SDHIll1980

Another legendary television and radio personality passes on, this time Wink Martindale. Mr. Martindale passed away today at the age of 91, at Eisenhower Health Center in Rancho Mirage, California (near Palm Springs). He was a radio personality for many decades, but most notably he was the host of various game shows including Gambit, Debt, Headline Chasers (a show he co-created with Merv Griffin), the 1987-88 version of High Rollers, and the show that perhaps made him more famous--Tic Tac Dough. He was also one of the first media personalities that helped introduced Elvis Presley in the mid-50s, when Martindale hosted a local dance show on WHBQ-TV in Memphis, and brought Presley on as a guest performer. In later years, he and a couple of associates maintained a YouTube channel that features old and obscure game shows, including dozens of pilots that didn't become series.

My apologies then. I do agree with you as far as the current formatting of that show...the old format with Fred Roggin and Petros Papadakis (an acquire taste for some) was better.

Was this a dig at me? I don't care all at much for The Challenge...just merely offering it as a suggestion.

They more or less tried that early in the digital subchannel era, it was called "News Raw", on channel 4.4; it lasted for at least a year or two before KNBC eventually did away with it. Now with the NBC 4 Los Angeles News streaming channel, they don't necessarily need to create a new subchannel for news & locally-produced shows, although it could be a better replacement than the redundant American Crimes channel. They could try to expand The Challenge to be a year-round show, and have it air weekend afternoons after network sports coverage. However, at the same time, there's really no time to air such a show (consistently), certainly on Sunday afternoons during NFL season without bumping whatever syndicated show they have at 3pm and Nightly News at 3:30; often times, NBC would run a live sports event as a direct lead-in to Football Night in America. It'll be even moreso once the NBA returns back to the network next season, where they will be Sunday night games weekly after the NFL season. There is also still an outside possibility that NBC could go after ESPN's Sunday Night MLB package, although ESPN can still renew.

I honestly saw the Gray triopoly in Phoenix trying to snatch-up the Diamondbacks OTA rights, but good for Tegna for getting those broadcast rights, along with the Padres and Rockies. Even said, as far as San Diego, I would thought that KUSI would have gone back and put-in a bid to carry some Padres games once again. That said, good for KFMB (another station that spent some years carrying in different times in the last 45 years airing some Friars games), as well as the duopoly in the Mile High City. Of course, as some folks know, KTVD carried a fair amount of Rockies games up until 2008.

If you're of a certain age, you can remember the glut of first-run syndicated dramas, sitcoms, and musical/talent shows that were around during the 1980s and '90s...a lot of that had to do with more TV stations signing on the air during that aforementioned time (thus needing the programming, besides old off-network reruns and whatever live sports they could cobble up), and already-established stations having more control over their programming inventory. Over time, with the launch of Fox, and later The WB and UPN, plus the growth of cable TV (both in terms of subscribers and the number of networks), a lot of these same kind of shows that would be meant for first-run syndication eventually migrated to those outlets, and now 25-30 years later, much of that same type of content has migrated to streaming. The more I think about it, these local stations (including the likes of WPLG) may have to try "re-invent the wheel" in order for them to survive in the long-term...going wall-to-wall news (like a certain CW station in my home city) may not cut it everywhere.

WSVN has now been a Fox affiliate longer that it was with NBC. July 1956 until New Year's Eve 1989, South Florida's Channel 7 was with NBC (32+ years); since New Year's Day 1989, they've been with Fox...thirty-six years and counting.

Weekends especially, and given the current outlook of the syndication market, it's not a whole lot available beside those AMG shows (two of which they already carry--Kickin' It and Comics Unleashed) and the off-network procedural dramas like the The FBIs, S.W.A.T., the Chicago-verse, The Rookie, and 9-1-1.

I was reminded of that when I was on the TNC Discord in the midst of the WPLG/ABC discussion, and I mentioned it. I remember the story when both stations reported on their newscasts on the evening that particular news broke...it was pretty seismic back then.

I kinda forget about Scripps' current financial issues, thanks for reminding me. I do agree, it's probably for the best that Disney/ABC looked for something more stabilized, even given the limited standalone options in Miami.

Along those lines, I wonder if ABC did pursue WSFL for an affiliation given the relationship between the Alphabet and Scripps. That said, good for WSVN if they can handle it, but we'll wonder long they'll keep ABC and Fox on their signal.

Just wow. It seems like April Fool's Day came twelve days early, but this is legit. South Florida has to prepare for another massive network affiliation switch, not counting WSFL dropping CW to go indie. Other than WTVJ, WFOR/WBFS, and obviously the Spanish network O&Os, WSVN and even WSFL have to be in play for the new ABC affiliation.

I don't live in Milwaukee (although I have some family there), I'm liking the new WDJT look that they're using. I don't honestly get the "anti-channel number" branding sentiment that some of y'all have, but to each their own. I'm still pretty much old-school when it comes to channel numbers, and yes, I'm well-aware of the current adage of the digital TV era and the technical aspects that come with it (RF vs. virtual), but there's still a segment of over-the-air viewers that still use and prefer the "traditional" channel numbers. I subscribe to cable, but I also use over-the-air as a backup of means, so please save your lecturing nonsense...I get it, but I still preferred the old-school method of tuning-in channels, beyond that you're being condensing, but whatever.

I've sampled a bit of Gray's Local News Live through their various stations' news streams, and I'm kinda surprised at this point that they haven't turned it into a separate 24/7 FAST channel on its own; with the various stations that they own around the country, they have plenty of material they can pull from. I think they would be alright going that route, and do the simulcasts on their various stations.

Hopefully so...it's just a clumsy title to me, but to each their own. Also, just for the sake of conversation...I work in downtown, about a mile from L.A. Live.