Recovering Producer

Possible quiet consolidation of morning newscasts in Fort Myers? Can't legally download/share, but saw on a media monitoring service I have access to for the day job that WBBH and WZVN were simulcasting morning newscasts today, show open had no network logos on it, while the bugs had NBC/ABC depending on which station. (Which makes sense, most places have logo/time/temp bug from NewsTicker downstream from the news control room switcher so it can easily be put up over any source) On TitanTV the WZVN morning newscast has changed from "Good Morning Gulf Coast" to "Gulf Coast News Today" which matches WBBH.

Response is here: https://jumpshare.com/share/nuAG0KuJGA8cfHdvfx0M I'm not smart enough to know which case is in better standing legally and in terms of what could happen if heard by a jury. The realist in me says if there isn't some out of court settlement, by the time this case gets scheduled for a trial his noncompete would likely be expired - making a lot of elements of both cases moot. Only guaranteed winner: lawyers getting billable hours.

The rumored taking NewsNation special reports instead of networks is one of the areas where things have the potential to get messy and get lawyers billable hours. My understanding of network affiliation agreements is they have a limit on the number of hours/year of network programming that can be preempted. Would blowing out network extended coverage of something (let's just say - as an example - a Presidential Inauguration where coverage starts around 9 am and runs well into the afternoon) count toward that limit? And what happens when/if a station is in breach of their affiiliation contract by removing too much network programming? Coincidentally, the current chair of the FCC is saying stations should have more control over how much network programming they preempt.

They definitely leased corporate office space in Tysons Corner. Washington Business Journal reported they downsized and moved a few blocks last year. https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2025/09/04/tysons-tegna-hq-relocation.html (paywalled link) Going to guess that new HQ was a relatively short term lease.

I’ve always been curious what purpose the covered walkway from the North side of WUSA’s building to the brick wall back area of the McDonald’s next door served.

We compiled a list of the 37 media companies Byron Allen has enshittified. Number 24 will inspire you.

That’s been the case for a long time. Lois arrived at WINK a couple years before Kellie started at WBBH. Longest serving overall on-air TV news person in the market for a while too.

Based on the bios page, it appears Trent's tenure at WINK was rather short, and all references to any time there got scrubbed from his Facebook page. I have no idea if they know what they are doing with the title of chief meteorologist. If I was advising them on PR, I'd say the title isn't necessary right now and create their promotion and marketing campaign around the expertise of the entire weather team. The longer they wait to give someone the title of chief meteorologist, the less blowback they'll get from people on social media. And there is no need to open the door to relitigating that messiness in public/social media while all of that messiness is also in the process of moving towards being litigated by acutal lawyers in court.

Just from seeing the social media discourse: a lot of the narriative his supporters have used on social media is "he was fired for long dinner breaks to be with his wife and kids." So that's their attempt to refute/counter that. More importantly, for the plaintiff's side, filing a lawsuit, especially in a place like Florida where public records are easily accessible, is fundamentally the equivalent of the scene in Mean Girls where Regina George throws copies of the Burn Book down the hallway. It is out there. It has been said. Even if that part of the lawsuit isn't allowed to be part of a possible trial in the future, that information can't be put back in the tube. As someone who worked at that station: It is a HUGE surprise the social media incident saying bad things about Publix in May 2025 wasn't the termination event. Publix LOVES television advertising, especially in local news. And you don't cause drama, needlessly, with an advertiser who generates that much revenue.

Shared this in a separate thread - but the lawsuit is - quite the read. https://jumpshare.com/share/PKW9HMFxwTst6zuRgw9g Attorneys for the defendant haven't filed their response yet. But, when filed it will show up at https://matrix.leeclerk.org case number to search is 26-CA-001858 (Full disclosure: I was an employee of Fort Myers Broadcasting more than a decade ago, I did not work with and have never met or communicated in any way with the current GM, News Director, or the defendant in this lawsuit.)

Fort Myers Broadcasting has sued Matt Devitt. Link to lawsuit: https://jumpshare.com/share/PKW9HMFxwTst6zuRgw9g As best as I can tell, his response has not been filed.

