphics machine away from Jim Irsay, he's not qualified to run it! 

I don't know what on earth is happening to WGN News's Twitter feed (Nexstar AI experiment? Google bombing? The Morning News staff needing some reactive content for the week?), but these are...pieces the feed has posted today, credited to WTVO.

3 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

Interesting how they haven’t claimed texas21.com yet.

For that one TXA21 will more likely remain, if with a redesigned logo to meet this new city branding thing since they remained independent all through. Boston and Miami are the ones to look out for now (if they even remember they own WBFS).

8 hours ago, doublejman69 said:

Thing is Scripps News (awful name) and others like it are barely better than local news quality with unknown anchors and commentators.

I argue I'd rather not know the anchors for a news network because that means they're working there to work and report news and be a pure product like the AP/UPI was for newspapers. If I don't know much about an anchor or reporter, that's a good thing, and I was happy with their coverage on Thursday rather than the dunk culture that's become network news.

At least Scripps is a trustworthy name and staid, rather than "NewsNation", which is obviously knocking off the Fox Nation name.

No graphical changes to speak of for the Packers TV network, which aired the Family Night scrimmage tonight.

Ehh, some of them have deteriorated to third-fourth place (or never got out of the basement under previous ownership) and have entrenched management that should have been gone a decade ago. For many of those stations, without the police comms officer in charge of their Nixle/Facebook writing up police PR and the craven accident-chasing social media accounts they happily take content from, they'd be even worse off.

I'm happy to see what Scripps can do, because the Journal deal was an albatross of badly-entrenched management (if you've seen my views over the years, you know exactly who I'm talking about) that they had to wait out before they could make their mark on those stations. Scripps News is a good product that needs more eyes on it and anything that gets away from the social media/Ring/drivecam 'filler news' model for their stations is welcome to me.

Interesting choice with the indictment today, with WTMJ just continuing to roll Scripps News coverage of it featuring commentary and anchor shots rather than the NBC News network coverage, which boxed in panels with a larger window boringly focused on satellite trucks and protesters for a thing that cannot be recorded for a departure that takes only two minutes. WGBA took NBC News; not for this thread, but ABC News has an even more pointless shot of a dumb AliExpress message flag in front of the courthouse just flapping monotonously.

We'll likely see this more with the big chains going forward who may have finally hit their limit with pointless network coverage that's just a Trojan Horse to stream on their live streaming networks.

On 7/31/2023 at 8:06 AM, Nelson R. said:

That has been known for a while about that coming to Gray stations. If you go to the search bar on a certain station’s home page and type in InvestigateTV+ an article will come up just like that one for most stations that tells what time(s) it will be airing this fall.  WBTV will be airing it at 3:30pm which if they keep QC at 3, will cut it to 30 minutes. (Not trying to get a list started). 

WBAY is obviously not taking the Dr. Phil reruns (or bumping them to 11am unless they're like 'they're yours' to WCWF or WACY); most of them look to be taking it at that pre-4 slot, which is for the best.

On 7/25/2023 at 6:53 AM, MediaZone4K said:

What puzzles me is still beginning the news at 4/4:30 a.m. on major holidays holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas where people aren't going to work. I would assume this is for continuity sake or ad dollars?

Likely depends more on advertisers who MUST get their message out on Thanksgiving or Christmas for some godforsaken reason; most local news orgs rightly don't bother with a morning or noon newscast on those holidays, but then you have a few that do force it upon their employees.

The other problem is that the syndicated Christmas special market is down to the leftover shows which are just religious orgs fundraising in disguise or cheap drivel like Santa's Funniest Moments, and remote corporate accounting drones consider taping local holiday specials (or even just those Happy Holidays from staff pieces) to be 'money losers'. It's cheaper to talk the fresh out of college reporter to do the Christmas shows for overtime than spend money on studio decor and setup (or remote time) to actually serve the community.

On 7/24/2023 at 7:34 PM, ScottSchell said:

It will show that but I’ve watched it. All it is is web stories they air 24/7 online when the newscast isn’t on air.

I only fear this is going to happen more and more for Scripps stations.

Absolutely not a surprise, and very smart to move the allocation. WCWF is licensed to Suring but they moved to Scray's Hill once LIN took over digitally because the Krakow site they had in the analog age wasn't getting into the Winnebago cities, and if Weigel is going to launch a Green Bay station it has to be from Glenmore.

