Chicago's Very Own

Pictured: Uncle Dan

Now you know for sure, management and others are truly afraid for their jobs in the event of a Sinclair takeover. I and a couple of others I've seen have noticed that a few stories they've run (this one which aired on the Evening News, for instance, which a few people on Twitter even called out as feeling more biased towards being pro-armed teachers), as well as this one instance on Facebook where they titled a video with a quote that went something like "This is clearly a good example of a good guy with an AR-15 stopping a bad guy with a knife," lean a little more to the right and felt kind of Fox News-ish or Sinclair-ish. Would not surprise me at all if it was an effort by some to curry favor with the future bosses if they're afraid of losing their jobs.

And I would figure Sinclair's response would be, "And there's the door."

Honestly, I used to think "Maybe they won't mess with the morning show," but given what's happening now as well as what Sinclair has done with anchors in the past, I would not be one bit surprised if they started getting rid of some of the Morning Show hosts, or trying to lower their pay by a ton to the point that they just quit. This would also cause a big loss in viewership, which is something Sinclair has also proven that they don't care about.

I feel like Sinclair is already going to try to fire him, and they don't even own Tribune yet, lol

Cheesy music and vocals (the latter of which they ended up dropping), graphics that are slightly better than the 3d view on Google Earth (surely they could have afforded to get drone or helicopter shots), and an overly loud rooster sound effect to start your all-American day.

As much as we drag on Sinclair politics, even they must recognize the program's potential. Unfortunately, the top talents' salaries are what are most likely to cause changes.

So basically, for on-air talent, they'll be given a choice to either stay and accept a lower salary, or not accept it and leave?

I would think there's an uncertain future ahead. Who's to say what the WGN Morning News will be a year from now, both in terms of personnel and format.

If the merger fully goes through, would Sinclair want to mess with a top-rated morning show (other than tacking on their right-wing must-runs throughout the show, which would get annoying fast)? Then again, it is Sinclair, so who knows.

Subheadline for that story:

 

One America News Network has been floated as a possible landing spot.

And I'm sure all 12 viewers will love her.

Seriously though, where is OANN even available? I've never seen it included in any cable package or even on hotel TVs which seem to sometimes have random and weird channels (for instance, I've been in hotels in New York and London that both carried the American RT feed, but I think even the Kremlin's very own is more popular than OAN).

What book? I have the Fox Hole one but hasn't been read yet.

That's the book, it's a very good read!

For what little I watched of Greta's show on Fox over the years (an amount that can be measured in minutes), she seemed more like a local TV anchor reporter from a mid-sized market than anything.

She always felt like an analyst who they decided to give a major show. Pretty much what she was, wasn't she? I think she would have been better suited for providing analysis, and like it was mentioned before, start off on MSNBC just doing that and then eventually getting a show of her own, rather than giving her a full time slot.

I don't understand why MSNBC hired Greta. She isn't a good broadcaster. Even during my previous life as a loyal Fox News watcher (I now turn to MSNBC for my cable news) I couldn't stand her. I found her annoying, her voice grating, her show sensationalist (focusing on Natalee Holloway for years), and her talking out of the corner of her mouth drives me crazy.

The book I'm reading about a former Fox News employee even mentions the fact that her show covered the Natalee Holloway disappearance way too much and some employees even joked that she was probably buying property in Aruba after constantly going there to do Holloway disappearance shows (the employee in question worked for Kimberly Guilfoyle's old weekend show, which was basically a carbon copy of Greta's weekday show but with big boobs, and he even said that true crime Nancy Grace-style programs never worked for Fox and they always ended up being pretty boring and repetitive).

She was a weird fit at Fox News and an even weirder fit at MSNBC from the times I watched her. I think, at the time, MSNBC was just happy to have someone who jumped ship at Fox due to the ongoing scandals there.

I'm personally watching far more MSNBC than I ever did before. Their news presentation is far superior to that of CNN these days.

 

CNN has turned the entire network into exactly the kind of thing that Jon Stewart criticized "Crossfire" for back in 2004; a bunch of people shouting at past each other with no one having anything productive (or often anything intelligent) to say. In contrast, MSNBC these days tends to present the news fairly straight, and when they do have guests, they usually contribute something to the discussion.

I think a lot of people noticed something was a bit wrong with CNN during the initial craze over the disappearance of the Malaysia Airlines plane. Having nonstop "BREAKING NEWS" that leads to constant speculation about what could have happened to the plane (including Don Lemon suggesting something supernatural could have happened or when he read the theory that it could have been sucked into a black hole), Don Lemon essentially playing with a toy airplane at the desk, and the big on-screen countdown to the moment the batteries on the plane's black box went out (they still use this giant on-screen box for other countdowns and promotions, and I hate it, it takes up too much of the screen and looks really bad, and it reminds me of Fox News when they had an on-screen terror alert level, only even THAT wasn't as annoyingly out of place). CNN seems to have decided to go the more sensational route, and that includes the Brady Bunch-esque talking heads screaming over each other over social and political issues, which I personally find unwatchable. If MSNBC goes the more professional route, I'm all for that.

To be fair, she had a long run at CNN prior to Fox. She just went with the wrong network.