My personal guess is that there was direct outreach between the parties involved in these sales and these stations were never on the open market. Whether Scripps approached purchasing companies first or vice versa is something we’ll likely never know. That’s strictly speculation, but based on the two operations and the single market owners Scripps sold to. In both cases, those operations only paths to better operating costs were buy a competitor or be sold to one. And if you look at Scripps debt load and stock price … cash is a good thing to get. (Even if they announced the Inyo and Lexington purchases which eats up a solid amount of the money made from these sales. But those are both purchases where the long term operating costs will be substantially lower than the properties they sold.)

Looking at Zeam, it appears s like they did a WRTV/Scripps 6pm newscast And a WISH/CCB 7pm newscast (that is an overmodulated hot mess)

Whoever decided "as we come on the air tonight" needs to be said in the first 30 seconds of every newscast deserves a life full of minor inconveniences and to step on legos when they get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

There is only one appropriate response to this development...

Good faith divestures to another broadcaster that operates network-affiliated stations are a thing of the past. Nexstar is a retransmission revenue company with advertising sales as a side hustle. They want every penny of restransmission cash from 3-4 channels per market, and a consolidated operation with the lowest possible cost. The two year timeline gives time for rules to be rewritten to avoid these stations being divested, or strictly selling the license/transmitter only to a godcaster/spectrum squatter, while keeping the affiliation and programming for a subchannel of a retained station. Or in an absolute worst case (for Nexstar) scenario, Mission gets six additional stations with network affiliations.

Because I am a public records nerd... blueprints, structural, plumbing, irrigation, site and additional plans are available here. https://miramarfl-energovweb.tylerhost.net/apps/SelfService#/permit/5A92FC2B-0D52-4707-BB38-2AB6AB77B7C4?tab=attachments Files named G sheets and AI sheets have a good look at the floor plans. The weirdest part of the plan I see is the "safe" room only accessable through the CEO/GM's private restrooms on the second floor.

Will he be joining his toupee in South Florida? (That was sent there after Marty Bass found himself under... interesting circumstances.)

The last time ABC purchased a TV station was in 1995 and the Flint/Toledo deal closed before Disney's purchase of ABC was finalized. Disney has always been a reluctant broadcast TV owner in the 21st century. Kermit the Frog will replace Mickey Mouse as Disney's main character before ABC/Disney owns another U.S. broadcast license.

1. The Ross Artimo cameras really add something to wide shots - and are cool to watch in action. 2. I am honestly surprised Charlie Van Dyke hasn't retired from voiceover work yet.

Any Fort Myers only branding would alienate a large portion of the potential audience. Fort Myers isn’t the largest city in the DMA. Cape Coral is the largest city in the market by far. Lehigh Acres, which isn’t an incorporated city, also has more people than the city of Fort Myers. That said, there are large portions of unincorporated Lee County that have a Fort Myers mailing address. As for Fox Florida… if the domain name is available and no one else is branding that way, why not? Less is more. 10 letter domain name. Two words. Alliteration. Says what the product is, still a clear change and a clean slate from the Fox4 News brand the WINK/Sun McSchwartzel leadership team wants people to forget was a thing.

Two retransmission revenue streams (minus the cut network gets), two stations worth of advertising revenue with the opportunity to bundle both stations to advertisers, operating cost/scale advantages over the other single station operators in the market. Realistic added costs: Power bill for second transmitter, programming costs, maybe a handful of WTVQ staffers added to WLEX employee headcount post closing.

And Sun broadcasting officially owns WFTX. Stay tuned to see how fast changes happen. https://scripps.com/press-releases/scripps-completes-sale-of-wftx-in-fort-myers-naples-to-sun-broadcasting/

If listings on TitanTV are accurate, it will be a very quick end for WFTX/Fox4 News when the deal closes (per the terms of the asset purchase agreement) on March 1. They show the currently on WXCW hours of WINK News being simulcast on WXCW and WFTX from 7-11 a.m., and 10-11 p.m., and a WFTX only newscast from 6:30 - 7 pm. starting Tuesday March 3. I suspect the final broadcasts of Fox4 News will take place on Friday. (Of course no one can say much, if anything, about what happens until the deal is closed) WFTX anchor Amy Wegmann posted about cleaning out her desk on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1B1w4N3Rts/

And to close the loop on the Tulsa consolidation, Sinclair has exercised an option to purchase KOKI sister station KMYT. https://enterpriseefiling.fcc.gov/dataentry/views/public/assignmentDraftCopy?displayType=html&appKey=25076ff39bdbd079019c2ab7588a70ba&id=25076ff39bdbd079019c2ab7588a70ba&goBack=N