17 hours ago, abric said:

I have a question that's been bugging me lately. Can a tv station use their physical digital channel number in their branding rather than their virtual channel?

Several stations have switched to physical channel branding and that hasn't been an issue for the FCC as long as it doesn't conflict with a virtual channel already in-market or adjacent, though they've been more hands off about that (re: NBC 10 Boston compared to WJAR actual 10 in Providence; as 10 is just a cable position and they're otherwise 15 OTA, that's something that doesn't get FCC notice).

1 hour ago, CircleSeven said:

There will be a callsign change in Pittsburgh & San Francisco come September 1st.

• WPCW > WPKD
• KBCW > KPYX

KPYX is obvious...WPKD sounds like "Pittsburgh KDKA". A little disappointed that they didn't go back to KBHK, but with these stations basically becoming 'plus' appendages of the main station, I really have no problems with these changes.

Also just reminds us that boats also hold FCC calls...thank you for whatever service you did, Sliver Lark and Sealand Archiver.

The inevitable has happened; RNN Associates, which turned several major market stations into zombies carrying ShopHQ programming, has purchased ShopHQ's parent company out of (duh) Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They're probably going to keep their viewer-hostile 'only appeal to 50+ers until they're in the grave' strategy going.

Great job, FCC; your spectrum auction turned a broadcaster into a shopping network-owning literal waste of electricity for a channel that should've died decades ago but hangs on because of must-carry. Really great for that 'diversity of voices' thing you used to judge licensees on in the old days.

1 hour ago, nickp said:

A lot of people are laughing at the ACC 

Nah, for the most part this is returning quite a few stations to the Saturday status quo they had for at least a couple decades where they'd carry ESPN+ (the old regional sports version) or Raycom coverage. This should have been done back to when UPN was carrying XFLI games but the weekend syndie hour show market hadn't yet hard-crashed.

They might be the thinner matches, but it's still college football on Saturdays and basketball on weeknights. It's better than Nielsen scratch-athons the 55th episode of dead sitcoms or Byron Allen filler...

...and this package will affect his HBCU coverage for the next season. Expect that to bump exclusively to MyNet affiliates and subchannels if it was on a CW station last year. Of course this is contingent on the CW renewing SInclair, which is still quite in limbo.

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

If "character" was ever an issue the FCC cared about, Sinclair would have been shut down years ago.  But even by their failed and misguided attempt to purchase Tribune, payola, plugola and regulatory blunders over the years, all they got was some fines and consent degrees...

And the worst fine was mainly the fault of someone who have the sense to not schedule Hot Wheels ads during a Hot Wheels cartoon, which is more the fault of human nature than SBG trying to pull wool over anyone's eyes.

5 minutes ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

I am more than happy to criticize Fox News Channel for false reporting. That being said, this screams of being a publicity stunt that goes after the wrong target. Where in the petition does it say that Fox spread misinformation on WTXF, or for that matter, any of their TV stations? If they don’t have evidence of that, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

 

By all means, go after Fox News, but don’t actively miss the forest for the trees.

Yes...I agree that they need scrutiny, but actual examples are needed here. The FTS stations are ultimately controlled at the local level by local people, and though some of the stations did carry the full FNC coverage of January 6's events (including the commentary), many (like WITI) saw it, immediately stopped the simulcast, and actively try to keep Rupert and Suzanne Scott from hijacking their agenda fully because they answer to local viewers first.

Agreed that the WWOR example definitely needs to be taken seriously, but if you're going to go after a license renewal, go with a station that's questionable like KTSP (Kari Lake), WJBK (the most low-effort news division out of all of FTS's stations), or WTVT (their past chicanery). WTXF actually has local programming beyond news and I don't forsee the challenge winning because of their programming, and mainly because WTXF's news division is okay at best and most viewers in the market (outside the Eagles) are entrenched with either 6ABC (which has a strong 10pm on WPHL) or WCAU, with the outliers sticking with KYW.

Also it's 2023...just throwing up random examples isn't going to work in a day when newscasts are cataloged and timestamped in full online, and in multiple places, like YouTube and Fox's own sites. We're no longer in the days where we have to write Burell's Transcripts and pay $10 for a copy of one. It's easy enough to build your case with actual clips and proper research.