Recovering Producer

The best explanation I can give is that having a long pad on a video playing out of a server in automation is playing with fire. Let's say, hypothetically, there are 4 video playback outputs from the video server here. three normal for vos, sots, pkgs, etc, one keyable for show opens, animations, and other fancy production elements where the video comes in/out over the elements surrounding it. Have the keyable open with 3 seconds of audio pad on it, the playback file will end, and the automation will cue up the next element assigned to play out of that channel automatically. Have the keyable open with 30 seconds of trailing/fading audio pad on it, and there's another element set to play from the keyable channel within the first 30 seconds after the show open, most likely the automation will automatically eject the open animation while the trailing audio is still playing and will cue up the next element set to come out of that keyable channel in time for it to be clean - but it just isn't worth the risk in a situation where the automation director would have to verify the right element is cued up, or manually advance the playback channel to the next element during a busy top of a newscast.

The thing is, CBS doesn't need to run WUPA well as a CBS O&O for it to be a financial success to stockholders, which is all that matters. It just needs a better balance sheet than WUPA as an independent. This paragraph is speculation, but the retransmission deal CBS has with pay TV providers likely is structured that so CBS gets more per subscriber for a station running CBS programming than an independent station. Plus, they get to keep all of it as opposed to negotiating a reverse compensation affiliation deal with WANF where Gray was paying CBS some percentage of the retransmission fees Gray collected. Syndicated programming costs will go down in the long-run since CBS network programming covers 11 hours per weekday in the time between CBS Mornings and Colbert. (Plus however many hours of CBS News roundup and CBS News Mornings they air overnight) There will be CBS programming where they can charge more for ads than they could with existing syndicated programming. They don't need to go big or expensive building a news department. That cost can be managed along with the expectations for it, and there is far more space to sell in a local newscast than in syndicated programming. Even if they attract lower quality advertisers, that revenue, ideally, gets made up in added availability to sell.

The other headline in this is CBS/Gray renewed their deal with every other CBS affiliate in the Gray group. So, no other shoes to drop with CBS/Gray, at least for now.

I'm just looking forward to the new CBS Atlanta rebranding itself every few years like the old one did. Hopefully, they'll skip the awkward "Clear News" phase 46 went through starting in 2000.

Before the piecemeal sale to operators who aren't buying speculation posts start, repeat after me: Byron Allen is going to want to sell to a single operator, structure it as a merger, and the buyer will divest assets they can't retain to minimize his tax costs and maximize the money made on the sale.

Less than three months until the change, and WSVN/Sunbeam is asking the FCC to return to only broadcasting in ATSC 1.0 and ending its channel sharing agreement with WPLG. Currently, the WSVN spectrum has WSVN and WPLG's ATSC 1.0 channels, while the WPLG spectrum has WSVN and WPLG ATSC 3.0 channels. No similar filings from WPLG/Berkshire Hathaway to request a return to ATSC 1.0 transmission that I could find. Likely just a matter of when that is filed.

When the audience is a fraction of what it was a decade ago, there's no good way to spin them. Put out a press release that says "we won at 6pm with a 5 share!" means you're tacitly admitting at least 80% of people watching TV in that time slot are not watching local news over linear TV. The sales model has shifted away from selling on past show ratings to actual ad impressions which means specific newscast ratings are less relevant to the financial picture for a station and ownership group. In 2012, a manager at a station meeting said "flat is the new up" - I assume by 2025 it's now "not bleeding out viewers is the new flat"

I hope even if they call, he has the good sense to say no. There is nothing to gain and everything to lose by coming back. I hope Leon finds peace, sobriety, and health in his next chapter. As someone who spent 15 years in a newsroom, for every person who has a public/visible fall from grace due to alcohol or other substance abuse, there are just as many, if not more, who battle it silently or are in denial about it and manage to fly under the radar. There's no way to quantify the why - but the combination of odd hours, lack of balance, constant bad news content, and high-pressure work environment all likely play a role. Candidly, it's a big reason why I got out when I did. I saw the life outcomes of unmarried or divorced men over 40 who stay in TV news. The odds are not in your favor.

