nathannah

Not helping was the garbage '43 The Block' branding (combined with an awful 'graffiti' logo), which basically screamed 'this is where your unemployed loser self watches Jerry and Maury and lousy lawyer and for-profit college ads, along with bad sitcoms'. I still remember Gaylord running these dominant regional superstations that either benefited well from the 1994 affiliate switches, or just got bungled into badly run stations when Gaylord abandoned them for the hotel business. WVTV in Milwaukee is finally recovering after being a red-headed stepchild for years over WCGV, for instance. The only issue likely would have been if "The Chew" was on a one-day delay; at least this addresses that. As long as GH and The Chew aren't broken apart it still all works and it gets that programming out of the noon-2pm CT 'pre-emption zone' that Washington loves to throw their big news conferences into; only an advertiser on SA Live is going to be sad if their gutter demonstration has to be called off a day.

6:30pm Friday on WFRV (I have to assume if the Packers were in the poor souls there would have been playing Mike Cube Theater all week in addition to their local responsibilities). You would think WPRI sent someone to Houston considering Providence is as equidistant from Foxboro as Boston, but it looks like one of the other pictures had a WPRI/WNAC cube too (and I see a WWLP cube in the FTVLive pic).

Color me surprised they're keeping Bitesize and Hollywood Today Live. It just doesn't scream 'local' but with all the money Fox has put in you have to assume they refused to just allow it to go dark (and yes, WBAY still carries it for now despite going Gray).

Already preparing for the inevitable announcement that those so-called 'capital bureaus' to get the merger approved are cut to death when the FCC isn't looking. The good news though; so far, they're sticking to the websites (Gray is keeping the MG sites for now with their logo in the bottom bar). With everything so connected to backends and apps these days it's going to take a while before we see KRON move to 'prideofthegoldengate.com' or something ridiculous. That, and LIN/MG is leagues better than anything they have, so hopefully their tech propagates to the other Nexstar stations.

All the transactions with Nexstar, along with the Alaska deal, have closed...just in time for them to be involved in Gray's carriage dispute with Dish Network, which thankfully ended an hour ago with zero pullings. To say that would have been an embarrassing way to ring in new ownership is putting it lightly.

I'm guessing it's more of a 'few people actually look at that' thing than anything; there's still plenty of Bank Gothic baked into some of their station promos at times. They still even use an element of the 2001 set for charity phone banks, but most of their efforts lately have been to clean up more outside the building and the lobby and make it look more like a TV station building near Marquette than a warehouse like it used to. And they keep everything, judging from Mark Baden posting a picture a few days back of old set-pieces dating back from the 80's and into the 90's (along with the "slanted-12abc" frontpiece for the anchor desk that was replaced two years ago).

Jeremy Nelson, weekend/fill-in meteorologist at WISN-TV announced on Facebook he's becoming chief at WJCL/Savannah, Hearst's newest owned station (and a WISN sister) at the start of February. Definitely a well-deserved promotion for him.

