nathannah

Trying to justify the purchase of what was an HD-era experimental channel otherwise bound for HC2 irrelevancy. The entire WHDT purchase made no sense from the start at all; sure, you get an overflow station, but what else can you do with that station outside guaranteeing full coverage for your subnets? The CW isn't moving, you've got WFLX and Fox already via sidecar, and the Ion flagship is just as sidecarred. I wouldn't be surprised if the purchase came with a Mar-a-Lago membership a la WLNY.

One side effect of the Dabl management deal has quietly appeared on Weigel's Start TV; they now air that day's DREW episode at 1am weeknights for the night owls who don't have local stations that repeat the episode overnight (or only half of it), a la Kelly airing on Bravo the same way.

With all of the issues, it may have just come down to that there literally isn't much advertising revenue to support the station even in a part-time bureau state and they were completely under water with the station (over the years the transmitter alone was a money sink which kept breaking down in the core of winter). Some of these smaller markets are down to a state where they're stalled out to the point of ripping and reading from Nixle and Facebook for much of the show (because police and municipal authorities don't want them to go deeper than that and openly obstruct them from doing so) and the only original content left is weather (which can be outsourced) and sports (outside the high school football and basketball regular seasons just a vacuum of time).

I would literally pay extra for a 'clean feed' with just a simple scorebug and no tickers; every new sports service seems to think it's required to appeal to the 'prop bet on random Bangladeshi netball at 4:30 in the morning' category of bettors. I really hope that information isn't baked into the video of this service.

Should also mention WGN Radio airs the 4-6 block of channel 9's morning news in Chicago; it's a common thing for heritage/struggling stations that can't justify filling the 5am hour these days with Orion retired and Max mainly focusing on his TV duties (as their farm reports used to fill that 5am slot), and WGN starts at 4am because their overnight syndicated filler (Rich Valdes) ends at 5am ET/4am CT. There are some set aside periods for the radio side to contribute their own traffic reports and you have to assume that the TV side adjusts their presentation knowing that radio listeners can't see images on-screen. And it just makes me sad that WGN and KABC (which is so badly-rated Cumulus is embarrassed to ask Nielsen rate it) have to depend on TV stations to fill time now.

thefinestcitywiththefineststationsintheworldfromthefineestbroadcasterinamerica.com

And now it's been confirmed; ten games this season among WDJT, WMLW, and Telemundo Wisconsin in Milwaukee, with outer markets still TBA;

Since all the episodes are available on-demand lately it's probably more that than anything rather than CBS mob-tacting them; at the end of the day it's yet another 'if you haven't seen it, it's new to you' syndicated package that fills an easy hour and captures the audience which doesn't want to deal with Freevee. And it certainly isn't original content in 2024. What is CBS going to do, take away their Dr. Phil reruns? No, not the Dr. Phil reruns from 2018 we air at 4am anyways that OWN and Pluto also air and will clog Merit Street soon, please don't take those.

St. Louis before the traditional 'cable guys' got their hands on Charter and moved it to CT is still in many ways, Spectrum's true 'home' market Charter-wise; it's really surprising that they haven't had a Spectrum News outpost in STL for years, and it seems like a severely missed opportunity. I know the big three organizations seem to 'serve' enough, but it's a very entrenched and conservative market where even changing the graphics (as KMOV just did) is akin to a gaudy plastic surgery to the market core in St. Louis County. Some kind of competitor would be welcome, but they have to balance the city and county viewers and find a niche that works. KDNL's move meanwhile isn't shocking as for their netlet/lower Big Four stations, SBG prefers a small studio to do what they need to do for commercial clients and the occasional public affairs show. I would worry about deferred maintenance for those Cole St. studios though.

And that is a whole lot less important considering ABC News's current direction; if we were talking 2005 ABC post-Jennings with Charlie Gibson and such, that could have been a priority to tie into. But with their news division now hyperfocused on weather, crime, and politics, there's less of a need to drive that full-day viewing, and pragmatically they'd still be deep in fourth even if the news division wasn't mothballed and went through the News Central and 'fake news cold read' eras unchanged with Sinclair. The move towards streaming and Hulu also makes it easy to just be happy with what you can get through KDNL, and both Disney syndies, Kelly and Mark and Tamron are on their schedule in the morning; whatever complaints they have about three hours (!) of talk/court reruns (!!) in the afternoon and TND, as long as they have viewers back at 7 or online, that's more important now than building around a low-rated news operation, and after The Allman Report, they're probably just glad that Sinclair has stopped messing around with news at all in St. Louis. Realistically, Scripps is pretty much done with developing news beyond their odd Alden/Gannettized 'evergreen for the siding companies instead of breaking' direction; an "ABC 46" would make WGBA look like a juggernaut in comparison. I could still see Weigel do it for KNLC, but the studio issue would be a lot to overcome (do you build in town, on the edge of town, or deep in St. Louis County?), but the problem is the market, where you have to provide enough news coverage of St. Louis City that would be original and worthwhile, but also have to deal with balancing St. Louis County and MetroEast coverage and not alienating those viewers by being too St. Louis-focused (a major issue with Midwest cities). There has to be a niche to stand out, and unfortunately the only one in STL that stands out right now is the 'cancelled' one Larry Connors, Jamie Allman and Vic Faust have honed, and that isn't Weigel at all. For them outside of dealing whatever wacky things the NLEC does on their second sub in the public file, they probably have fewer headaches just dealing with common MeTV complaints about commercials and schedules and such than dealing with ABC complaints.

You would think Sinclair would be 'all-in' on this new "ARC" concept, but nineteen days later...KUNS is still KUNS, referring to an affiliation it no longer has, while their website for Univision Seattle, along with the domain name, remains up as a dead site, which Sinclair has refused to transfer to Weigel, and the move to KVOS was a short footnote at the end of a newscast that most Spanish viewers already tuned out of because of that betrayal. There's not even an ARC Seattle section up on KOMO's website at all; its only presence on the entire web (behind several other results for 'ARC Seattle') is a low-viewed YouTube playlist on KOMO. Not even its own channel, but a playlist of videos. For all intents and purposes for the web, channel 51 in Seattle no longer exists, along with the CW in Seattle; they were better off just keeping it on Comet for all the lack of effort they put into this all. Meanwhile, the Fox renewal that was seemingly less controversial this time (as in no oddball Ion backup plan) reads to me as Fox just not seeing them as any competition to speak of at all for right-wing news. They don't even consider them competition at all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?)