Some even thought she was a poor fit at Fox. I'm reading a book about a guy who worked for them and Greta was brought up, and they said that for a number of reasons she seemed like the odd one out there after going to FNC from CNN (her more conservative appearance compared to the supermodel female anchors that they're famous for, she often ran in Democratic circles before, Scientologist, etc.). By the time she left Fox, she even said it didn't feel like a home to her.

Similar fate for Hugh Hewitt?

Only if he has poor ratings. Tucker Carlson had a show on MSNBC for a few years that was cancelled due to low ratings. The MSNBC audiences and people who most often watch them generally prefer commentators to not be as right-leaning. Just like if they got a far-left leaning person to host a political opinion show on Fox News (on their own, without 4 other people shouting over them). The general audiences who watch the network would probably not be happy with that show and wouldn't watch it.

It's a shame. Her show was decent but the Fox stigma probably hurt her more than anything with MSNBC loyalists.

 

Ari's a good host and analyst.

That's what I thought it probably was, too. People know her as being from Fox News, where she had a show for over a decade, so a lot of loyal MSNBC viewers and many people who lean more progressive in their audience probably disliked her and her show from the start and weren't willing to give her a chance.

 

KSAT in 1994 -- who in the heck would make a news open this creepy? Apparently whoever was channel 12's general manager at the time.

Besides the creepy synth wind noises that sound straight out of some cheap VHS horror movie, I love the dramatic talent introductions.

SALTER *dun, DUN, dun*

Personally, I think Megyn Kelly is going to turn out to be another Katie Couric for them. I already know a few people who are really turned off by not just the fact that NBC wants to bring her to broadcast TV, but also because of the decision to stick her on her own weekday show and then give her another Sunday night show, and it does kind of seem like a bit much. Plus, the Megyn Kelly hype seems to have long passed. For the money NBC paid for her, I'm expecting them to shove her down our throats for a while.

It took everyone to get a new set before they finally hop on the boat huh

 

Mabye there getting new monitors at least

Their lease is up on the streetside studio next year, so unless I missed something, I doubt this would be the reason why the windows are covered up again, would it? I know last fall they were covered, then they took the covers off, and now the covers are back. I doubt they'd be spending too much money on an upgrade to a set that they're gonna be moving out of next year, maybe they aren't at the same comfort level as WLS and WGN Radio and just got tired of people on the street peeking in?

That giant screen outside their studio is perpetually on and off constantly, too, I'm hoping that they get around to fixing that thing for good and leaving it on, it's always been a really cool addition (even though they initially intended for a big display to wrap around that section of the building, which I think they should eventually still work on doing now that LED technology is only getting cheaper, it can't be as expensive to do today as in 2007).

Every now and then, whenever North Korea does something, news sites always post pictures of people in South Korea watching coverage of this on TVs in public places. And one channel that always seems to be on, Yonhap News TV, looked oddly familiar.

I found a video clip of this, just to confirm that the cube logo does rotate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2kUPsQJ4k

It looks a lot like Fox News Channel! The spinning cube, the time below it, the yellow text on the ticker, the stock markets to the right of that, I think the designers of this liked the way Fox News looked and clearly decided to incorporate a lot of FNC elements into Yonhap.

Yonhap News TV in South Korea uses L3s that appear to be inspired by Fox News Channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of2kUPsQJ4k

There's too many similar elements for it to not be inspired by Fox News.

WFLD opening in 1993, with a 1940s newsreel-esque dramatic orchestra in the background and a very messy and busy-looking early 90s looking intro.

Walter Jacobson's first year at WFLD, according to the description. I don't think either of the music choices that they used suited a 9pm news broadcast, even in 1993.

I wonder if that's permanent. Did they ditch the box saying "EVENING NEWS", "MORNING NEWS", etc.?

Oddly enough, no, because "EVENING NEWS" was still there even after. They probably just stuck it there to see how it looks, or it was a mistake.

Anyone else notice how glitchy WGN has been since their upgrade? Slow to play videos and leaving the speaker hanging, wrong videos being played, wrong text in the L3 popping up, logo bug disappeared at one point, some of the animations aren't smooth and are a little slow, etc. I think I've seen more than I've ever seen in a day. I guess they've still got a few kinks to work out of their system with the technical upgrades, but it's led to a few awkward moments.

WGN's off the hook. Some dumbass just yelled FHRITP behind Stacey Baca on 7.

 

No 1am rebroadcast tonight.

That's still a thing? Wow, we're on a roll. All I'm waiting for now is someone to go flashing on the Fox 32 plaza when they do an outdoor segment on GDC.

I was thinking they would have just cut it off right away, too. I didn't think we'd make it all the way to them shouting "motherfuckers." As soon as you hear anyone yelling and they're not going away after already being told to stop, it's pretty much an un-salvageable report at that point. I was getting worried that we were about to see it kick off on the air between him, those ladies, and the cops, because it seemed volatile enough.

It found its way online!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id=1yEA4zMU0QQ;m=3;s=14

In case you missed it, there was a lot of shouting and very loud swearing and a pissed off Patrick Elwood, so obviously they were off to a great start earlier with their new graphics and set! I wondered for a second why the camera looked so zoomed in on him during the Breaking News segment.

It is kind of dumb to stick the new logo everywhere and then hold off on debuting it for WGN Sports. I don't see why they'd need to wait for hockey season to do that, tonight would have been fine! The website and app also doesn't have the new logo yet, surprisingly. I figured just changing the logo on there would have been one of the easier things, all that's needed is just a swap of images.