HanSolo

Not a chance they’d succeed in “mandating” the hour be given back to the network by non-owned stations. We’re not in an era where the ownership groups are going to just say sure, have another hour—and most certainly not for the network that claims the most daytime real estate. Obviously an academic exercise at this point, but had they tried swapping The Talk for this hour, they might have gotten that. But it seems they fully realize the reality. This is a streaming play that will happen to get a comparative handful of local clearances.

As late as the 90s isn’t applicable, since their news starts at 5 am Satirdays and 6 am Sundays and runs to midnight or later on the night shift. Sowers did the double on Saturday as a stopgap for a while, but that’s not a remotely reasonable permanent option. There’s no rule that noon needs a primary person. Payton/Brittany split and someone stopgaps them when needed and they get used adequately being full timers. Whether they need a person is really based on their own internal business data. The calculations above seem to also ignore streaming which is still time spent on newscasts. Karen has an hour more a day, Cecily a half hour more a day. If we’re going to count it all up anyway.

In that scenario, you add another show to Cecily’s shift and…have Brittany and Payton do what for their three other days? And losing a prime time show for noon…is a step down. If someone wants it, great. And the powers that be can do as they wish, but they pretty clearly did not intend Adam to be a regular presence at noon. Eventually, I’d still wager a part-time weekend morning person or some other limited part-time role is filled. If Payton and Brittany are both permanent weekenders, their time off becomes more challenging. You can make Adam and Cecily split a pair of weekend nights. It’s happened numerous times. But the benefit of the sixth person is that becomes rarely needed. And mornings…you’re not going to have Karen work 12 straight days or whatever that would come to when doing a weekend with two of her regular weeks.

I doubt they move Adam to noon. I know he covers there, less so in recent months with Payton on board. Interim play is probably Payton weekend mornings plus Monday/Tuesday noon and afternoon coverage if needed, and mostly everyone else stays as is. No need to demote Adam from 10 pm and as the built-in backup to Cecily. Karen’s time off gets split between Payton and Brittany, vs Chris and sometimes one of the others. Whether they hire a part timer to fill weekend mornings longer term, who knows. If they like having that 6 person team, ok, fine. That’s their call and more power to them.

The line seemed to be Payton brought them back to 6 meteorologists. And they had a lot of fill in with the tenure of folks like Karen, Cecily and Adam. There was no reason (at least not a legitimate one) to pass him over twice for a full time role.

And he’s moving on to WPTV in West Palm. (Did anyone tell him it doesn’t snow there? ) Can’t fault him, passed over twice for full time roles, and it seems pretty clear the powers that be did not respect or value his contributions and connections with viewers. Oh well, such is the world.

Let some idle speculation begin.

And they are open about it being a temporary home, so they’re not trying to be all cagey about it.

True—important not to become so entrenched in “what always was” and ignore that other models can be successful.

Businesses are there to make money, so…

“A” studio but not “the” studio. Looks like, as was the case last time, they took a few days to relocate a piece of the set over to the second studio across the hall. That time, they had that “kiddie table” set in the main studio that they used while moving a chunk of the main set, this time they just used the newsroom while that happened.

And they can get compensatory days. Maybe it’s multiple 6-day weeks. So be it. Maybe this weekend will be blissfully uneventful. But they want some random extra day somewhere, they can get that.

Because people pay extra attention to weekend weather by and large. Pretty simple. Lots of plans that can be significantly impacted—sports events, family gatherings, day trips, et al.

Not everyone likes staid. Awesome. Some do. Equally awesome. Some like both each in their own way. Some hate both. There isn’t one “right” way to do something that is inherently subjective, no matter what some of my old professors preached.

Whatever labels one wants to hang on someone or their offspring, that “name” tends to get more of the attention and commentary. They’re stuck, they have this, they can’t do that. All true enough. Sadly though, it’s the rank-and-file types who inevitably get shafted. People doing their best day in and day out to put a roof over their head and food on their table. Of course it’s true in every industry; an equal-opportunity casualty of the ugly side of the market. And by no means am I pretending those folks weren’t in for a tough go of it regardless. Just that somewhere in all the snark and mud-flinging at supposed corporate “villains” the real-world ramifications get lost.

