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I think the hyper-fixation on brand and music changes being some kind of driver for viewers to "get upset" and stop watching the station is kind of absurd, when you consider all the other things that can change in a TV news broadcast that the station really doesn't have much control over. Talent is a more important draw for viewers than music and brands, and retirements don't often move the ratings needle much. WPVI didn't see a massive ratings drop after Jim Gardner left, despite his status in the market. The same is looking true at WGN after Tom Skilling left, and I can't imagine a music change or branding would actually lead people to change the channel permanently. It's not 1996 anymore. I'd also like to point out that a lot of these old 90's era "people were MAD!!!" claims come from newspaper columnists at the time. We cannot know for certain what they embellished on to make their column more interesting. "People were upset" that a station changed their branding the same way people get upset that Judge Judy was interrupted for severe weather. This doesn't mean the whole market was "rioting in the streets" like people around these parts like to think would happen if WPVI modernized MCTYW. On that subject, the 1996 orchestral MCTYW was arguably just bad and was an abrupt, noticeable change. WPVI has been using new cuts of MCTYW from different composers for years at this point (there have been some new ones since the graphics debut!) and I have a hunch nobody but people involved with this community have noticed, largely because they don't sound as wildly different as the orchestral package did.

General reminder that the "Action News" trademark is owned by Cox (and "Eyewitness News" is owned by CBS!) and stations have to pay to use them. Why should Scripps keep paying for a brand name for a format that hasn't been properly used in decades? I know folks have a weird affinity for these two brands, but come on. This is, by far, a better logo than some of the other Scripps rebrands over the past few years. Why should they pay Cox for this name? Why should they pay Nexstar for The CW? These are all competitors. People love to think talent at these stations treat each other like this is Anchorman, and while that's not true, there's no good reason to give your competition money for a tired old brand or a second-rate network affiliation.

Even though this was kind of an "emergency" rebranding, that was a purposeful little nod to the site's history. That, and the fact that the media we talk about is growing beyond "TV" in the traditional sense. I think there's something wonky going on with the caching (we're behind Cloudflare now, something else I've wanted to do for a while) that is causing this, I'm going to look into it further.

Why? Because they are dropping a name that hasn't really meant anything since Bill Bonds got fired 30 years ago? Good lord, this fandom is so unbelievably out of touch with reality.

FCC order is here (it boggles the mind that some websites paywall documents that can be found in two minutes) It feels like the FCC is doing a case of malicious compliance by allowing the sale under these conditions. And I love it.

If stations have these "fans" who are concerned about their branding, music, and graphics, then it stands to reason that the less popular (at least around here) newscast formats we've seen lately also have fans. Somebody's watching Scrippscasts, somebody is watching Tegna stations. Maybe that's because they like what they see. If viewers "cared about tradition" the way some of us like to think, we wouldn't be seeing 45% of the news audience disappearing into thin air.

My lord...Bill Bonds is probably drunk cussing from his grave about this....

He's writing this as if the industry isn't already a revolving door of talent. Has he watched the news at all in the last decade? Even in big markets, it's pretty astounding how much attrition there is on and off screen. I don't think I could name more than a handful of reporters on competing stations. When I turn on Denver TV, there's barely anybody recognizable to me on there. This is nothing but great news for the media industry workforce, and employees can now more freely vote with their feet and escape bad employers who don't pay enough. Not that we have much choice anyway with at most a dozen station groups now. Of course, noncompetes have been watered down quite a bit already. Most stories I hear these days of people breaking their contract involve the station group threatening to sue them, then the employee gets a lawyer to point out all the ridiculous claims. Then, the station group is too cheap to go through with the lawsuit anyway and they back down immediately. There are so many other new laws at play too. Noncompete clauses are already unenforceable in California, but a new law that went into effect in January makes all contracts with noncompetes void *altogether.*

In the scheme of things, losing a heritage brand to a corporate one these days is just another letdown of what local TV has become. And Scripps' rollout of stripped-down playlists of packages masquerading as newscasts take even more out of it. I dont know what Scripps has up their sleeve for their soon-to-be independents, but from what they've been putting out, it's a far cry from ever being able to be a dominant player in TV.

As a spry 134-year-old crackpot, I am still personally offended and outraged that those whippersnappers Huntley and Brinkley replaced the beloved Camel News Caravan. Even more than Actions and Eyewitnesses, we want our news delivered on drab sets in glorious black-and-white by chain-smoking anchors. That's the sort of tradition that will bring The Kids These Days back to broadcast television in droves.

Branding is important in every industry, but there is such a thing as overthinking it. Of what viewers we still have, I think all they really care about other than the news content is that the branding isn't distracting. I think all that most viewers care about is that the news content is of quality, that the anchors and reporters look decent, that the lighting in the studio is crisp, and that the newscast isn't riddled with production errors. Viewers no longer care or have any attachment to anachronistic branding devices. I'll never forget a conversation I had with two acquaintances in Los Angeles a few years ago. They were musicians and did not watch television and thought that "KTLA," "Eyewitness News," and "Good Day LA" were all the same station, and they assumed that local TV news was still stuck in those 70s-era trappings.

