kdex86

On 2/29/2024 at 11:04 AM, techteacher50 said:

Well it seems that KTTV doesn’t do as well as they have no morning weekend news at all. This only happens when it’s not worth competing with other stations.

It seems that CBS O&Os do better in markets where there are non owned and operated stations to compete with. WJZ in Baltimore does very well ratings wise there as WMAR has been in last place since the 1960s and WBFF Fox has opinionated news stories from Sinclair. Only WBAL TV NBC from Hearst directly competes with WJZ for #1 in the Baltimore DMA.

In Boston, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh, a CBS O&O competes with a Hearst owned station.

Boston and Pittsburgh are unique in the fact that both markets have CBS O&O's, Hearst owned ABC stations, and a Big 4 station owned by Cox Media Group.

WBZ has actually fared well in Boston TV news ratings.  I haven't seen any official press releases for Boston station ratings in recent years, but they've consistently been #2 behind WCVB, sometimes winning a timeslot here and there.  The fact that WBZ has been around since 1948 also helps it be a strong station in the market.

On 2/16/2024 at 6:02 AM, bostonmediaguy said:

I would say it's seven with an asterisk. AJ Burnett and Michael Page are producers who occasionally appear on-air. Harvey Leonard is their retired former-Chief who occasionally appears. 

Cindy, Mike, Kelly Ann, AJ, and David all appear in the station's on-air weather promos.  Michael does not, and Harvey retired in 2022.

I find them annoying AF.  Is there any way I can get them nuked into oblivion?

Isn't WBZ a CBS owned-and-operated station?  Why would they air Saturday morning editions of "CBS Mornings" at 9 AM Eastern, when its larger-market siblings in NYC and Philadelphia (WCBS and KYW) air the program at 7 AM?

For some inexplicable reason, at least 4 of the 5 Boston local news stations play musical chimes whenever the "7-day" weather graphic appears.

WBZ, Boston (plays a "DUN!  Da-dun-DA-dun" sound.  Didn't do this annoying thing until 2022, when they started branding their weather forecasts as "Next" weather):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aLpr5HCjwg&t=180s

WCVB, Boston (plays a "dah-duh-DA-duh" sound):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO_bmPxJ8Ao&t=188s

WBTS, Boston (not as intrusive, but plays a 3-note, "dun-DUN-dun" sound):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVBqyCZfbSY&t=178s

WFXT, Boston:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjBi6i9bAC0&t=208s

I could not find any recent weather clips from WHDH on YouTube.  Last time I watched that station (probably when it was still NBC, it wasn't playing any stupid musical chime).

But WHY do the stations play them?  It's SO annoying and unnecessary!

First it was Nexstar.

Then is was Tegna.

Now Cox Media is the next station group to potentially have a dispute with DirecTV.

Source: https://www.nexttv.com/news/directv-and-cox-media-look-set-for-another-retrans-standoff-as-station-group-accuses-pay-tv-operator-of-attacking-local-journalism

WFXT was running a ticker during syndicated programming alerting viewers of a potential blackout:

I tuned into the Today show this morning for the first time in quite a while.  I have some questions:

1. Why is there both a “cold open” AND a “warm open” at the very start of the broadcast at 7:00 AM Eastern?  It seems rather redundant.
2. From 8:00 AM to the first commercial break, all of the news headlines are accompanied by a graphic that reads “the news at 8”.  Why is this?  Doesn’t the viewer know it’s 8 AM?  It seems kinda tacky to me.

On 9/18/2023 at 10:45 AM, NowBergen said:

My understanding is that the Mission “owned” stations are not included. Nexstar has more work to do before claiming “mission accomplished.”

I'm sorry, but this is "one step forward, two steps back" for Nexstar and DirecTV.  The "Mission Broadcasting owned" stations have been dark on DirecTV (satellite and stream) for almost a year now, when it's obvious that Nexstar "operates" these stations.  Nexstar is clearly double-dipping with TV providers when it comes to retransmission fees, and the FCC should really do something about it.

On 7/22/2023 at 11:49 PM, Nelson R. said:

I can remember several years back, didn’t WFXT move their morning news from 4-10am to 5-11am? 

