nathannah

They rebranded around the same time as WFTC did as Fox 9 Plus so they'd probably not rebrand anytime soon and the Houston cluster seems to be in its own other world; an oddball market where FNC has no baggage and KTXH just comfortably exists with little competition outside any plans Scripps and Tegna would have for their station since the Space City teams aren't moving anytime soon.

As of today, it looks like My 50 is no more...just happened to tune into 32's stream to check the weather for Thursday down there, and they showed a Family Feud clip with a local family recorded off the broadcast showing WPWR is now "Fox Chicago +". MyNet airs 11p-1a and is replaced in prime time with a quad block of the Feud.

At least they have their existence acknowledged by Fox, unlike KCOP, or "Fox 11 Plus". Just awaiting the eventual day they move it to 11.2 and channel 13 just becomes LiveNow 24/7 or the Best of Tubi (wouldn't make sense to rebrand MNTV as something Tubi-adjacent or just put stuff from it on instead)?

For the late night games you figure that the West and Mountain time stations are good with it, and most of the Nexstar and Sinclair CW base is pre-empting filler like True Crime News and The National Desk, and had enough time to bump their local coverage to their MyNet sister or to the DT2 subchannel. As for the Fox stations it can only really help their coverage since they don't have to rush footage and pack editing suites to get their entire segment done, so it gives everything more time to breathe, and worse comes to worse, any pre-emptions have a full two days in overnights to be covered. And for Fox's O&Os they've begun to push their late newscasts to Fox Local on-time and a replay after the game, so at least for them there's no extra pain or having to wait until midnight to get on-air. For other groups with sister stations, things like "First on Fox" and "Most Wanted" aren't aired and the Big Three newscast is repeated late, or centralcasters like Coastal had the show well done outside weather before the game even started. The thing I don't get though is why Fox hasn't killed the Saturday late night hour. No SNL rival is oncoming and you can't keep justifying a reality show repeat these days in that slot. And they might as well put Weekend Marketplace out of its misery already because the little money it makes when it does air can't even be a lot these days.

The good news is that this did happen and KICU picked up MyNet... for 3am-5am, which is the bad news. You might as well not even call them an affiliate of MNTV at this case, or even an O&O.

New on air for ABC with the wind down of the network app (Disney TV apps and local station live streaming all shutdown September 23), promos now prominently show Hulu with ABC on the right-hand bug. You have to wonder with the former, a rebrand to ABC+ to tie into Disney+ and ESPN+ will occur after they get the Comcast interest.

Seeing their actual building in the open (which apparently is part of a drug store/antique mall but I can't tell because Google hasn't been by it since the blurry old days), it's a massive improvement to move into a facility constructed specifically for digital television. I'm sure that's why they were losing their staff.

You have to wonder if the wear and tear on a set in use for 18½ hours can really be justified with only six hours of downtime on weekdays. LEDs certainly make a difference in keeping talent cooler than incandescent lighting, but just overuse is going to wear down displays much faster than your regular Spectrum news channel or network affiliate and on other things such as seating, plugs and adapters, teleprompters, flooring, and production equipment. It may be cheap on the talent side, but for set dressers it's an absolute deal-breaker if the only downtime is third shift, and for the equipment budget. Hopefully some standards organization and the various manufacturers are getting wear and tear data with such a heavily-used set, because KTLA's data is unlimited.

You have to assume since they went through bankruptcy they may not be acting on that due to lack of funds (Estrella will stick around on KMPX KFAA through a subchannel, by the way).

