nathannah

As we're almost into the tenth month, there is probably little wiggle room left for pre-emptions at this point, as they're usually used for preseason games and high school sports tournaments rather than how they were in the past (coaches shows in the 90s and 2000s basically made ABC's pre-MNF Monday night schedule after the end of McGyver a joke of pre-empted series and 20/20, and even Tuesdays, when stations like WKRN and WBAY pre-empted shows for hour-long X's and O's shows, and of course, stations that showed TV movies just to throw on gobs of make-goods like WTMJ and WKYC). Nexstar is even worse off because they have their FCC 'back off we serve the public' initiatives like Remarkable Women that they force their stations to run and that took out an hour on their ABC affiliates already. Down the line if a weather disaster happens, they're basically setting up their stations for a pointless annoyance if they want to extend programming for aftermath coverage, but can't because they ran out of make-up hours. I still wonder how Nexstar handled election night coverage on the CW/NewsNation being pre-empted on Sinclair stations by TND coverage too; do they have an unsaid gentleman's agreement not to compete as part of their affiliation agreements?

True on that...a temporary night on cable would probably be better than coordinating subchannel networks; I'm just disappointed that unlike the UK, Canada and Australia, the Big Four networks have never really developed secondary broadcast networks (no, MyNet and pre-Nexstar CW do not count).

Looks like 10 Australia is the next to get the CBS AR/VR set (including a very familiar desk).

This is one of the reasons I hate that ABC never put much into subchannel networks outside Live Well and Localish, because that would be an option for other companies easily (NBC with Cozi, CBS with Dabl, Fox with Fox Weather). Maybe they could run it on FX tonight too?

Looks like this is becoming a thing for Fox, because a week ago coming out of the rain-delayed football game on Saturday afternoon into night before the Brewers game (which was stuck on FS2 for most of the country to start before moving back to big Fox when the football game ended, with KTVI and WITI getting the full Cardinals/Brewers game), there were technical difficulties there too and it took a couple minutes before WITI got the feed from 'down the street' as it were. It even had an equivalent test card. I'm also finding that Fox One often cut things that should be on the service when they go late or are delayed, which is very annoying; WITI also cuts the first hour of Big Noon Kickoff for their longtime home show hour and pushes it off to their subchannel, so in Milwaukee at least you have to use the Fox Sports app to watch the full show in HD; it's not on Fox One in full because they don't carry the subchannel.

That's what all the bundling is for; they're going to happily suggest taking on the service on a provider (as Spectrum does; was very happy to get Peacock there now) or bundle it in with Max or any other service to get it cheaper. Very few actually pay that sticker price and find a way to get it cheap, but it's not good for people who do pay it. Considering the NYPD Blue pre-emption I mentioned, what a whiplash to see their most tenuous affiliate content-wise become one of their most reliable, while Gray is just licking its lips at the chaos to the east in Mobile-Pensacola. Their plan of having southern low-power Telemundo affiliates as sister stations may bear more fruit than they thought.

At the very least, the local stations are going to make sure that corporate starts standing down and letting them make their own programming decisions, both them and Nexstar, and the networks are going to begin to put in a nuclear option clause that they can pull if there's no critical local/national need to pre-empt a show. At least with NYPD Blue in the 90s you had the station GMs (except for the stubborn one at WLOX) humbled once they realized the alternate station airing it was killing whatever 60s sitcom replaced it in the ratings, and the blowback was locally limited. Personally I don't think they cared if Sinclair pre-empted a Friday rerun for something else, but having it revealed as a literal National News Desk infomercial disguised as a tribute was the last straw. The other thing is I don't think an apology is needed from the network since Bob, Dana and Jimmy worked it out like adults. We'll probably get some jibes tomorrow night about the C-suite, but it'll be harmless and most of the venom will be reserved for Nexstar and Sinclair for trying to police the rest of the network (WISN was already in promotional mode about tomorrow night's return today and ready to move on).

Mike & Molly is completely out of syndication as of today; CMT and TV Land are done with them too.

The only change of note (because nobody should consider the Amazon Judy-produced show reruns new) in Milwaukee is the move of Drew to overnights on WDJT (or next day after WMLW's 7am newscast) because they replaced the celebrity half hour with Tribunal Justice, along with what looks to be the substitution of Crime Expose over CBS's Comics Unleased run. Everything else is just replacing generic game shows and court shows with new generic game shows and court shows. Same in Green Bay, where there's just deck-chair shuffling and People Puzzler moves later on WGBA to air the NBC News Daily noon hour (which was how it was scheduled the year before). Seinfeld switches to WMLW for a 10pm double run from WITI, with Dateline moving there. WGBA also moved Kelly back to 4pm, ending the baffling Good Morning Football repeat which aired at that time last year. This is probably the least excited I've ever been about a syndication season; Tribunal Justice is just Hot Bench with the serials shaved off and more egos (and judges that just seem angry and refuse to let the litigants actually speak), Scrambled Up is just another Game Show Network show with the same pointless prize and bonus round, and Perfect Line is just Chain Reaction but with concepts rather than words (so much so that GSN took Chain Reaction off their schedule to prevent comparison). Even Byron Allen can't muster anything new, which isn't the best sign.

