bpatrick

In the Central and Mountain time zones, the 10 PM newscast is traditionally the flagship newscast. As quite a few Fox affiliates (including my own, and I'm in the Eastern time zone) have found out, people like to catch the 10 PM news before turning in; in cities like Chicago and Dallas, quite a few people are still at work or trying to get home. So for KTVT and WDJT to replace news with Jeopardy! at 6 doesn't represent that great a loss in either Dallas or Milwaukee. And WVUE and WALA are Fox affiliates; for them the flagship newscast is at 9 PM so it's no great loss to have one less newscast in New Orleans and Mobile at 6.

OK, does that mean Jennifer Hudson moves back to 3 PM on 11 Alive?

I don't see a change in Raleigh. The stations that are dropping the CW are CBS o&os; WLFL is owned by Sinclair and WNCN by Nexstar (meaning I can't see the CW on 17.2 or whatever WNCN subchannel). I am wondering, however, if the CW is going to still be on in Atlanta; I have yet to see any evidence that either WATL or WPCH is interested, and I don't think the others (WSB, WAGA, WXIA, or WANF) are. (WAGA is out anyway, being a Fox o&o, and I would be shocked if Fox allowed them to carry another network that isn't MNT.)

WTHR and WUSA are sister Tegna stations so this makes sense.

That is unusual for a station in the Central time zone. I'm sure, though, that a lot of people will be happy with the two shows on the same channel and an alternative to the news.

It sounds logical that WESH would move ET to 7:30. However, I suspect WFTV is going to clean up from 7-8, with "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune."

NBC has used the "curtain raiser" before; in the '50s it used a camera and the words "NBC Television Presents." By the early '60s that was changed to the NBC "snake" logo and "NBC Presents." As for the "Eyewitness"/"Action" branding, yes, some stations could use a name change: WSB has had "Action News" since I was in college in the '70s. Its sister stations in Charlotte and Orlando have had "Eyewitness News" since I was in high school. But I can imagine the fuss, especially in Atlanta, if the names were changed; it would be comparable to WXIA's attempt to drop "11 Alive." And besides, can you imagine (if you live in New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago) not having "ABC7 Eyewitness News"? op .='[

Just learned that Harold Crump, longtime general manager of WTVF Nashville, has passed away at age 91. If I'm reading the obituary correctly Crump instituted the NewsChannel 5 ID; he did change the station's call letters from WLAC-TV to WTVF. During Crump's years at NewsChannel 5 a few nationally syndicated shows were produced there: "Hee Haw," "Candid Camera," and "The Jimmy Dean Show." WTVF is unique in that it is a CBS affiliate which is stronger in Nashville and its suburbs while NBC affiliate WSMV does better in the rural areas; this is the reverse of most markets where NBC tends to do better in the city and suburbs, while CBS does better in the countryside. And frankly, NewsChannel 5 does seem more "big city" than does Channel 4. An R.I.P. to Mr. Crump.

Criswell did the "A.M." show at 7 AM before "Good Morning America" took over the time slot. From the looks of that intro, was this before or after Iola Johnson?

What happened to docudramas? Remember in the '70s "Pueblo" and "The Missiles of October," to name just two? Why can you not find a program like "The World at War" on a broadcast station? I even remember one year in the '60s when ABC had "FDR," CBS had "World War I," and NBC had "Profiles in Courage" either in prime time or just before. My students have a very limited knowledge of history; shows like these could entertain as well as teach, and perhaps we teachers could use some of the made-for-TV movies to point out factual errors.

Adam Rich, 54, the youngest child Nicholas Bradford on "Eight is Enough." No cause of death has been revealed.

