DJonNews

You know, I thought CBS would keep the 2021 scorebug, since I noticed that a wide majority of the insert graphics in Super Bowl LVIII were of the 2021 style but with color changes (not unlike the graphics Fox would end reverting to partway through Super Bowl LI, since they presumably also weren't proud of how the "flat" graphics turned out; of course, there would be a different flat graphics set come the 2017 preseason). Heck, the preseason game I'm watching is using a wide majority of the 2021 insert graphics right now! But I thought wrong.

By the way... Washington Commanders, Indianapolis Colts, Cleveland Browns: No change. Miami Dolphins: Am I the only one that thinks that Arial clashes horribly with the preseason graphics they've been using since 2018, which has Klavika elsewhere? (Never mind that they're an era behind when it comes to graphics and they're still promoting the preseason telecasts as broadcasting in HD in 2024?)

Yeah, I don't see CBS Sports changing to the graphics we saw in Super Bowl 58 for this upcoming regular season. The virtual down and distance marker? With a font change to TT Norms, maybe. But the graphics as a whole? Not at all (since many of the insert graphics are just reskins of what they've used since 2021, themselves reskins of the 2016 graphics infrastructure), and especially not the scorebug.

And I believed right. There was a theme to all this. According to Sports Video Group, the graphics package was designed to deliver "a punchier presence that leans into the pomp and circumstance of on-campus game days." And yes, there will also be minor tweaks to the graphics as the season goes by. I'm hoping one of them regards the team names directly below the logos. After all, what good are they if you can't read them and the font makes it no easier to do so?

Here's more of the new college football scorebug, including the indicator of how many points a team has scored in a play (+6, +3, etc.), and the specific penalty a team will have committed. The more I study this, the more I become inclined to believe that the graphics were designed with a sticker theme in mind, which explains the tilted logos, tilted placement of the exact penalty committed (complete with exclamation warning marks, as if the black and yellow wasn't enough to let you know already), and even the slightly tilted bar containing the quarter, time, and down and distance. They've well and truly accomplished the style, but where's the readability, especially in the team names below the logos (not helped by them also being handwritten and sometimes in colors that clash with each other)?

MTV Live also hasn't strayed from MTV's original purpose, except it also shows music-related programming in addition to a constant cycle of music videos, so there's a bit of variety, at least. After all, aside from FAST channels like Vevo Music, a traditional channel devoted to music videos only wouldn't fare too well nowadays, and that's what's causing MTV Classic to perform so poorly. But that's beside the point. What mrschimpf said is right. Nowadays, it's the norm to put on whatever programming you could and call it a day. No care. No variety. Nothing. Diginets are showing cable how it's done, and that should be the wake-up call for television itself. Forget the rerun farms. How about the channels basically running on autopilot? How many people would want to watch Science Channel anymore besides "How It's Made?" Exactly. And how about speeding up any pre-2014 program to the point that they're PAL-pitched? Yes, it's syndication, and yes, you have to attract those advertisers, but at the cost of just trying to watch the show normally? Paramount Global is the only company I know that is a huge offender of such a practice. Ever wondered why the "Everybody Loves Raymond" episodes sound a bit off on TV Land? This is why.

Uh-huh... They picked a really good time to do this, didn't they? A powerful winter storm is pummeling California, and we have to take a break from this coverage to take a group selfie? Of all the days, this is the one they pick? Look, I'm all for letting them have their fun, but please, any other day but a "Storm Alert" day. Same goes for the promos they shot in Studio W.

They're that proud of their brief "win," huh? Funny how that works.

I think the block that used to be "The '90s Are All That" which eventually became NickRewind was the only reason TeenNick existed in the first place. It was the saving grace for the channel when everything else around it just screamed "A channel that exists only for filler." Even NickRewind succumbed to decay in its final year or so, to the point that the block - which was what got me interested in the '90s and the '80s in the first place - was a sad shell of its former self. Now, TeenNick is the home of "Henry Danger" and "AFV" reruns. Sad, but not surprising, considering MTV has basically inserted itself into a pattern of show "Ridiculousness" almost entirely on loop when nothing new is on, pretend to care when a new episode of a show other than "Ridiculousness" is on, and repeat. No music-related programming at all. This is what television as we know it has come to. Back in the day, you'd have a wide variety of programming to choose from on a wide variety of channels. Now, it's reruns, reruns, reruns. It's crass and exploitative shows posing as inside looks at child pageants or dance teams. It's actively spitting in the faces of viewers who long for the days gone by and showing no remorse for it. It's true crime dramas when there are already too many of them to go around. (Apparently, we haven't learned our lesson with oversaturation, which is what caused The Great Video Game Crash of 1983.) Channels have lost their plot altogether. No care or thought is put into making a good programming lineup anymore. And somehow, TCM remains the shining example of a channel that actually cares about its viewers in the modern age (a trait that has become all but extinct now). Rewind TV, Antenna TV, and MeTV don't count, since they are diginets, but they also show more care than just about the entirety of cable barring live sports.