I assume Perry is looking for random sketchy used car dealers to run sidecar companies but is having a hard time because of the tariffs (a la Sinclair).

Considering this is the start of the TV season (and as I mentioned, they have a week of shows from Brooklyn at the end of the month), they have to do something to keep the show running; do any of Jimmy's former guest hosts stab him in the back and 'cross the line', so to speak, and try to host in his stead (I don't see it but stranger things have happened)? There are publicists who are probably lighting up phone lines now because their projects and artists are suddenly without a show to be on (I assume that the big Oscar movie this year, One Battle After Another, really needs that publicity going into next week).

If ABC and Nexstar think the soap fans were out for blood after their shows got cancelled, this is unknown territory. They basically punished the rest of the country because Perry Sook's (and likely David Smith) feelings got offended, and even if late night's audience has dwindled, that is a tentpole like their New York morning circuit. I didn't even know this was still possible with iron-clad affiliation agreements since we haven't seen this since all the Southern affiliates got Grayed and Nexstared up (even KSL carries NBC now in full without any objections). Get out the popcorn, because Colbert was nice enough to be a gentleman. That's not happening with Jimmy, especially with his Brooklyn week coming up. And seeing ABC News just deteriorate after they made George capitulate has been even more silently apparent compared to CBS.

It looks like the last After Midnight repeat will air on Friday night, with Comics Unleashed returning next Monday... But judging from WDJT in Milwaukee carrying Crime Expose through that hour with no alternate timeslot for our favorite copyright-free and evergreen-humor filled filler program, taking the show is voluntarily depending on how much you can convince CBS that you can't carry it because of sudden 'alternate programming obligations' for an entire season. We'll see if other stations do the same (many of them still have AM by default for next week in their listings).

CBS Mornings had David Begnaud on this morning from Atlanta to show the news operation's staff and AR studio; no clip yet up on YouTube, I'll make sure to post it when it does go up (which was posted below, thank you!).

They're probably very thankful that Spectrum is restoring Freeform this month because that channel lost most of its audience during that time, including their show.

Another story from the Rhode Island Current; no sign of a WARN notice at all from the state of bulk layoffs.

More and more it feels like that the Rincon deal was designed to get rid of some extra 'weight' and allow them to take over sidecars (and Rincon is a sidecar no matter how they spin it; that 'Sinclair, Inc.' badge is still on the bottom of all their Sinclair-hosted websites). It's bitter irony that Standard Media/Soo Kim tried to become a broadcast giant and failed catastrophically every single time, and now with Sinclair back in control of their Bootheel stations, the company may be coming to a bizarre end. And to see WLNE finally capitulate and become just the redheaded stepchild to WJAR because is a sad thing indeed. Two other effects of this; KLKN might end up as a part of NTV, and Sinclair could end up with controlling interests in both Marquee and CHSN if it turns out the direction I think it's going.

So what are we thinking about the new theme and intro so far?

Honestly there shouldn't even be any tape to these shows at all and that they have taped interviews now has denigrated the Sunday morning format because they all used to be all-live for years. Either these politicians get up on Sunday morning to make their case (and so many do), or don't bother. No government official in any party should get to make the determination they only tape interviews on weekdays and have any veto power and Kristi should've had to be ready to defend herself on Sunday morning.

So thankful I have Apple News (Gannett really needs to make one subscription universal across all papers digitally);

Sadly this was coming for a while and it was deserved when AdWeek for some inexplicable reason decided to start requiring email addresses to read more content; the site went immediately to my 'don't bother' list where I'd only click on a story I cared about (and that's probably why the Programming Insider walked too before the daily Nielsens were heavily locked down). Right now outside a few stories it's just a never-ending stream of PR and little to no actual news.

HUT=Households using television.

Both stations have posted compilations and looks back at the switch before that are available on their YouTube channels; you have to search and scan through a bit, but they did do some during the 25 year mark in 2020.

The commercials are going to be...four fifteen second ads throughout the seven-ish hours, game action will remain on screen, and likely not be carried when any team is in the red zone because that's the literal name of the channel, duh. Pretty much what you've seen during extra points or after the kickoff. I know these ads, during baseball games they're just 'here's a word from (beer/casino/gambling platform)' during a break in the action and it allows a quick flip break to see the score of something else or to get something to drink. The Price is Right has that type of ad break before the Showcase Showdown. As Aaron Rodgers said once...relax. They're being upfront about the ads when they could've said nothing. This reminds me of oddballs who claim they'll never watch a network again after a soap got cancelled; a stupidly vocal minority that cannot possibly hold to that pledge. Most of the public is not going to care at all and if you haven't noticed, there's betting, fantasy and tie-in 'sponsored by' segments all over every edition already as-is, so it's already been stealthily carrying ads for years, and we wouldn't expect to have a purely ad-free experience because that would lose money. I'm more concerned with stupid betting odds and other degenerate parlay whatever super 6 things polluting my enjoyment of sports; worry about that over one minute of unmemorable light beer ads.

Schedules indicate that WJZY's .8 Rewind TV (aka subchannel Siberia) is carrying it in primetime, but that could just be to run out the contractual string the next two weeks for all we know.