Recovering Producer

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It probably leads back to Randy Michaels when he was driving Tribune into the ground in the late 2000s.

 

That KWGN package was a special kind of awful.  I thought the old WTKR ping-robot arm look was bad, but this was even worse.

As someone who was hired at KDVR/KWGN when they were trying to undo many of the choices made in the early post merger/deuce era - there were moments I heard stories about the previous leadership and decisions made where all I could think was "were they actively trying to fail? or did the altitude and/or the not recreationally legal at the time substance Colorado is known for just mess with their judgement?" 

3 hours ago, mouseboy33 said:

Whats with that awful abrupt end to the opening theme when the anchor are doing their introduction? Horrible. Ive  noticed more and more newscasts have this. I imagine its a result of everything being automated. Terrible. Why is that allowed. 

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. 

57 minutes ago, TVLurker said:

CBS purchasing WANF would save them a lot of money in the long run since they have an established news department and other departments relating to community involvement. CBS by moving to WUPA not only has to spend money on a news department but also build up the station to be on equal footing with WANF.

 

I doubt CBS is going to put in the time and effort into WUPA. The move to WUPA is going to be disastrous for CBS in the long run. Prepare for WANF to become a WHDH like juggernaut.

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.

2 minutes ago, Action Newsroom said:

The AMG TV stations may be up for grabs.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/byron-allen-selling-local-tv-stations-up-1236235004/

https://deadline.com/2025/06/allen-media-group-hires-investment-bank-to-sell-tv-stations-1236420381/

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.  

29 minutes ago, MediaZone4K said:

why aren't local stations transparent about ratings anymore? Is it to spin the numbers in their favor to convince advertisers to agree to a certain price?

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" 

49 minutes ago, newsdude said:

Leon was never really a ratings draw, but WUSA9 also never really made many smart decisions either, so who knows? 

Can he one man band???

12 minutes ago, newsman123 said:

I was gonna say…

No station really has the money these days to pay anchors. WUSA and Tegna is probably looking to unload.. not add. 

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. 

4 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Nexstar has entered the must-run game.  Why?  So they can try and own more stations.

https://thedesk.net/2025/04/nexstar-fcc-must-runs-ownership-caps-deregulation/

 

No thanks.  They have enough stations as it is.

And their tactics of delaying web streams and shaking down viewers for a dwindling pool of retransmission cash is bad enough.

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.

2 hours ago, Action Newsroom said:

It is Monday, April 7, 2025. And yes, it's time.

 

Live with Kelly & Mark officially debuted (from the Great Room on 10th floor) at its new home of 7H².

 

Reminds me a lot of the studio of the first season of Anderson Cooper's talk show. (Coincidentally and ironically, he was Live's final guest at the old UWS studio.)

 

 

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

1 hour ago, Action Newsroom said:

Deborah Norville will be leaving Inside Edition

after 30 years as its host.

 

https://deadline.com/2025/04/deborah-norville-leaving-inside-edition-1236357493/

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. 

1 hour ago, MorningNews said:

I don’t have enough knowledge about affiliate swaps but is this truly final? It’s almost unbelievable even.

 

How will WSVN manage newscast as a Fox and ABC affiliate? How does branding even work for that and why would ABC be willing to relegated to a sub-channel in a significant market? 

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. 

2 minutes ago, MarkBRollins88_v2 said:

For my source: I’ll say my lack of citing a “source” should speak for who my source is. 

 

As for which specific stations are losing them… Again, I’ll just say it will be most of them. You’ll be able to count on one hand how many stations still have a chopper after this is over… and you’ll have fingers leftover too.

 

Let’s let my vagueness over sharing anymore specific details speak back to my answer to the first question. 

Feels like there aren't a lot of legacy Nexstar stations that have their own choppers to begin with. Most of the ones that do have them came from Tribune or Media General purchases. Of those: KTLA for car chases and fires and KFOR for tornadoes stand out as the two biggest examples of their stations in markets that have helicopter coverage as a viewer expectation and would put a station at a significant competitive disadvantage without one.  

The other question is, does this include ending their participation in multi-station helicopter shares like Denver? 

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

With things so bad at Scripps, they may have to file for bankruptcy protection.  And even then, are they so far gone that stations could be auctioned off or go dark in a nationwide shutdown if they run out of cash?

Chapter 7 liquidation is always a last resort. Nothing is impossible. But that's an disastrous outcome for everyone - even creditors. If there is a bankruptcy filing, Chapter 11 reorganization is the path they will try to negotiate with creditors - even if the end goal of the reorganization is reduced debt and a better balance sheet to make the company more attractive to prospective buyers.