I will never understand how they completely missed this cost and crew efficiency opportunity; Tonight in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, there were skeletal remains found and it's likely those of a child that went missing this winter. You have WGBA in the market, while WTMJ gets some coverage in the county, but certainly not in Two Rivers. There is absolutely nothing happening at 10pm in front of the Two Rivers Town Hall. Most stations would either just mention that they're waiting for new details and send nobody out, or have someone pre-tape a report in front of the town hall for the 10pm because the only news broken is literally contained in a sheriff's department Facebook post. WBAY did send their reporter devoted to it out live, but she has been with the story since day one and you would expect she'd want to be live for any piece of breaking news arising out of it. That move I won't question. Guess what the Scripps station did? If you said that they both wasted gas, reporters and crew and made them wait out football, and then go live after the game's end just to say 'we know just as much as the sheriff's Facebook post', with WGBA's reporter at Two Rivers Town Hall and then the WTMJ reporter at Two Rivers City Hall...you must be a Scripps station (WTMJ) that doesn't trust their sister station (WGBA) enough to report the story in a coordinated live shot simulcast on both stations. I know WGBA has really cut back, but I think they'd still know how to time a live shot with 'TMJ. That way, they didn't needlessly go 75 miles north to just read a Facebook post and get some generic 'oh I hope they found them' interviews with locals just because your station's ego is that wounded if you had to depend on your sister station to report on it. I'm just shaking my head; this is beginner's stuff and they've been sister stations for twenty years now. I'm less mad at WGBA here than WTMJ because the former did have an interest in being there, but either way, this isn't a good reflection of Scripps even able to get one of their prime stations to stop treating their sister like a red-headed stepchild.

Ewww, court show repeats are cheap, but also so tacky, especially on a station like WFAA. I don't even like it for Judy's shows. And the long and slow sad decline of ET from the paragon of entertainment reporting to just IE-level filler that's easily pre-empted without CBSMV or viewers even ruffling a feather continues.

A double shocker from JB Flint from the WSJ. Sinclair fired the founding CEO of Tennis Channel for all but tapping on the Docusign and taking a deep and unauthorized role with Dr. Phil's JV with TBN, Merit Street, including moving from California to the Metroplex. And then we now know Sinclair is trying to unload Tennis Channel, but though we thought they were shopping some stations, Flint says it's more of a 'significant chunk'. Looks like they're in deeper than originally thought. WSJ website Apple News

As for WDJT, they get Judy Justice...which is going up against Original Recipe Judge Judy at 3pm. Both episodes airing back to back. So we'll see how the ratings do for either/or if they just cancel each other out and everyone just heads for Kelly or JHud instead. In Green Bay, WBAY is airing it at 11 a.m. and 12:07 a.m., so you can get a slower-drip Judy infusion through the day, counting WLUK's JJ hour at 3 p.m. Inside Edition moved to WLUK earlier in the week so for now WBAY is airing repeats of Project Pitch-It (a cheesehead version of Shark Tank) to fill time; they also lost Storage Wars (eh), but Pawn Stars for now remains stubborn before the noon show. Battleground is staying at 6:30 p.m. through November on WITI until November, at least, so TMZ is pushed to their midnight newsmag zone. WFRV in Green Bay took it, a surprise considering their only syndicated show is Friends.

The glass did its job as it was designed to do; it's supposed to remain intact and not shatter as bulletproof glass, so that's all you can really ask out of a strong pane of glass like that. I've been past the studio many times and it really is protected with thick glass that absorbs most collision impact as it did in 2007 (not that I've tested it out myself). The other thing though is that it was totally a punk suburban kid here just being a stupid little brat, so this wasn't what you'd expect at all in downtown Chicago. For the most part criminals definitely steer clear of that block of State Street just by virtue of WLS being there with multiple skycams and multiple angles; you'd be an absolute idiot to commit a crime there. And for the most part when WGN Radio and WMAQ had their own streetside studios the worst you got was the occasional drunk who might provide some midnight color commentary. I'm sure ABC and CBS regularly have security checks to make sure everything is secured and proper, so I'm not worried about anything horrible happening out there outside of copycats.

Another note is that DirecTV Stream users did lose access to their ABC affiliates because that's negotiated at the network level, not with station groups.

Feels very empty and vacant...not something that makes a good first impression when all the prizes aren't on-set and break up the blank clutter.