Sun Broadcasting/WXCW Naples-Fort Myers (and sidecar to Fort Myers Broadcasting/WINK) President Jim Schwartzel is running for the U.S. House. I can't quite figure out how he got this glowing profile on WINK. It truly is a mystery.

The tactic of a TV station group encouraging people to call a MVPD when they can't reach a retransmission agreement has been a major cringe of mine since it became a thing. Trying to get your viewers to cosplay federal lobbyist by posting messages with growth and investment as a euphemism for consolidation on the site formerly known as Twitter is several steps worse than that. If a company wants to advocate for itself, great. Find something authentic to demonstrate how deregulation benefits people who aren't named Perry Sook. A low-energy social media astroturfing campaign where they don't explain what they want is pretty weak. Especially considering the biggest hurdle to stop it from happening with the current balance of power in DC is it gets put on the back burner and forgotten.

Apparently this spot is for this week only - full studio in a week. https://people.com/find-out-where-kelly-ripa-and-mark-consuelos-will-film-live-before-they-premiere-new-set-11708730

Jane Pauley and her agent can do the funniest thing ever... (I kid, I kid)

A lot of stations have installed in weather centers the abiility to interrupt for a cut-in and a mini switcher for meteorologists so they can control what makes air during a cut-in without a director or a crew. Because hub operators are running multiple stations at once, it is a lot easier for a station to call up and say "hey, we're at a risk of severe weather, activate the interrupt switch in the weather center at (call letters) so we can get on air immediately if we get a warning" and they will - so it isn't a game of telephone for the meteorologist to get on air quickly. After the cut-in, the call likely serves a couple purposes. On the technical side, they likely have to reset the switch if there's a chance of another cut-in, or deactivate it if the risk is over so a rogue elbow bump doesn't disrupt programming. Operationally, it is likely standard operating procedure to call so the hub operator can make sure the discrepancy report is accurate for the times of the cut-in and what ads were missed and need to either be made good or have billing adjsuted.

Their brand is far more (I know this is no longer reality) <Scott Chapin voice> 7 News </Scott Chapin voice> than anything else with the word Fox in it. So that’s not a huge deal. At the end of the day, when there’s an impasse with BH/WPLG and ABC, Mickey Mouse decided getting some money from an established Sunbeam WSVN operation on a .2 benefited them more than the cost of them establishing or supporting some other broadcast company scrambling for a solution for ABC to air on a much lesser known UHF OTA PSIP .1 and that station would be short on programming to fill off network hours. The network affiliate is a smaller piece of the viewership pie than it was, so Disney/ABC will take the money they can get from linear TV while it still has some value to them rather than spend to build their own as streaming tries to run out the clock in its fight against broadcast. Sunbeam saw a viable path to a second substantial South Florida revenue stream with minimal effort at least to start on a few months notice in a TV business reality of limited syndicated programming and less of it available every season. It’s an almost turnkey operation for weekdays if you just run ABC programming and 7news/Deco Drive simulcasts. I believe the only current gaps between the start of World News Now and the end of Nightline would be 3 to 4pm and 7 to 7:30pm. Even if they run the cheapest paid programming in those slots, it’s still revenue they weren’t generating before. WPLG’s plan come August is the most fascinating current unknown to the public part of this to watch moving forward.

I’m old enough to remember when NBC tried to sell WTVJ to what was The Washington Post company at the time to form a duopoly with WPLG in 2008, which would have been the first top 20 with two of the big 4 English language networks under common ownership. That felt wild and ominous for the future of the business then. 17 years later the business model is so dramatically different this feels like a “yeah something like this was bound to happen in a market that size eventually” moment. Yet another network switch in a market where change has been pretty constant.