On 7/23/2023 at 5:41 AM, bostonmediaguy said:

 

Yes, during the height of the pandemic, they replaced the 4am-5am hour with a 10am-11am hour.

Now WFXT is starting their weekday morning news at 4:30 AM again.

Boston is an unusual TV market where you have five local news stations, when some markets ahead of them (in terms of DMA rank) have no more than four.  All five local news stations were airing live local news at 4:30 AM, until a few months ago, when WHDH decided to move their morning news start time back to 5 AM.

In my area, the CBS, ABC, and NBC affiliates in both Boston AND Providence are all airing local news at 10 PM tonight.  While WBTS is still fairly new, I’ve never seen WBZ, WCVB, WLNE, or WJAR air 10 PM news on their main channels.  Even WPRI is airing local news at 10 PM tonight, when their sister station WNAC usually airs local news during that time.  The program guide reads “WNAC 10 PM News”.  Very weird.

I have 2 questions:

1. Are local TV stations (at least in the Eastern time zone) saying bye-bye to 11 PM news in 2023?
2. Why is my program guide displaying listing these broadcasts as 11 o’clock newscasts?  11 PM ≠ 10 PM.

41 minutes ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

Ads have already started running in affected markets with a Nexstar-owned CBS station: 

 

Lol, this commercial is coming from WPRI in Providence.  The city of Providence itself (along with the rest of Rhode Island) is served by Cox.  Comcast only transmits WPRI in Massachusetts, and they also carry WBZ out of Boston everywhere they carry WPRI.  If this station goes dark nobody will be missing CBS programming in Massachusetts.

On 12/12/2022 at 6:27 AM, NowBergen said:

Nexstar, oops Mission stations are still off Cox cable. It’s over a month now. 

Mission (and Nexstar) stations are still on Cox cable.  I can confirm WPRI and WNAC are still on Cox in RI.

But Mission Broadcasting stations are still off DirecTV (satellite and stream).

Is there some sort of loophole that Nexstar is exploiting by "directly owning" one station in a market and "Mission Broadcasting" owning a different station in the same market?  For example:

• in Providence RI Nexstar owns WPRI (CBS) and Mission owns WNAC (Fox).  WNAC airs local news at 10 PM that has the same graphics and on-air talent as WPRI.
• in Burlington VT Nexstar owns WFFF (Fox) and Mission owns WVNY (ABC).  WFFF airs local news at 10 PM that has the same graphics and on-air talent as WVNY.
• in Albany NY Nexstar owns WTEN (ABC) and Mission owns WXXA (Fox).  WXXA airs local news at 10 PM that has the same graphics and on-air talent as WTEN.

Currently DirecTV subs in Providence and Albany don't have their local Fox stations but still get the other station in the duopoly.  Burlington market DirecTV subs lost Fox but still have ABC.  And during the Nexstar/Verizon Fios dispute, these markets kept their Fox stations but lost WPRI or WTEN.  This seems very weird and confusing to me.

3 hours ago, RGSJenkins said:

The old FOX 25 O&O logo still lives on the outside in Dedham.

Can confirm - I drove by it a few days ago.

4 hours ago, NYTV said:

The reason WBTS labels itself as "NBC 10 Boston" despite actually being on channel 15 is due to the channel being on channel 10 on most cable and satellite providers. And speaking of KNTV, when they were bought by NBC it was initially branded as NBC 3 as it was on channel 3 on most providers.

I think they're doing it to bully residents of Bristol County, MA.

Also, if someone decides to cut the cord and use an antenna to watch TV in that area, they may see NBC on Channel 10, only to find out it's WJAR, "NBC 10 Providence".

WBTS is back to having the NBC peacock cover part of the number 10 in their logo.

Side note - when WBTS launched, it was known simply as "NBC Boston", and had a logo very similar to KNTV.  Why did they abandon that logo/branding in favor of being called "NBC 10 Boston", especially when there is a very close by NBC 10 in Providence?

With the Olympics over, I've noticed the NBC O&O stations are back to using their "regular" logos during local news broadcasts.  This marks the first time that the regular logos are used with the "Look S" graphics - I believe these stations went the entire 2021 calendar year using the "Olympic" versions of their station logos.  Has that ever happened before?