Think the final decade of Tribune's existence. Everything they did from bankruptcy until the deal closed with Nexstar (minus the whole Sinclair debacle) was done with the intention of getting the most money out of a merger. The print spinoff unloaded a financial problem, the LocalTV LLC Merger gave them scale.

Scripps will just need to move at an accelerated pace because they don't have money to grow, they already spun off print, and the clock is ticking with the imminent ownership deregulation.

There are considerable financial benefits to a seller with a sale structured as a merger with one company (and the buyer spins off any properties that regulators won't allow them to keep) rather than parts of the company being sold to multiple businesses. 

On 2/27/2025 at 9:19 PM, ScottSchell said:

Sorry for bumping this but has anyone heard any updates on the new building if construction work is still going on or any ideas on if or when WINK will move?

Last update I heard from a former coworker from my time there was hopefully early Summer 2025. No explanation why. I'd guess the 1-2 punch of Ian in 2022 and Milton in 2024 means construction crews in Southwest Florida are in high demand. 

(Which gives me flashbacks to the economic meltdown of 2008/2009 when Southwest Florida's heavily home construction based economy driven by 2004/2005 hurricane season rebuilds and massive growth collapsed hard and Lee County turned into Foreclosure Land USA for several years.) 

On the people side: There's a lot of coordination between government meteorologists and broadcast meteoroglists during severe weather events. They share information with each other like damage reports, condition observations, etc - so there will be fewer people to help spread that information.

Information wise: NWS/NOAA also distributes a large amount of data, forecast models, and other information meteorologists use in making forecasts. If a NWS radar site goes down it will take longer to repair and that means alarger areas with weak or no radar coverage. (Many stations that once had their own radar units in the 90s/2000s "everyone gets their own radar" days have scaled back usage or didn't upgrade them as NWS radar technology improved.)

None of this should have been a surprise. It was literally in the book. The failed nomination of Barry Myers, the (now former) CEO of Accuweather, to be the head of NOAA in 2017 made intentions clear.

I did not realize American baby boomers in prominent jobs were capable of stepping away on top and on their own terms. Good for Lester.

Not that the FCC pays attention to these things, but the WZVN Legal ID in this newscast open isn't exactly legal. It needs to say Naples first. Also, quite the unfortunate mispunch rolling the dead fish because of red tide VO when they talk about the new identity. Thank goodness smell-o-vision isn't a thing. 

If I were a betting man, I'd put money on Hearst's long-term unspoken plan is likely gradual consolidation through natural mid-market turnover attrition. Saturday evenings are the easiest place to test those waters because of low HUT levels. 

1 hour ago, DENDude said:

 the 2 stations will still have separate newscasts & anchor teams but one brand.   

Narrator voice: Given the reality of local TV revenue in 2025 and beyond, we'll see how long the separate newscasts last.

2 hours ago, newsteam13 said:

Nobody comes home to watch the news anymore. Not even the local news at 5pm, 6pm and 11pm (10pm on central/mountain). Certainly not the network evening newscasts. More people are streaming nowadays, not to mention getting their news on the internet.

 

CBS News's YouTube channel offers full-length episodes of the CBS Evening News. After they broadcast on their local affiliates, CBS News uploads that night's newscast like 4 hours later, so people who prefer online can watch on YouTube at their own convenience. ABC News YouTube channel, same deal with World News Tonight uploaded like 4 hours after they broadcast on ABC affiliates. NBC News YouTube Channel uploading the NBC Nightly News the same night. Talk about ease of access!

 

Why aren't local stations following suit with the networks? That is, uploading the local newscast on their stations YouTube channel the same night after they aired it live? 

Most likely at the local level, the labor cost of the work it takes to clip and upload broadcasts to YouTube is greater than getting video up to existing on-demand platforms and YouTube has lower potential revenue for the station. There almost certainly ways for a sales team to generate ad and monetization opportunities for broadcasts on NewsOn/Zeam/station OTT channels, while YouTube wouldn’t generate much, if any, revenue for past newscasts on demand. Additionally, station group operated streaming platforms are likely easier to integrate into engineering and IT workflows so the clipping/upload of broadcasts there is semi, if not fully, automated and almost instant. 

Network likely has the bodies available to manually clip segments and remove any possible restricted video from a newscast before uploading the 30 minute broadcast, and they would upload far less broadcasts per day compared with local stations almost constant around the clock newscasts 

11 minutes ago, Breaking News said:

That door been revolving for years even before the early 2000s.

 

 

Stacia is headed for WKYC Channel 3 in Cleveland as Statehouse reporter.

WKYC also welcomes Stacia Naquin to the 3News Team as our Columbus Statehouse reporter. Stacia is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning reporter and anchor who has spent the last eight years at WSYX in Columbus. Welcome Stacia!”

That's one way to sit out a non-compete while still working and not having to move, considering the WBNS/WKYC common ownership.