nathannah

Considering those folks at WISN killed any effort by my county to reduce COVID-19 through inane 'but muh freedoms' protests against the county government (a county that isn't even covered in their news unless their 'outrage of the week' occurs here), it's no wonder WISN-TV long ago burned all bridges with them.

Corporate has now suspended him for the week...or longer.

I've seen better newscasts from the Atlanta-based American News Network (them of the same production music 'news theme' used by the GTA games). Also it should be noted that clicking any of the social links on the Your Alaska Link page (Twitter, Facebook and YouTube) now bring you to two 'this account no longer exists' pages...while the YT page was removed by that site as "we received multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement regarding material the user posted". Finally, I hope Dorene Lorenz (who seems to be the only one posting web content right now and the only employee left) is doing well despite all the dysfunction going on around her.

The Reserve Square space was formerly a twinned theater, and it was probably like all the other suddenly new CBS affiliates in 1995 which had no new building capital but the requirements to build out news; just find a huge empty space and make the most of it you could at the time (which is how WDJT ended up in a former industrial building where they could build what they needed to in its shell). I don't know what WUAB's building age/situation was at the time so I don't know if staying there was right at the time, but since their competitors were in downtown/thereabouts, it made more sense to be there than southeast in an area where expressway access was farther away. And WOIO isn't optimum...but at least they are far away from the continuing disaster that is WGCL.

As much as the industry would hate it...it may be time to go to a gametime-only model with these networks (or to just have league packages). The long pause between March and July showed that without any live programming, the FSN networks are a dearth of programming stuck with outdoors shows, senior tennis tours to justify the Tennis Channel purchases, and 43 golf tour shows.

After a summer where she suggested park rangers shoot monument vandalizers and overall paranoid COVID skepticism, along with KDKA radio's management deciding to go all-in on conservative talk (and advertisers exited) while KDKA-TV had to 'they're in another universe and we washed our hands of them a couple years ago' people who called to complain about her, Bell is 'indefinitely suspended', though her bio and show page have been pulled (she also lost her Pitt Panther pregame duties on a sister station, which just seems like the most random of assignments).

Surprise from WBAY in Green Bay; as of the 14th, they will be launching a half-hour 9am newscast and filling in the space between 4:30-5:00pm to create a 90-minute news block, as I assume Family Feud wasn't content with the "mere" two timeslots it had on that station (both timeslots contain Feud episodes now).

It's just faster and more efficient to assume non-license assets and IP than hassle with a COVID-hampered FCC at this point. Gray already had to deal with the Wyoming situation and does not want a repeat, and GCI has physical assets like cable headends and satellites (e.g. Time Warner/AT&T/WPCH) that would make a traditional sale/swap a major headache to deal with.

Basically sounds like a WSJV situation...except that KTVA's news department will likely be kept. WSJV still exists since it never got spectrum-baited, and is a non-competitive subchannel farm only existing to allow Quincy to collect free DRTV revenue, so this is likely KTVA's fate, in the same way KRDK ended up the same in Gray's Fargo shuffle. Another likely fate.

Just going through SBTV, they've all finally hit that site, including VOD of newscasts.

Just got a scroll that Scripps stations may be gone from Dish at 7 p.m. ET Friday night if a new deal won't happen (and knowing Dish, it won't)...so that's also happening.

That's the way the NFL blackout policy worked until 2015...thankfully Green Bay always sells out so we never experienced a game blackout locally, but it always sounded embarrassing that a local TV station (this always occurred in bad Vikings years and for at least a decade, for the Lions) had to buy out blocks of tickets so they wouldn't have to carry TV offal instead of their local NFL game on a Sunday afternoon. The main reason for the Indy blackout though is to make it an event you have to see, not just a distraction you can easily access on TV and have bars just Hoover up money with their watch parties that the track would rather have in their own pockets. This year though, you want home eyeballs live in Indy for sure on TV.

Most of the O&O's are doing it, along with some affiliates (since at least late 2018); it works better with a one-numeral channel number for some reason than it does two (or here, eye-straining tiny calls). WDJT in Milwaukee tried to do so for a few weeks, but eventually dropped it because the '58' had to be much smaller and wasn't point-size perfect with the Eyemark. For some reason, the Eyemark is all over the place with its positioning in that bottom right-hand corner depending on news/sports/live/primetime presentations, unlike NBC, Fox, and ABC where news and primetime DOGs are pretty steady and the network affiliate can get their bug lined up perfectly with the network DOG. CBS has about four-five different positions for the Eyemark in a broadcast day.