Tuned in briefly this morning and noticed Savannah, Hoda, and Al were all absent.  Instead we had the "old Saturday" team of Sheinelle Jones and Dylan Dreyer, along with an unidentified male anchor.  What's going on here?  Is this related to the studio rennovations?

Ah, okay.  It looks like Today has embraced a "hybrid work model", just like my employer.

On Monday, there was a segment where we saw Savannah, Hoda, Carson, Al, and Craig all gather together to eat at a restaurant, celebrating how they're all vaccinated and that they can safely gather together as a group again.  But as they were introducing this segment, we notice all of them in 5 separate camera shots, socially distancing.  Why would they all be apart when they wanted to celebrate being together?  

And now Hearst is in a potential dispute with Verizon:

Verizon Warns Viewers Hearst Signals Could Come Down | Broadcasting+Cable (nexttv.com)

21 hours ago, mountainave said:

Because they run no commercials for the first 15+ minutes of the broadcast.

Any reason why the ads cannot be evenly spaced out?  Regardless of when they air, it still pays the station's bills.

I have a bone to pick about ABC World News Tonight:

WHY IS THE BACK HALF SO COMMERCIAL HEAVY?????????

There have been several instances where I tune in at 6:47 PM (Eastern), to find the program at a commercial.  Sometimes I'll have to wait up to 3 minutes before the news is back.  At that point there'll be a short story, then David will say "when we come back..."

This is followed by another 3 minutes of commercials.  Then 1 minute later ... "WHEN WE COME BACK!"  AGAIN!!!!!!

I understand that commercials "pay the bills" but why do you have to go BACK to commercial 1 minute after airing 3 minutes of commercials!  I swear from 6:47 to 7:00 I watched 10 minutes of commercials to 3 minutes of actual news.  Is this time of the evening a "cold" time for TV viewing (or a "hot" time for advertising)?

15 minutes ago, scrabbleship said:

Also, even with WMUR superserving New Hampshire it isn't like WCVB ignores it totally. More people in New Hampshire watch WCVB than you would think and even with the PBS example there wasn't some backlash, especially from WGBH supporters in New Hampshire, 

Did you mean to say there *was* some backlash from NH residents that lost WGBH?

5 hours ago, scrabbleship said:

Comcast to drop out-of-market Hearst stations on 38 different regions effective 12/2/20.

 

Some of these make sense as much as the replacement is inferior, such as the ancestral carriage of WTAE in the Wheeling and Clarksburg/Fairmont DMA's or WCVB's carriage deep into Maine and Southeast Connecticut (which was simsubbed and syndex'd into oblivion).

 

Some of these are disasters waiting to happen, such as a fair chunk of the New Hampshire part of the Burlington market losing access to WMUR or Bristol County, MA losing access to WCVB.

Dropping WCVB in Bristol County, MA and dropping WMUR in Grafton and Sullivan Counties in NH would cause serious uproars in these areas.

If programming costs are an issue, wouldn't it make sense for Comcast to drop WMUR in Massachusetts and WCVB in New Hampshire?  There are some parts of MA like Framingham and Marblehead that get both, but towns adjacent to these two cities and closer to the NH border (Wayland and Salem) do not.

I've noticed some weird "behavior" with WCVB and WMUR between 7:20 AM and 7:30 AM.  This 10-minute segment is very "commercial heavy" on both stations, with about 2 minutes of local news/weather/traffic sandwiched around *8* minutes of commercials.  I've noticed the local news cut-in from GMA starts at 7:23 on these stations instead of 7:25, and even more annoying, they go back to commercial within the local news update, separating the "news" and the "weather/traffic" segments.

WHY do they do this?  you have about 3 minutes of commercials, then 1 minute of news, only to go BACK to commercials for another 2 minutes, then 30 seconds of weather, 30 seconds of traffic, then another 3 minutes of commercials before returning to GMA.  Who in the right mind wants to watch 8 minutes of commercials?  Are there certain times of the morning like this one where "the bills MUST be paid at this time"?

WBZ and WBTS in Boston air their local news updates at this time of morning "in one piece", starting at 7:25.  "One piece" meaning news/weather/traffic in about 2-3 minutes, with no commercial break within the update.