ScottJ

Bob Kovachick announced on WNYT's 4:30pm newscast today that he is retiring. October 3 is the last day. 

He's been at the station since 1988 and has spent more than 40 years as a meteorologist. 

They're probably just testing the waters with it for now. If it does well, maybe they expand it later. No reason to go all-in right away, especially since FBN airs actual business programming from 10am-noon on Saturday and 9am-noon on Sunday.

Sure, they cold move those blocks if they wanted to but you don't want to alienate your core viewers interested in financial discussion without knowing if people will watch the weather programming.

I was streaming the NFL games yesterday on Paramount+ via WRGB and there were no local commercials, they all just showed the CBS slate. I was wondering why that was, and this must have been why. Right around 7:30 ET in the final minutes of the DAL/NE game, it cut away from the game and went to the CBSN stream until 60 Minutes started. I thought that was a Paramount Plus issue but maybe it was also related to this (I saw people on Twitter who had the same issue with the KEYE on Paramount+ and Hulu Live).

ETA: Streaming the station now, it's CBS Mornings instead of Kelly and Ryan. Then as of 10am, just color bars with the text "NEW YORK TX" instead of Let's Make a Deal.

13 hours ago, Kenneth Kissel said:

I don't see how this is even legal for Comcast to do. Doesn't Youtube TV have retransmission contracts with individual station owners (Nexstar,Sinclair,Tegna, Hearst, Scripps, Gray and others)? The only stations Comcast can legally take down from YoutubeTV are the NBC O&Os and Comcast cable owned channels.

Retransmission agreements for virtual MVPDs are different than with traditional MVPDs. The networks negotiate carriage on behalf of the affiliates, though not all Fox affiliates are on-board with them (at least as of this 2017 article).

But it's a moot point, for now at least, as the two sides have agreed to a short-term extension.

WNYT/Albany has named its latest weekday morning anchor team. The station's longtime weekend sports anchor Chris Onorato will be co-anchoring with new hire Faith King, who is coming to the station from WAVE in Louisville. The new team starts September 27.

Rachel Tiede is the new weeknight anchor at WNYT, doing the 9pm (on WNYA) and 11pm shows. She'll also do investigative and breaking news reporting. Her tweet teases that she could do some forecasting as well, as she's completing her BS in meteorology at Mississippi State.

1 hour ago, dman748 said:

Well let's look at their peers, Nexstar isn't commanding that much, Hearst isn't commanding that much, not one single media company that owns the local stations is commanding as much as what Sinclair wants to charge Dish. 

 

I'm sure Sinclair is factoring in the Bally RSNs to the what the fees would cost

What's your source for saying this companies aren't commanding that much? That information isn't public knowledge. Of course Sinclair is including the RSNs, that's what the dispute is about. Take those out of the ex m equation,  since they cost distributors more than local stations. Is what Sinclair is asking for the locals in line with what other companies are charging? No one knows. This is all public posturing. Again,  without any context we don't know if "nearly a billion dollars" (whatever that means)  is easy too much to ask,  including the RSNs, or not. That's my point. 

9 hours ago, dman748 said:

What's really bad if you're on Sinclair's side is this:

 

Asking for nearly half a billion in fees

 

That's clearly wayyyyyyyyyy too much

How do you know that's "clearly way too much?" It's impossible to make that determination without any context. How long of a time period? How does it compare to similar deals Sinclair has with other distributors? All of these quotes are just public posturing to get the public to pick a side. For all we know,  "nearly a billion in fees" may be what other distributors are paying Sinclair. If they are,  then it's clearly NOT way too much. 

The latest move at WNYT sees Subrina Dhammi leaving the morning show after nearly a decade to take Benita Zahn's former anchor slots at 4pm and 6pm. The station is looking at internal and external candidates to replace Dhammi on the morning shift.

2 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

I haven't been following the business side of streaming. What happens if the streaming bubble collapses? Where does the business model go if that happens, if both cable and streaming collapse?

Streaming isn't going to collapse, it's going to consolidate. Some of the smaller/niche services will shut down or be acquired by the big companies, but it's not going to collapse. It's only going to get stronger as cord-cutting continues and content continues moving from TV/movie theaters to streaming. Cable is going to collapse, not streaming and certainly not both.

1 hour ago, east-tx-tv said:

KFDA weatherman Cameron Venable has announced his departure from the station.  He'll be moving to Wichita, where he will get in some storm chasing.  He didn't mention what station he'd end up at.

 

https://www.newschannel10.com/2021/04/09/good-news-meteorologist-cameron-venable-embarks-new-career-journey/

He tweeted he'll be the weekend morning meteorologist and storm chaser at KAKE.

Having the generic open for all teams seems to be part of Sinclair's strategy to homogenize the RSNs.

Quote

In some ways, Sinclair plans to nationalize its RSN operations. “We are a company of scale. In the past, these have been treated as one-offs. We look at it as a whole ecosystem,” Weisbord said.

 

 

The article also mentions the possibility of adding national programming to the RSNs.

