Big Rollo Smokes

As per The Athletic, three Chicago major league teams who presently call NBC Sports Chicago home will be moving on later this year. (The article is behind a pay wall.) "Standard Media Group in partnership with the Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox will be the new television broadcast home for all three teams beginning in October, according to an internal document obtained by The Athletic. "The media group is expected to make the network, which is unnamed, available across 'multiple platforms,' including over-the-air and carriage agreements with cable and streaming providers. "NBC Sports Chicago is the current broadcast home for the Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox. The teams’ contract with NBC Sports expires in October. "Standard Media Group, which is based in Nashville, Tenn., is a local broadcast and digital media company. According to its website, the group has television stations in Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska and Rhode Island. "The new network will not be associated with Stadium, a multi-platform network, which Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf purchased majority control of in 2023."

WPIX was branded as CW11 for the first two years of the CW, before going with the more-appropriate PIX 11 branding. WPIX, KTLA and WGN by themselves (and even St. Louis 11 for KPLR) are stronger brand names in their respective markets. But then again, look what Fox did to KCPQ once they got their hands on that station...it was goodbye Q13 (Fox), hello Fox 13.

It appears that the reduction-in-force train has hit Allen Media Group, according to Scott Jones at FTV Live. Operations at local stations and the Weather Channel are affected. Any details?

Reporter Amy Yensi is leaving WPIX, and the TV business as a whole.

Just say "my bad", admit you erred and thank me for the correction. Backtracking is not a good look. And, you're welcome.

WUPA is in Atlanta.

Bill also worked at WTVN radio and WTVN-TV (WSYX) in Columbus, and KYW-TV (WKYC) and WEWS in Cleveland before going to New York.

Can you please do the fellow posters/readers a favor and give us full names? Not all of us have total recall.

Big news from the Big Apple: after nearly 34 years as an anchor at WCBS-TV, Dana Tyler is leaving the desk at the end of March. But she will be staying on as a special correspondent, of sorts. In actuality, both she and co-anchor Dick Brennan are being moved off the 6:00 PM show in favor of the station's lead anchor team of Kristine Johnson and Maurice DuBois, who will now anchor all of WCBS-TV's evening newscasts. What role Brennan will have at CBS New York after the move is not yet known.

To piggyback on this: I assume that all of the posters here are men, just as I am. Y'all/We aren't even in the main demographic age-wise or gender-wise for The Young and the Restless or The Talk, and most of you probably don't watch either show. I don't watch either, either. So, to say that Y&R and/or The Talk should be cut in half or altogether canceled outright is short-sighted and silly. Especially as both shows still make money for the network even if viewership levels aren't what they were at each show's peak. With that said, I will be surprised if this proposed soap makes it beyond the developmental stage, let alone to CBS. And if it does, it's a prime candidate for streaming. (I was going to say BET, but who knows if it'll be owned by Paramount Global a year from now.)

Over at FTVLive, a patrons-exclusive story is teasing that the dreaded "Scrippscast" (aka "news-on-the-cheap") is coming to WEWS in Cleveland.

...and when WTBS became the NBA's main cable outlet, Turner sublicensed Hawks games to WGNX, the predecessor of WANF.

IIRC, Dave Courvosier is originally from the Cape Girardeau area. This may have been his first run at his hometown station. I first saw him at KLAS-TV in LV around 2006 and thought he had the coolest anchor name ever. All thanks to that Busta Rhymes song.

From Cleveland: longtime WEWS anchor Danita Harris is leaving the Scripps' co-flagship. Her last day is scheduled for Dec. 21. “Scripps and the management at WEWS offered me the option to stay...it was a decision that I made because I felt it was the best for me. I’m grateful that this bittersweet move was understood and respected by news management. They encourage and support my passion to be true to myself.” Those are her words. But with all the heads dropping around Scripps stations recently, read between the lines.

Wow, that's so poorly written it makes me question factual accuracy. Once I see two spelling and/or punctuation errors, I'm done. But with all the speculation and the lack of proofreading aside, it wouldn't surprise me if it actually does happen.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are the relocated Seattle SuperSonics. The New Orleans Pelicans are technically the relocated (original) Charlotte Hornets, who moved to N.O. in 2002–03 then got displaced by Hurricane Katrina and played their home games in OKC for two seasons, setting the stage for the Sonics' move shortly thereafter. After the Bobcats/Hornets/Pelicans name change, the NBA retroactively turned the Pelicans into an "expansion franchise" by transferring the pre-'01–'02 Hornets records and history to their successor team in Charlotte, the former (expansion) Bobcats.

As for who is anchoring the 7:00a webcast... At least for now, it's Kemberly Richardson.

UPDATE: It seems as the failed sale of iMedia Brands/ShopHQ to RNN either created bad blood between the two, or triggered a contractual out clause. Because in a very recent development, ShopHQ is no longer on WRNN in the NYC market. ShopHQ's replacement? The Liquidation Channel, aka ShopLC. One can assume this has been mirrored at RNN's other stations. No announcement of the switch was made on either side.

...and that would be compensation for essentially handing WMAR-TV the NBC affiliation in Baltimore once again. But here go the conflicts...Cincinnati, Fort Myers/Naples, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. Also, KSBW-TV in Salinas/Monterey has both ABC ("Central Coast ABC") and NBC (on main channel).

Late Show with David Letterman ended in 2015, as did Worldwide Pants' interest in Late Late Show after Craig Ferguson departed.

WKBW-TV is in Spectrum territory also, and they should be lucky they aren't an ABC O&O. But this is/was all about making sure the game wasn't blacked out in Market No. 1.

Legend has it that Pete Rozelle did it a few times when he was NFL commissioner. Maybe Aaron shared some of his magic mushrooms with the negotiators and they "saw the light". One has to wonder what the CBN braintrust is contemplating right now in their Virginia Beach bunker. Gordon Robertson will definitely have something to say about this.

The real question is who blinked first, Disney or Charter. And yes, I absolutely believe Monday Night Football–on ESPN and ABC–and featuring the New York Jets–had everything to do with it.

Much different situation. KMSP-TV was a top-rated VHF independent when it joined Fox as a charter affiliate in '86. But the station (and its then sister KPTV in Portland OR) voluntarily left the network in '88 because Fox's Saturday night schedule drew far fewer viewers than what KMSP programmed independently pre-Fox. Fox was forced to move to a UHF, KITN-TV. Fast-forward to 2001. Fox purchases KMSP and KPTV's parent Chris-Craft/United. Both are now UPN stations with strong news departments. Fox waited until fall '02 to make the logical move and bring KMSP and KPTV back into the fold. Pre-digital transition, but still working with the New World mentality–better to be on VHF in a major market.

This should last about as long as "Dandy", the New York Yankees' attempt at employing a mascot from over 40 years ago. Remember this? I didn't think so. Not that a team like the Yankees needed a mascot to begin with... But Good Morning America has done something like this before. I recall when they started using "You Gotta Be", the song by one-hit wonder Des'ree as an unofficial theme. I don't think that lasted very long either.