Would they really do a third 'switch' in so many years though? They have a pretty cushy deal now where GBH does all their engineering and it really isn't worth all that effort and cost just for a channel number, and they and WNEU are on the same tower already, while WSBK has a weaker ERP. If anything the better deal here would be for PG to get a tax deduction to donate the WSBK license to GBH for $1, WGBX moves there, GBH sells 44 to NBC, they can finally pack the NBC/Telemundo suite of channels on there...which would leave WNEU the odd one out here. Weigel is a more realistic possibility especially with PG trying to get out of Start TV, so it could be a trade to get full-channel coverage of the Weigel nets. Anything but HC2 (Scripps, WRNN and Univision are also duoped and maxed out).

Does it come with the golf club membership? But otherwise...who would buy any of these stations at all? You're not getting a studio or existing personnel from the other side of the duopoly, and have to build everything but the transmitter back up from scratch, and it would take nothing for CBS to just keep the networks and schedules on a subchannel. The only buyers are the HC2s and the new era of spectrum speculators who are still convinced from the 2010s folks like Michael Dell who insist that OTA Internet will be a thing. Also it looks like KCCW is an error unless PG wants to lose all its WCCO coverage in the middle of the state.

I actually think it's a good evolution of the Hearst design, which has aged pretty well compared to the other group packs. I like to think they didn't change them wholesale because they see their stations visually as newspapers in design where stability is a good thing and any change should be subtle and slow. Yes, it looks like more of the same, but Hearst is already on top in many of their markets. Not much they do need to do to keep that advantage, and the graphics match their 'not broken' thinking.

A reminder also that outside WMYD and standard renewals, Scripps never actually affiliated stations with the network itself on their own and most of the affiliations were outstanding from the Journal and Cordillera days. Kinda like Hearst's Fox refusal, except they didn't want to shake up the boat until the CW became more than a primetime-E/I only network that reduced their local programming time. And conversely, Nexstar affiliated stations with the Katz networks when they were independently owned, so both of these are just the two groups taking their toys they got from a friend and going home.

How were they able to hide that from DirecTV for two and a half years? Did they just send a dummy WHAG feed with NBC programming still on it from master control for their eyes only, or was DirecTV just that in the dark; you'd think engineering or an angry call center viewer from the area would've told them 'yeah, they aren't carrying NBC any longer we might need to check into this'.

On top of the self-inflicted NBA nightmare, WBD has now lost their previously-held Spanish rights to MLB to Univision, which will now air games (including the ALDS and ALCS) on Vix, Univision, TUDN and UniMas.The NL side for the playoffs remains with Fox Deportes this go-around. It'll also simulcast Game 1 of the World Series with Fox Deportes. If you recall from previous years they used CNN en Espanol and TruTV to do so with no adjustment of graphics into Spanish and their 'promotion' of the game availability was limited to the perfunctory 'Spanish presentation on (network)' mention at the start. So even if UNI just uses the default MLBN package it'll already be at a Fox Deportes level of presentation compared to TNT Sports' brush-off.

We're about to see Audacy sold for parts, this is so tragic. Their stations are now centralcast to a degree that makes Alpha jealous (Bru is beyond the worst voicetracker in the industry and his lack of show prep shows fully on air), their RDS info now only displays the show or a Top Dog ad and not the actual track playing, and it feels like everything and everyone is going through the motions. I figured it was coming with the move of WINS to AM, but I expected it to be Relavented or some other Godcaster. It still may be in the future, but GKB doesn't focus on ratings numbers so they'll get bad numbers, but thankfully not KABC bad for sports talk. Bizarre though that Audacy will technically run the physical plant of their main competitor.

I hope week two has spell check...pass interFEARance.

A little bit far off, but it's been confirmed it'll be CBS Sports producing the Christmas games for Netflix. Likely we'll get both games locally in-market on the CBS-owned stations (including WJZ and KDKA). CBS talent is yet to be confirmed to be used. And no changes to the Packers package this year; still in house with the same look and CBS production.