Another issue is that DCP's shows (including the awards shows) have been in a static state since the man himself died, still using Impact and Helvetica-like graphics (the Golden Globes won't change their look no matter what), and now hitching minutes of airtime to inane sponsors like Planet Fitness and whatever that sparkling wine was that replaced Korbel. It took them a decade to replace the old NYRE theme with something that already sounded dated the moment it was played. They keep Jenny McCarthy on despite the apathy/controversy she brings, Fergie is still hosting from Hollywood each year and in 2017 those segments are still taped before the holidays even though it would be much better live (Fifth Harmony broke up during the holidays. It was awkward to see them like they weren't about to go at it on Twitter the moment Camila Cabello's contract ended and yet...'watch their last performance together' said cheerily). It isn't 1987 any longer. Get with the times. To top it all off, the New Orleans countdown didn't get screwed up, but someone had the bright idea to put a nice new LG flatscreen with the show logo on in the background during a heavy rainstorm. Great job literally watching that $2,000 investment wash into a rain gutter as the pixels died one by one behind Demi Lovato. The other thing is the Times Square organization put on a better livestream this year than ABC did over-the-air. Rachel Platten was doing a great job with plenty of preparation on the stream and you can hear it in the background on ABC while Ryan was blabbing about nothing to DNCE and more Jenny McCarthy garbage. I flipped to the Org stream because I wanted to see her much more, and it was better than any network was able to put on. NYRE is basically hitting the same peak Guy Lombardo did, and they need to improve or else they'll be like MTV; out of the game and in a Ridiculousness marathon no sane person will watch. But there's also the wonderful trainwreck that is Chicago Rising from WMAQ. Well-produced for the most part, but with obvious 'here for the check' Chicago "Dick Wolf"-verse stars hosting, the blandest talent/bands ever, and hilariously tone-deaf segments like a person making a difference in poor neighborhoods being introduced during a very ritzy party, awkward Corona Extra drop-ins, the CEO of Corona's parent company leading the Chicago countdown, and all the complete live shot d**ches you could ever dream of in the backgrounds of parties. It was terrible, but still much better than NYRE for me this year.

Plus I've noticed that the CNN content (which is inanely part of the station Twitter feeds and has terrible headline writing) is severely edited down and never flags as coming from CNN any longer. And I'm not a fan of the entire 'read half the story and here comes the ad takeover' thing that has suddenly become popular.

So this basically is on par with what WKBW did in their most dire days before Scripps bought them, sub-contracting out master control to a company in Atlanta, but also reducing redundant news personnel. WNWO also hasn't switched to HD yet, so this is one way to finally get that done. It can only help; WNWO has been cursed since the Overmeyer days and with WDIV easily available in Toledo they've always had an uphill battle. The eight month carriage dispute with Buckeye where nobody batted an eye and demanded the station back also didn't help at all. Sinclair tried, but like Raycom, Malrite and Barrington before it, the station just will never move out of last place.

The parade's WGN coverage is getting a commercial-free WGN America simulcast tomorrow; I assume someone on the local side had some sway in finally getting some time from the America folks.

The problem was Journal tried to 'bureauize' WGBA as mostly run out of Milwaukee rather than having it stand on its own, which it was doing just fine pre-Journal, if not a full-throated effort (it pretty much matched WDJT's trajectory), and they really didn't spend a lot (until 2016 it was almost ran like it was in 1996 outside of paint and wallpaper coats on the set and LCD's replacing CRT's). It just stunted the heck out of them and come the Dark Ages of 2009 when it was run nearly in full out of Capitol Drive and the Milwaukee morning show was aired to no interested eyeballs and an all-infomercial afternoon, there was no point to doing more. I'm just glad Scripps is doing something to differentiate it from TMJ.

Yup, that PR offal got pushed onto WFRV's social channels and web too. The minimum I ask out of a broadcast group is to keep their CEO out of the news unless it involves death or a scandalous outing; Sinclair doesn't even do it, but Nexstar is like 'he's a pioneer!'. Surrre he is.

Likely part of the changes which resulted in Way Too Early being merged into First Look and becoming Morning Joe First Look. It used to both shows were produced together, but the 4am local news trend kind of switched up things which couldn't make that work as well (and because WTE became a pointless albatross without Willie hosting).

It also leads into primetime so numbers are going to be definitely better than the other stations where it's in mid-afternoon, and WTMJ has nothing to lose since it's basically a race to second with Wheel on WDJT leading everything, while WISN and WITI have their infotainment shows that are quickly losing mass appeal. It also helps that WTMJ is now a 'hard news first' operation on both sides of the camera rather than the tabloid Berra era, and of course...Packers coverage. On the nights Larry McCarren isn't holding court by himself or with Mike McCarthy pre-empting it, that alone keeps viewers coming in rather than 'today's viral idiot of the day'.

Probably not; Leon Harris was a former CNN'er so it was probably a case of ''90's salary number in 2016 they can't pick up any longer' under Sinclair budgeting. Also you know they want talent that doesn't mind doing NC8 regularly rather than an occasional 'cherry on top' as it was earlier.