For me, the death knell was when old shows like "Hawaii Five-O" and "Magnum, P.I." were revived. However good they may be, it indicates to me that the Hollywood creative community is woefully dry on ideas. And all the game, reality (including news), and contest programs (such as "America's Got Talent") are ways to fill prime time as cheaply as possible (come on, do we really need two hours of "20/20" and "Dateline" on Friday nights?). One problem, I think, is that there are too many channels and not enough programming to fill them all. Also, I can't think of a lineup today that excites people like CBS's Saturday-night block in the '70s or NBC's "must-see-TV" Thursday block in the '80s and '90s. Further, it's the very fact that we have computers and online streaming that makes it so hard for television as we've always known it to attract an audience. The simple fact is what is happening is the same thing that happened to old-style "30s and '40s radio when television came in.

I fail to see what is so confusing about my thinking. Any NBC affiliate manager in his/her right mind would want to run local news at 10/9 because of the potentially larger audiences and revenues. The only problem I could see would be on Saturdays if SNL were to move to 11/10 and, in the fall, a football game was still in progress. What time would SNL start? Sundays, I think NBC affiliates would gladly let NFL games run over so they could inherit their large audiences. Personally, I would be good with a 10 PM local newscast (after all, if I ran a station in the Central or Mountain time zones I'd have one anyway). And I don't give a rip what NBC does with Fallon. It won't surprise me if, within the next decade or so, NBC is streaming the majority of its programming on Peacock, and all this is going to be a moot point. I am thoroughly convinced that, although I may not live to see it, daytime and prime time entertainment shows will go online just as the network radio shows of the '30s, '40s, and early '50s moved either to television or off the air altogether.

I don't understand why this is so complicated! If you're a Fox affiliate, it's almost a snowball's chance you-know-where that you're going to be running anything but local news at 10/9. Now, imagine that you are the manager of an NBC affiliate. Are you not going to want the potential revenue for a newscast that's sure to do better at 10 than at 11? I certainly would. And if NBC wants to move Fallon to 11:05 or keep him at 11:35, or move SNL to 11, I don't care. I'm sticking to my guns until I'm proven wrong.

Why would any affiliate want that? There are more potential viewers for local news at 10 than at 11; in the Central and Mountain time zones the news is more heavily watched at 10 than at 6. No, I think NBC's affiliates will demand the time for themselves (NOTE: there's no such thing as the access rule anymore so Sunday night football could run past 10 without complaint; it is consistently THE number one show, period). Now some NBC affiliates are going to have problems against established Fox-affiliate newscasts (such as WXIA against WAGA or WVTM against WBRC), but a powerhouse like WRAL should be OK. CBS is saying it's not giving back 10--for now. ABC may be the first of the two to follow NBC's lead.

Anne Garrels, who reported from Moscow for ABC and had stints at NPR and NBC, has died at age 71.

U.S. networks have not expanded beyond 30 minutes because of resistance from the affiliates. After all, who's going to give up the revenue from "Wheel of Fortune," "Jeopardy!," "ET," or even local news? In fact, it was when WABC put "Jeopardy!" at 7 and moved "World News Tonight" to 6:30 that affiliates with network newscasts at 7 began moving them to 6:30 (there are a few exceptions, such as WSB, WRC, KDKA, WRGB, and WCAX). But I have said many times that if I had my own network, my newscast would be on at 10--far more potential viewers than at 6:30.

WBTV is a CBS affiliate. WCNC is the NBC affiliate in Charlotte.

I think it makes great sense. In the Central time zone people are more likely to watch the news at 10 than at 6, and given that many people in the Eastern and Pacific time zones aren't home at 6 they can catch the news at a more convenient time. I know of Fox stations (including one of my two, WGHP) that think a 10:00 newscast is the best thing that ever happened to them; Fox outlet WBRC in Birmingham, with a 9:00 news, registers in the range of 60 shares. When the access rule was first proposed, there was a debate about whether primetime would be 7:30-10:30 or 8-11 (ET/PT). One fear was that if primetime ended at 10:30, the networks would expand their late-night talk shows to two hours, starting at 11/10. (The networks opted for an 8/7 start mainly because they could run more demographically desirable programs from 10-11.) My point here is that I don't know if NBC would move Jimmy Fallon to 11:05, giving him a half-hour's head start on Colbert and Kimmel, but anything is possible.