Their experience with The Online Network suggests that's not happening. OWN and BET have successfully boosted the profile of soap formats in primetime with much better production values (relatively speaking for the format), but the big issue is there has to be a consistent five-day audience for a return of soaps. Streaming has yet to even bother with any type of daytime strip half-hour format (and even the 'short-shot' 10 minute news/night in TV & late night shows haven't sold well to a broad audience), so it's going to be at least a decade before it's even a reality.

With the way things are going, it just might become permanent by default, which is a good thing; news in the afternoon that doesn't have a 'deal of the day' or pundit battles going on is desperately needed, and it's going to be a long time before the NYLA film/TV/book junket tours that give these shows oxygen return, now that it's been proven you can do it a lot easier and personal through videoconferencing. You also can have a local station justifiably break in with news much better with a soft news show than a soap or talk show.

They actually have the same logo now and use it on their international feed in addition to domestically; I assume they have loose permission to use it since they're a news partner with Univision, thus why they were able to license the music/graphics.

That's why you have stations airing those EEO compliance notices all the time (including a year-end doc involving which channel the accepted applicant came from); it's an FCC requirement, even though most of the time nobody attending a mass general job fair will get a job with a television station. For most of them, it's community lip service to satisfy license requirements, at best.

The FCC saw through GIG's charade, told Gray that 'you really couldn't check if 27.1 was on the air the last six years?!' and has dismissed the petition. KCPM is in all intents and purposes, television history.

The only true advertisers still getting any oxygen are home improvement companies (the type who film a bunch of local ads in some studio in Nashville or wherever who burn a minute during mid-afternoon talking about the local division of their gutter/window systems and offer restaurant gift cards that can't be used for months) who bulk-bought their time months ago, along with the usual home warranty and senior-targeting vultures you usually see stuck on daytime CW/MyNetworkTV affiliates swooping in for penny ante ad time. Quite a few stations have gone very promo-heavy lately to fill ad slots they can't fill, and with the building number of pre-emptions for news events, make-goods aren't also guaranteed. Even law ads are either being cut or taking their own 'stay home' tactics because screaming about talc lawsuits when you can't get into a lawyer's building for months is kind of pointless. Then of course your local advertisers who loyally come to sales and film their usual ad per month in front of the weather greenscreen or at their business, or get a bunch of people in to sing a seasonal jingle...that isn't happening right now, either, since only essential personnel are allowed at the studio, a TV station isn't sending a precious crew out just to make a commercial, and two people in a cramped studio booth cant' happen right now.

I would have rather seen forced sales than revocations (of course not involving Cunnigham, Deerfield, Stirk, New Age or Max Media) since it was corporate level chicanery for the most part rather than the local level and the station personnel doesn't deserve the ill effects of their bosses.

The postscript to the Sinclair/Tribune merger failure fallout is in from the FCC; SBG will be giving up a 'voluntary contribution of $48 million to Treasury', but escapes any license revocations. Also included in the fine is yet again, undisclosed VNRs (you'd think they'd have learned this in 2006) and other paid sponsorships and programming. Any other time, this is pretty much just a write-off for a normal 2Q, but it really doesn't help their financial straits overall at this point.

Expect it to drag on even longer (this is the Gray deal to buy KCPM in Grand Forks/Fargo that we thought was dead in March); the shambling remains of GIG and Gray are campaigning to restore the license and use the backup KVLY transmitter as the new KCPM tower to broadcast local COVID news conferences, tele-learning from local school districts and Gray public affairs programming (they also argue it's Grand Forks' only station, which must mean the entire market has hallucinated the existence of WDAZ for 60 years despite its Devils Lake COL). With a month left in the school year. In an area with a low number of cases right now. Of course a sane FCC would just say 'you've got MeTV on 11.3, just use that', but this could probably be approved even though many MyNetworkTV stations can barely get an advertiser an ad break at this point.

Three words; The Station Nightclub. WPRI's reputation, even in a quiet market like Providence, was killed for over a decade because they decided to promote a reporter's venue for a simple story about nightclub safety that could have easily be done somewhere else, and their error of having a cameraman there trying to get 'the shot' cost them $30 million and a number of lives. If you're at SBG you're ready to put someone like that on an indefinite suspension for questionable overall judgement.

On the same day that somehow Tegna had the gall to crow and announce their stockholders would get Q1 dividends too. If you're a furloughed employee, you should wonder if the viewer or the staff is priority #1 right now ...or even in the top 10.

A homebound reporter at KCRA's partner has given a new meaning to "Out and About" here. (no embed of the tweet or the videos of it below it because I'd like to continue posting here ) And yes, like the auto show guy from KOVR/KMAX a few months back, Hearst/KCRA are pulling all mention of it/the report from every social media channel they have and praying to the FCC gods Ajit is distracted.