And this is where I present to you this: https://newsblues.com/2022/07/15/source-megyn-kelly-not-going-to-newsnation/ Megyn Kelly has decided that she will not be joining NewsNation. The date of the article linked is July 15, 2022. Again, would've been mentioned sooner, but because NewsNation is the embodiment of irrelevance...

NewsNation: The 28-3 of News. (You know what 28-3 stands for if you've watched Super Bowl LI.)

As expected... dead last among all the competition in the demo. And for added paltriness, here's how it looks like in the demo... "Eric Bolling: The Balance" on Newsmax - 16,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo "CUOMO" on NewsNation - 8,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo ...and when it comes to total viewership: "Eric Bolling: The Balance" on Newsmax - 151,000 total viewers "CUOMO" on NewsNation - 147,000 total viewers "The Balance" outranked the "CUOMO" premiere in the demo, and it outranked the "CUOMO" premiere in overall viewership. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2022/10/04/chris-cuomos-return-to-prime-time-lands-in-last-place-at-8pm/?sh=2f5d85a03d95 Not a good start so far for Cuomo on NewsNation. Then again, what do you expect? It is NewsNation, after all.

I think I'll just leave this there... AP NEWS: Trump files $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN CNN is the subject of a $475 million defamation lawsuit filed by who else? None other than former President Donald J. Trump. Why? Because he claims CNN smeared his reputation on purpose (that's a lie), conspired to short-circuit his future political campaigns (also a lie), and overused the term "The Big Lie," which refers to Trump's false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 election. Yep. At a time when we're trying to move on from him, let's devote yet another week to Trump vs. CNN! I'm sure that will go over well with the public! Oh, and as far as the lawsuit? Laughable at best.

"Cuomo" premieres tonight at 8pm Eastern on NewsNation. And big news (that we missed, because we thought NewsNation would carry on as if nothing happened): NewsNation preempted all of its programming just under a week ago to devote coverage to Hurricane Ian. https://tvnewscheck.com/journalism/article/newsnation-preempts-programming-to-devote-full-day-coverage-to-hurricane-ian/ We could have covered it sooner, but because this is NewsNation we're talking about (the network that habitually neglects important news that happens outside of their news programming hours)...

Personally, I don't really consider a Trump rally worthy of breaking news or live coverage, in my opinion, since my consensus of Donald Trump as president is... well... to put it nicely, the opposite of thumbs up. Back on topic, NewsNation has a group of former Fox News people at the helm, including Bill Shine. Of course they're going to go to live coverage of a Trump rally! It's not that surprising. And of course, the Trump rally is within news programming. Would they be doing that if it wasn't? Yes. Any other news besides "You-know-who's Cavalcade of You-know-whats" that actually do warrant live coverage outside of their news hours? Not a chance.

Well, it took them long enough, but NewsNation is indeed airing the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II like the other news outlets instead of doing what they always do when it comes to huge breaking news (miss it habitually, which I honestly was expecting them to do since it's been made clear up until now that they couldn't do anything right).

Dan Abrams I can do without, thank you very much. I don't need that "Us vs. The World" narrative on my screens anymore, especially after applying it to, of all things, a somber moment from three days ago that literally everyone but NewsNation was covering. I do feel sorry for Marni Hughes, though. (This, by the way, is coming from someone who's watched the channel exactly three times ever since NewsNation started out; twice in the first two days of its life, and once three days ago.)

NewsNation has problems. Lots of problems. Hiring Cuomo isn't going to fix any of them, now that I think about it. Sure, it may increase ratings, but the bottom line is this: They are heavily unreliable when it comes to breaking the news outside of their news schedules. "The Queen passed away at 96?" Too bad, no news for you! "July 4th shooting in Chicago right near WGN station headquarters?" Ha! Tough luck! "King Charles III gives speech?" Better luck next time, television viewers! It's going to take a lot more than just a ratings increase and "star-studded" talent for NewsNation to finally get to the promised land, and having an "Us vs. The World" narrative as perfectly demonstrated on "Dan Abrams Live" two nights ago when the Queen died is absolutely, positively not one of them. It's okay if a news organization doesn't have the resources that other more established organizations have, but to habitually miss out on big news like this? Perhaps the people who hoped NewsNation would improve as time wore on have given false hope to some extent. No wonder NewsNation has become the laughingstock of the news industry, not just from a ratings standpoint, but from a trust standpoint, too.

(deadpan) Oh, yeah. I knew that was coming. Let me guess: "Blue Bloods" over live coverage on the main channel?

Oh, my goodness, NewsNation actually acted quick on big news for once... Color me surprised!

