Greggo

This is just plain messy. If they hub KFDM/KBTV newscasts out of San Antonio, they’re going to have to dramatically alter their output unless Sinclair springs for a new studio and control room ... which we all know they won’t. Both KABB and WOAI are on the air 5-7a. So there’s no room to produce live morning news for KFDM before CBS This Morning. They could conceivably continue to produce the morning news for KBTV (Fox) since the WOAI studio would be free after 7a. KABB continues until 9a. KABB has a midday newscast at 11a and WOAI has one at noon. So the KABB studio could be used for the KFDM noon show. KABB doesn’t have another newscast until 9p, so the 5p and 6p KFDM shows as well as the KBTV 5:30p show could air live. The KBTV 9p news could come from the WOAI studio. And at 10p, they could air the KFDM late news from the KABB studio ... assuming the WXLV newscast is shipped off to another Sinclair station. The KFDM anchors, for the most part, are veterans with deep ties to Beaumont, so I don’t see them relocating to San Antonio. (They actually just hired a new main male anchor with hometown ties a couple weeks ago!) That’s a whole other issue. They’re basically handing over their lead position in the ratings to Tegna’s KBMT/KJAC if this actually happens.

The Blake McCoy saga at Fox’s WTTG has gotten even more bizarre. His bio has been removed after a sex video was posted to his Instagram. McCoy initially said a friend was responsible for posting. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2021/3/6/now-the-bio-is-gone

The Sinclair cuts claimed WOAI 5p anchor Delaine Mathieu. Her last time on the desk was Tuesday. Didn’t get to give a farewell. Interestingly enough, she did reappear briefly on Friday during a prerecorded montage for longtime anchor Randy Beamer, who retired. https://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2021/03/delaine-mathieu-exits-news-4-san-antonio-woai.html Elsewhere in Texas, KFDM/KBTV in Beaumont cut 10 buildingwide, which is way more than the stated 5% of their workforce.

KAGS, the Tegna-owned NBC affiliate in Bryan/College Station, Texas, was unable to do the news yesterday because they lost power as a result of the unprecedented winter storm. It appears they aren’t going to be able to do the news again tonight ... and their chief meteorologist isn’t happy about it:

This actually soft debuted today and it was atrocious. I’ve never seen a newscast with so many technical errors. During the 6a hour, they repeatedly dumped out in the middle of stories to start playing commercials, they went to black several times, their bug and ticker were up over some of the commercials and worst of all one of the weather segments they played was from a rehearsal from last week when they were waiting for Delta to still make landfall. The anchors stood the whole time. The desk was visible pushed into a corner when they did a bump shot at the end of the show, which was short by about 2 minutes.

A private security guard working for Tegna’s KUSA shot and killed a man at a protest over the weekend and has been arrested for murder. https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/shooting-near-dueling-rallies-denver-2-in-custody/73-6890f727-e44a-4a60-a777-a6fbe0730e0e

This isn’t going to go over well in Austin and San Antonio, where viewers have been used to getting city-specific feeds. Now they’re going to see their local news mixed with stories from Corpus, Dallas, El Paso, etc. in a single broadcast. Also, multiple well-known anchors have been demoted under this new schedule.

Because the stock markets are located in Dallas?!? Oh, wait ... WFAA management is atrocious.

Nexstar’s CW39 in Houston has a new chief met: Adam Krueger from Spectrum News in Austin and San Antonio. He’ll be on their newly reformatted in-house morning show, which is weather- and traffic-intensive. (Their evening newscast at 9p is outsourced to ABC O&O KTRK.)

