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Gray Television - General Thread


The Frog

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On 8/16/2023 at 6:20 PM, nycnewsjunkie said:

Consultants strike again. Do we have a vomit emoji reaction on here?

🤮

I could maybe see it for a weather segment (yeah I know, CBS O/O's and Gray), but not the name of a whole newscast.

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Gray’s KOSA in Midland/Odessa has been using this First Alert News branding for a bit now. They are the. No. 1 station so not really clear why they felt it necessary to rebrand. It’s super clunky and cheesy. Leave it for weather, not for news. 

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As someone who's watched a 'First Alert Station' for several years (WBAY), everyone just kinda gets used to it after awhile and adjusts where and when to say it. It's only the first few days and graphics haven't rolled out yet; give it a bit of time and it'll work better once they figure out the proper points to brand it. 

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
11 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

An interesting tidbit from the linked article: “In 2006, Gray Media Group’s predecessor, Raycom Media Inc. registered a trademark for the phrase First Alert Weather.” The branding does predate Raycom’s trademarking of it, as many stations have used the “First Alert” brand dating to the late 1990s (e.g., KOCO has been using the brand since it adopted the Eyewitness News 5 moniker and second-generation Hearst “camera” graphics in 1998).

 

This isn’t the first lawsuit between competing stations over a brand: in May 1990, as the format was being rolled out across the country, KOCO (then owned by Gannett) sued KFOR (then owned by Palmer Communications) over their use of the “24-Hour News Source” slogan; KOCO claimed it had held the exclusive rights to the moniker for the Oklahoma City market since 1980. Both KFOR (which adopted the “4 Strong” brand—itself a ripoff of KOCO’s then-longtime “5 Alive” brand—in April 1990, and “Your 24-Hour News and Information Station” slogan about three weeks later) and KOCO (which used the generic “24-Hour News Source” brand) began running hourly news updates and expanded their broadcast days to 24 hours (KOCO on weekdays only, KFOR seven days a week) only a couple of weeks before the suit was filed.

 

While not much is known if they settled, by that Fall, KFOR changed its slogan to “Where the News Comes First, 24 Hours a Day” (Des Moines sister WHO would adopt that same slogan two years later), and KOCO discontinued hourly news updates and cut its overnight programming (which included a news block featuring content from its Gannett sister stations and programming from All News Channel, which bounced between each of Oklahoma City’s Big Three stations during its existence) soon after. (It wouldn’t revert to 24-hour programming until 1994, when it finally picked up World News Now, and began airing classic movies and Westerns on weekends.)

Edited by T.L. Hughes
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Didn't KSDK have a different branding just a couple years ago?? I can't remember what it was.. But it is silly to have 2 technically different weather brandings mashed into one.. Weather First Alert... Pushes the boundaries for sure.. I know there are a few other markets that have something similar to Weather First Alert, where they mash 2 brandings into 1 "unique" branding...

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1 minute ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

Didn't KSDK have a different branding just a couple years ago?? I can't remember what it was.. But it is silly to have 2 technically different weather brandings mashed into one.. Weather First Alert... Pushes the boundaries for sure.. I know there are a few other markets that have something similar to Weather First Alert, where they mash 2 brandings into 1 "unique" branding...

According to the Post-Dispatch article, KSDK previously used “5 On Your Side Weather” as its weather branding.

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Update regarding Channel 9 Freeport. WSLN was lit up last Friday (9/22).

 

Station announced that The CW, Antenna TV & Circle will move from WIFR's LP signal to the new full power signal. But in the interim they will keep those networks on both signals for a grace period.

 

Quote

WSLN

  • 19.1 - The CW (simulcast on 23.5 in the interim)
  • 19.2 - Circle (simulcast on 23.3 in the interim)
  • 19.3 - Antenna TV (simulcast on 23.2 in the interim)

WIFR-LD 

  • 23.1 - CBS
  • 23.4 - Ion
  • 23.7 - Defy TV

 

The station also announced that they're keeping two WIFR CBS simulcasts on WREX (23.10) & WFBN-LD (23.11) a status quo. Which I don't really understand since you now have a full power station of your own. Yeah I'm aware of the ten-year agreement. But since you now have full power stick again in the Stateline, why not end that WREX carriage deal, and move that simulcast to WSLN's subchannel? Let WREX have that chunk of spectrum to themselves.

 

Edited by CircleSeven
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I'm wondering if they're just testing for now so they don't run into the situation they did when WIFR-LD shifted and had to deal with WISN's interference; plus it is on VHF in a UHF-heavy area so they may have an educational campaign to ramp up before shifting CBS there. Only a few people will be concerned with the CW going away on UHF.

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19 hours ago, atlnews2 said:


Once they got wpga in Macon (a stand alone metv station with no other purpose) it was clear they were launching some kind of statewide project 

With them starting a statewide sports network in Georgia, this could expand to other nearby states, especially ones where they own stations in every market (or close to it).   

 

And a big focus in these states could be high school sports.

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1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

With them starting a statewide sports network in Georgia, this could expand to other nearby states, especially ones where they own stations in every market (or close to it).   

 

And a big focus in these states could be high school sports.

 

It's always possible they could snag an network affiliation once others have theirs expire.

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On 9/28/2023 at 12:48 AM, CircleSeven said:

Even though TVNewsCheck stated it on Monday, I kind of waited until the station posted the article.

 

The station announced this Tuesday (9/26) that they actually lit up the Yuma station (KAZS 27) last week, and launched that new Flagstaff station (KAZF 32) yesterday.

 

 

Gray just needs to find a way to get into a news operation in Yuma to round out the state.

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2 minutes ago, TVLurker said:

guessing they're trying to get their CW station on YouTube TV due to Nexstar's method for negotiation with CW affiliates.

Can confirm this is correct. Certain Gray CW's are on there, while others are not for some odd reason.

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