It’s easy to take a stand and not sell when no one wants what you’re peddling. Not holding my breath that anything of actual value comes from the deal. Maybe there’s some value in the office equipment they can sell at a yard sale. Because there’s not a lot else to wring cash from. That said, Godspeed to the employees impacted.

One of the perhaps challenging things is to step back from being an “insider” and the tendency to minimize or explain away audience tastes and preferences as them just being misinformed, or not exposed to the “right/better” way. Quality is often more subjective than we give it credit for. We dismiss viewing patterns as “oh, it’s because of the local news lead in, not GMA” as one example. No one is saying lead-ins don’t matter, but A doesn’t automatically equal B. The degree to which inertia is a factor is next to impossible to quantify, whatever our “gut instincts” say. Nothing wrong with hypotheticals and musings, but they’re not objective data points. Similarly, those of us of a certain age (ahem) might think the young ‘uns just don’t know the Cronkite era (quite probable) and would view today’s media very differently if they did (not provable). Tastes and desires change over time. The “old rules” are ones we cling to, and when there’s a little movement or pushing at the edges of those rules, we get indignant that it hasn’t been done that way and it’s wrong. And if the whippersnappers don’t understand it’s wrong, they’re wrong. I go well back to the David and Joan era of GMA. I get that today’s version is radically different. But that’s not better or worse in itself. If what they do works in today’s media environment (which doesn’t remotely resemble back then), more power to them and the audience. The audience isn’t wrong for liking what they like….though I do wish those darned kids would get off my lawn.

They did an on-air feature on restoring the sheet music . Whatever one thinks of the theme, the process of restoring a document the way it’s done is fascinating.

And now Maggie Kent appears to be permanent on Saturday mornings. Good for her.

Regarding costs, I tend to think the people who have access to the P&L info and are responsible on up the chain have that info and balance costs vs benefits. And they would also better know any data that indicates if there is a return on investment. Even if “flexing muscles” is a motivation, so be it. It’s a business and that’s part of the game. Im sure there are close calls that go either way, and sometimes there are factors none of us know the situational specifics about.

That pretty much answers the Peacock question.

Not at all. Never really did. It's a perfectly usable branding convention (with history on that particular station, but that is neither here nor there). There's a relatively limited (all things considered) pool of branding conventions that work. There's a good reason CBS went that direction with, what is it, a half dozen of their stations post CW? (KDKA+/KPIX+ as exceptions, IIRC?) There's no singular right or wrong approach, and honestly, you'd be hard pressed to find something that would be truly "stupid," since generally speaking, no one wants to tank their employer and endanger their paycheck. Any one person may have preferences, hangups or quibbles with an approach, subjectively. But stepping back and trying to put things through an objective filter and leaving personal animus aside, it's serviceable for their needs.

There can be too many variables to say "it works" or "it doesn't." Who's determining success, how long a window, how is the quality of the operation to which someone goes? How about the impact of the network on local programming? How strong is the station someone is leaving? Are viewers more invested in the brand or the people? Probably many more variables, but just looking at those, you're going to find not only are any given scenarios demonstrably not the same, but that subjectivity can determine what's a success and what's not.

This is an area where it's endemic to society as a whole. I don't know you could say it's disillusionment with journalism more or less than all kinds of fields. Even if someone feels a calling or a passion, reality sets in no matter the field (teaching, journalism, first responder, etc) and the bills are sometimes going to win out over the "calling." Wages for most sectors haven't kept up with inflation and haven't for decades for rank-and-file type roles. Contracts and non-competes are dreadful at lower salaries, and thankfully at least one of those is seeing some action.

As Kenny Rogers once pontificated, you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. If the economics don't make sense for them, then let TNT spend like a drunken sailor. They're not lacking for sports content, and can continue to bulk up at the right price.