Hurricane Laura toppled the towers of two Lake Charles TV stations: NBC affiliate KPLC and CBS affiliate KSWL. The KPLC tower fell on the station’s offices, ripping a huge hole in the roof of the news studio. Thankfully, the staff had already evacuated to sister Gray stations in Alexandria and Baton Rouge. KPLC’s GM says the rebuilding process could take a year. The KSWL tower fell on a neighboring building. KSWL, which is based in the old KVHP building, doesn’t do news so no crews to relocate. In the video below, the first downed tower they show without identifying is the KSWL tower. https://www.kplctv.com/2020/08/27/lake-charles-tv-station-tower-toppled-laura/

KPRC is moving “Houston Life,” its lifestyle show, to 3p weekdays starting Aug. 17. It had been airing at 1p. “Dr. Phil,” which had been airing at 3p, moves to 1p. The station claims ratings for the show have spiked during the coronavirus pandemic, with it beating all other Houston stations in its current timeslot. At 3p, it’ll be up against “Ellen” on KHOU, “Kelly Clarkson” on KRIV and local news/“Inside Edition” on KTRK. https://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2020/06/KPRC-2-Houston-Life-3pm.html

Agreed ... an odd choice of anchors. Chauncy and Mayra anchor at 3 and could’ve done this easily. So ... who anchors weekends now for KTRK? Also, who will Nexstar partner with in Dallas bc we know this arrangement is coming to KDAF soon ..,

I’m thinking this is temporary. They closed the deal in the middle of coronavirus mania so it’s not really a good time to rebuild a station from scratch. Between news from KHOU, Tegna shows such as DBL and Sister Circle and syndie stuff not airing in Houston, there’s plenty available out there and I’m guessing they’ll roll things out when it calms down. Spending $15 million to buy a station that airs a straight simulcast of Quest makes zero sense.

Tegna has completed its acquisition of KTBU in Houston, giving KHOU 11 a sister station. KTBU has dropped Mega TV and is now carrying Tegna’s Quest on 55.1. Quest previously was carried on 11.4.

The Sinclair stations in San Antonio (WOAI/KABB) share a chopper. It was inherited when Sinclair acquired WOAI, where it’s known as World Car Sky 4. The tail is N61CL. Also ... the helicopter shared by the Houston stations (other than KTRK) still has KPRC’s branding.

That 9 is very WGN

Big retirement in Houston. Bill Balleza left KPRC Friday night after 4 decades. He joined the station in 1980 as an anchor/reporter and had been the primary evening anchor since 1990. Here’s his farewell ... https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2020/02/01/final-farewell-bill-balleza-thanks-all-those-who-helped-throughout-his-40-year-career-at-kprc-2/

Can’t believe they’re still doing that. They’ve got around 200 stations now. (Yes, I know not all of them air news.) It’s so small market and amateur. Do custom lives for the big markets and the others can use generic look lives.

I doubt they will leave it Spanish. Get ready for KHOU news reruns aplenty, maybe even fresh primetime news like what WXIA is doing in Atlanta for WATL, plus upgraded timeslots for DBL and Sister Circle, both of which 11 currently airs in the middle of the night. They could also maybe steal some syndie content from KUBE, an indy station airing some decent stuff dropped by other stations in town, including a number of sitcoms, plus Rachael Ray, The Doctors and RTM.

WFLD maybe? They've got a fresh opening after booting the previously suspended Rafer Weigel earlier this week.

Just to be clear, since I’ve received 3 “dislikes” on my post above, I despise these graphics. I was just pointing out the idiocy of Scripps creating a standardized graphics package and then granting exceptions bc they know how crappy they are.

What’s the point of having standardized graphics if you’re not going to require each and every station to use them? Scripps is a complete dumpster fire.

Even with a .5 or a 1 rating, which is probably about all they could realistically expect, if even, they can still rake in plenty of political ad dollars in 2020. After that, maybe they cancel. Maybe not. Candidates like to buy into news, primarily. Someone above asked why they aren't doing news on KTXA and WBFS? In both those markets, CBS already has newscasts it can sell into: KTVT and WFOR.

The whole point is to do this as cheaply as possible. Why have locally based anchors when you can use folks from KTVT, WCBS and WFOR? Mix reports from a couple local MMJs on the ground in Detroit/Atlanta/Tampa with stuff pulled from the feeds and -- voila! -- you've filled an hour for next to nothing largely using existing staff.

Hiring that news director from the Today Show is turning out really well for them. Not.