And we have problems already. Muslim groups are sounding alarm bells over CNN hiring John Miller as its chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst. https://nypost.com/2022/09/08/muslim-groups-slam-cnn-for-hiring-ex-nypd-official-john-miller/ Miller, a former NYPD official, "told the City Council earlier this year that the department never engaged in illegal surveillance of Muslim Americans after 9/11." Contrary to what he said, the department acknowledged that they did engage in said illegal surveillance (which was the subject of a Pulitzer Prize-winning report from the Associated Press in 2011) following the events of 9/11, with New York City Mayor and retired NYPD captain Eric Adams saying, "What we did was wrong." It also admitted that the program did not produce any leads to a terrorist plot. Yet, even after those, he continually refused to admit that there was any wrongdoing by the NYPD. Thus, Muslim Advocates have called CNN's hiring of Miller "a cruel joke" and are convinced Miller will pick up from where he left off and continue to "propagandize on behalf of law enforcement and dismiss clear discrimination against Muslims and other marginalized communities."

Oh, but it will be a full-fledged news network. It's just going to take longer for NewsNation to be so, as they won't be going to an all-news schedule until 2024 at the earliest. https://thedesk.net/2022/09/newsnation-nexstar-24-hour-news-channel-plans/ Speaking of, Matthew Keys posted a tweet yesterday that I feel should be worth paying attention to, since it validates what I said earlier about NewsNation being far behind when it comes to news being broken outside of their news hours:

You are very correct. Dan Abrams said on his show that he doesn't understand why cable news loves to harp on the British royal family and how we Americans are "obsessed" with it. One, I beg to differ on the "obsession" part. Two, they're just doing their job! Nobody's harping on anything! They're just telling it like it is and reporting on what they're seeing. Often, they'll also do this while they're on the scene, by which I mean "on location" at the site of, say, London, for example. Gross negligence of highly important news that is being broken literally everywhere else but NewsNation can't be played off as cable news "obsessing" over something trivial, much like how the July 4th shooting in Chicago just a few miles away from the WGN building (where NewsNation is housed) can't be played off as us being "obsessed" about something that we could've very well yawned at, even though this is July 4th we're talking about, you know, America's birthday! The news cycle runs a lot faster than those at NewsNation think, and their choosing to air reruns of "Blue Bloods" over wall-to-wall breaking news coverage isn't befitting of a channel like NewsNation. They wanted to be a news channel. So far, they're still not being it, even when we completely disregard the fact that NewsNation is still airing completely unrelated syndication programming that can be found basically everywhere else, including streaming services! Not having an international bureau is fine, as long as you can still break the news of something that may have importance on us Americans, like, oh, I don't know... Britain's longest-serving monarch in history passing away at 96! It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. When news like this breaks, you need to come on the air as soon as possible. Same for important tornado warnings, flood warnings, whatever! Otherwise, expect to lose a lot more viewers and trust than you've already lost simply because you think we're "obsessing" over news that is being covered practically everywhere else but here! NewsNation should know that by now, and yet, they still don't!

I just tuned in to "Dan Abrams Live." Hopefully what I'm about to say answers questions as to why NewsNation, as always, was asleep at the wheel when it came to breaking the news as soon as possible, especially during their sweet spot of off-net reruns. Okay, here it goes... the show just ran a story that basically went like this: "Don't get me wrong: We all loved and respected the Queen, but cable news seems to be obsessed with the British royal family, as they covered no other stories except the Queen's death for hours on end! They even ran nonstop coverage relating to the Queen before news of her death was announced, simply because her doctors were 'concerned' that she was in poor health!" Far be it from me to go into full context on the topic at hand, but the Queen's death was far from the only story covered, as news outlets (like Fox News, as mrschimpf said) were covering other news stories to balance out the time. These were all earlier in the day before her death was announced. It wasn't until the saddening news came that the news cycle came to a screeching halt. Even international news outlets far beyond America and the UK were covering the death endlessly after initially focusing on a wide breadth of news stories earlier in the day, like Seven Network in Australia, Newshub in New Zealand, and CBC News in Canada. Believe it or not, the PBS NewsHour was also business as usual at first, as it too covered a wide variety of stories (one of them including the Queen's death) before finally devoting an entire special report on the Queen's legacy at 8pm Eastern after the NewsHour was over. It was the Queen's death that led to a ton of last-minute scheduling changes being made on very short notice, both globally and domestically (even though this was expected to happen sometime). Too bad no one at NewsNation got the memo, and it was planned all along this time around. Why? Because they just had to prepare a segment on Dan Abrams Live questioning why cable news felt the need to cover nothing but the Queen's death and how we Americans are so "obsessed" with the British royal family. I mean, this is just sad.

Then again, even when taking seriously the fact that NewsNation doesn't exactly have a large international bureau, they've missed their chance to go to live breaking news coverage outside of their regular news hours more than a few times throughout their history, including a breaking news story that they missed which happened near their own backyard on July 4th earlier this year! (WGN even beat NewsNation to it, and NewsNation has the station right at their fingertips!) That being said, missing out on a big chance for live breaking news coverage is nothing new for NewsNation, including on the domestic front.