Edward Willis Scripps, the founder of the entirety of Scripps, which had their first paper in Cleveland. They ain't changing.

News 5 makes me think of the news op in Tim & Eric's universe...and I get shudders when I think of that series. I don't understand the cling to the newsnet5 domain though. They haven't used it on-air for years. WEWS.com redirects right to it and is perfectly fine, and though those calls might be a tongue-twister, it just feels like an artifact of the 'citychannel.com' era of Hearst and McGraw-Hill that we should leave behind (*cough*Nexstar should too already*cough*)

They tried "On Your Side" as the main branding during the Wexler Trainwreck period when they tried to appeal to nobody but Waukesha County and 'bleed it leads for the entire A-block' fans ("TMJ4 News On Your Side" was how it was displayed); it was dropped the moment Wexler got pushed to the radio side (it was their consumer branding for a long time, but it's been dropped for 'Call 4 Action'), and it can be safely assumed it won't return. And they would've dropped TMJ4 when they got the Scripps graphics, but they didn't and also tweaked the existing logo.

Unfortunately the way it goes now is an NFL Network-exclusive game has the syndicated rights go to the producing network (CBS/NBC split the production/announcing duties this year), so either WMAQ or WBBM retain it no matter what. Thier only hope is WLS sub-licenses MNF games. This October might not be too bad though; they can easily do comprehensive Cubs postgame shows there and if they get far, expect that to steamroll the entire schedule.

They're letting go ten hours of primetime, six hours of Litton E/I hell that any station would drop the moment the FCC says it's OK, and a mediocre five-day-a-week talk show which only got press as a schedule mention. I don't think anything is in peril there, and they'll be fine; the only variable here is that the 7pm film block that did OK in the 80's would be pummeled in 2016 and they'll have to figure out something new here.

WTMJ is finally picking up The List and RightThisMiinute post-Olympics to complete the Scripps-ization process in their 3pm slot; FABLife's long-running zombie state there ended last Friday (it goes to 1:05am after the Olympics to finish out its run in shame). WGBA did the same scheduling for their 4 p.m. slot as of this Monday and are backfilling Crimewatch Daily to 2pm post-Olympics (they were double-running L&O:CI after Days leading into TMZ Live).

Kevin Frazier from ET does the same thing for Litton with Game Changers; it's pretty quick and good work. Just come into a studio for a couple hours, introduce a bunch of human interest pieces in front of a portrait-set LCD panel, and there's your easy money. There are so many issues I have with Litton and their insane abuse of the E/I edicts to monopolize the market, but these are simple resume ticks to help you show you do more than morning TV.

I assume it has the same arrangement as CNBC had with dLife for a few years, where that company produced a show about living with diabetes that aired Sunday nights until the current regime came in to change around their Prime schedule and wanted the time for their own. dLife still airs on the web, so I assume like "Your Business" it maintained a diehard and loyal audience and dependable advertisers week to week, and Sunday mornings are basically MSNBC's time to try to not compete hard with NBC due to "Sunday Today" and "Meet the Press", thus "Your Business" and their most wonky news shows are geared to a niche, but loyal audience. "Your Business" has certainly outlasted all of those lousy "pay-for-play" three-minute paid placement shows where companies had Terry Bradshaw or another old athlete promote a business that cable news was lousy with in the 2000's (my bank did one of those fluff-filled profiles with Bradshaw and it was a complete 'what are you doing with our deposits?!' moment).

Too bad most of the deals involve networks already snapped up by Scripps and Sinclair, and with Bounce, several markets which are just plain percentage-filling without viewer impact. In Green Bay WFRV is getting Bounce TV, which is nearly wholly incompatible with the demographics of Northeast Wisconsin, since Laff, Escape and Grit were already long snapped up. Same with Eau Claire/La Crosse with WLAX/WEUX. It just seems like such a johnny-come-lately deal I'm surprised they didn't also mention any of Luken's networks.