7 hours ago, atlnews2 said:

Spurs open is the exact same as the Heat open. Again giving more credence to my suspicion that this is going to be the generic open for all sports coverage regardless of team and sport

 

 

Because Bally wants its brand to be the center of attention. It doesn't want to be overshadowed by the team. This is what happens when a company sells the naming rights to the network.

The latest departure from WNYT is part-time meteorologist Allison Finch. Her last day was Sunday; she landed a full-time met gig at a station in Springfield, Mass.

Other FSNs are sharing similar videos to the one that Georgie linked to yesterday. FSN North also has a FAQ page up. It doesn't really have new information other than confirming that the Fox Sports Go app will update/rebrand as Bally Sports on the 31st, so people who use it shouldn't have to download a new app (though you'll probably have to ensure you update it from whichever app store). The FAQ also confirms "new graphics, music and more" as we knew would happen and is starting to trickle out on broadcasts.

According to this Variety article, at a staff meeting yesterday Sook said the plan is "to build out NewsNation as an all-news, talk and opinion outlet by 2023." Will it really take that long to complete the transition?

WNYT has announced Paulina Bucka is the new co-anchor with Subrina Dhammi on the station's morning show, replacing Asa Stackel.

George got a contract extension, pay raise and production company out of the deal. I'm sure he knew this was coming but complained about it as a negotiating tactic, knowing ABC wanted him to stay, and he seems to have made out pretty well.

14 hours ago, dman748 said:

Sinclair's DTC service isn't expected to launch until 2022 https://thestreamable.com/news/sinclair-wont-bring-rebranded-fox-sports-rsns-direct-to-consumer-until-2022

 

The fact that they're looking into making it available to even those who don't have a way to authenticate their satellite/streaming services to the RSNs is.. a rather interesting proposition here.

Sinclair won't be making the RSNs available to unauthenticated users. Per Ripley's quote, the DTC option "will allow an unauthenticated user the ability to access and even subscribe to certain content from our RSNs, as well as other unique content."

I bolded the important part. Just certain content will be available to people who can't authenticate. I'm pretty sure that means MLB/NBA/NHL games won't be available that way. It'll likely be just pre/postgame shows and other studio shows/non-game programming. That's a key distinction to make.

54 minutes ago, jrogo said:

According to TVNewser: 

"Johnson had been anchoring 8-10 p.m. ET time period on Saturdays and Sundays. He will continue to anchor two hours on Saturdays, and just one hour on Sundays." 

https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/mehdi-hasan-is-heading-for-msnbc-on-sunday-nights/472198/

 

Johnson is also going to be getting a show on Peacock. 

Tegna is launching new female-focused diginet Twist this spring. The network, which features reality and lifestyle programming, will cover about 70% of households at launch. In addition to Tegna stations in 41 markets, the network will be available on Univision-owned stations in 11 markets -- including NYC, L.A., Chicago, and Philadelphia -- and HC2-owned stations in 31 markets. Tegna expects to have additional distribution lined up by the summer.

46 minutes ago, dman748 said:

Or longer.

 

Something this "easy" (in reality its hard due to logistical-related stuff) for sports leagues to figure out that cable isn't in the team's future has become extremely difficult for them and eventually, they will pay the price for that.

 

Heck it's taken the leagues this long to realize that OTT is the future of TV

Keyword: future. OTT may be the future of TV, but it's not the present -- especially not for major sports. Until then, RSNs are necessary for teams and the cable bundle is the major leagues' best avenue for TV (other than the NFL obviously). The days of broadcast stations being a team's main broadcaster are long gone and aren't coming back.

3 hours ago, scrabbleship said:

Another month, another anchor leaving WNYT (and television altogether).

 

This makes four anchors to leave in not even three months. Something...is going on there.

I wouldn't say something is going on there. Kambrich left to move to NYC, where his wife is now working. Tararache left to go into management so she could get better hours to spend more time with her family. Stackel is changing careers, and based on his announcement (which I posted in this thread a few days ago), it was also about the hours. "It's just, the two am wake-up call and the six pm bedtime became too much. There are no good hours in the news business. "

All three of these seem like personal/life decisions. It's just that all three came within a short time makes it seem like more than that.

WNYT is losing a third anchor since Jim Kambrich's retirement in December. Morning co-anchor Asa Stackel announced on this morning's show that he is leaving the station, and the news business, to pursue a finance career. Friday is his last day at the station.

1 hour ago, Kenneth Kissel said:

But they are engaging in monopolistic practices. What has Sinclair and Nexstar been doing for the last 10+ years. Sidecar companies just to get around FCC rules. The providers haven't done enough to keep retransmission fees low because the laws favor the Station owners. I say let them sue, it's time to change how we look at local stations and local owners in this country. 

That's not monopolistic practices. And since the FCC approves the majority of the sales involving sidecars, they seem to be OK with it. You want the government to make changes to suit what you want to see happen. That's not going to happen. The government doesn't have that power. Face it, the station groups are only going to get bigger and thus have more leverage over the providers. It's reality.

And I'm saying that as someone who thinks the UHF discount should be eliminated and companies shouldn't be able to use sharing agreements/sidecars as loopholes to get around ownership limits. But it's reality and we have to deal with it.