I'll back this up with a line I heard repeated in research presentations at TV stations across the country under multiple ownership groups in an era when viewership was higher than it currently is: The most reliable viewers in the key demographics stations target watch one or two quarter hours of a newscast a week, across all stations and all dayparts. I am sure that time spent watching has only decreased since I last heard a research presentation just before 2020 turned all 2020.

Sister stations are stations that are owned by the same company as them. For example WOOD-TV in Grand Rapids is the sister station to WLNS in Lansing -- both are owned by Nexstar. WNBC in NYC is sister to KNBC in LA -- both are owned by NBCUniversal... etc etc etc

Hello everyone, I'm sure many of you are wondering what's been going on with the site for the last couple weeks. While I don't even have all the answers, I figured it'd be useful to explain a bit about what happened and where we're going from here. First, a little history. I have never been in control of the tvnewstalk.net domain. Many years ago (we're talking like, at least 10 years back,) I ultimately inherited the responsibility of operating the site while a former administrator owned the domain. This, generally, was uneventful, except for a few instances where the domain registration lapsed and I had to poke them to get it renewed. This just kind of became the way things were, ownership of the domain never really came up, and slowly they stopped coming around the community. Fast forward to 2024, when in late February/early March, anyone trying to visit the site via tvnewstalk.net was greeted with a page reading "Account Suspended". As far as I know, this was the "old" server (that was still operational, serving only to redirect visits to tvnewstalk.net to forums.tvnewstalk.net) going unpaid. Since the DNS for the domain still pointed forums.tvnewstalk.net to the server I control, the site stayed online and accessible. This issue had happened before, and to my recollection, resolved itself without me having to alert anybody. I was also getting quite busy with work, so I chose to just let it go. Since everything had forever been at forums.tvnewstalk.net, impacts on traffic from the redirect not working were extremely minor. At the end of March, another problem arose. TVNewsTalk.net dropped off the Domain Name System. My assumption is this is related to the earlier "Account Suspended" issue, I guess the domain was registered through the host, and they removed it from their DNS when the bill (presumably) went unpaid. For most users, access to TVNT was cut off. This, however, happened slowly, as DNS servers took some time to update to process the removal. At least until a few days ago, we were still seeing people using the site via T-Mobile. When the domain dropped off DNS, I reached out to another one of our former administrators, who I had gone through the last time I had to contact the domain owner. They attempted to make contact, and got no response. There was beginning to be a lot of noise in the community wondering what happened to the site, and there was even some sort of unauthorized crowdfunding campaign spun up. It was at this point I decided to take matters into my own hands, registered LocalNewsTalk.net, and began the process of moving the forum over. That's where we're at now. The site has been transferred over. There are still a few loose ends to tie up, but otherwise we're back in action. I do not know what will become of the TVNewsTalk.net domain that we've called home for almost 20 years. Perhaps it will return, some day, but for the foreseeable future, we're going to be here at localnewstalk.net. Things still being worked on: Email (Registration, Password Resets): Email has been changed over to the localnewstalk.net domain and should be working as intended. Check spam folder if you don't see an expected message. Google Login: Changes submitted for review by Google Trust and Safety. Might be working. Facebook Login: In Progress. Need to complete extra steps to re-enable this. Discord Login: Should be working. Forum Theme: There are a small handful of broken things due to an update I ran while the site was unavailable. Please feel free to leave any questions or concerns you may have below. -Weeters

Surprise! The FCC approved the $75 million sale of WADL to Mission Broadcasting earlier today. But there's a catch: Nexstar is legally prohibited from directly being involved in Mission's operations of the station. I'd argue this is much worse for Nexstar than the WPIX decision, because Mission is incapable of operating a television station by themselves. Moreover, the $75M price tag does not include WADL's current facilities, all of which were retained by Kevin Adell.

At Scripps, nothing is trapped in amber. It's a virtue and sometimes a vice. Television stations are like any other business, especially given that they are facing the biggest change in consumption habits in their history. Scripps knows this. Their hometown headquarters station is feeling it. John Kiesewetter got these figures from Cincinnati: Scripps has very good values, usually, in journalism. They probably have the most value-driven approach to news operations of any major operator (aside from Sinclair, where the values are not beliefs about journalism but often about national politics). The broader problem is that tools originally conceived to make the process of assembling newscasts, or building out news extensions, are turning into tools to reduce headcount, which seems to be causing morale issues at some stations. Ion Media has done okay, but national advertising has been soft. There's a story there. Scripps has higher exposure to the national advertising sector than its peers, and that has been an underperformer because digital has been cleaning TV's clock as advertisers that are not political rethink and retrench their budgets. A decision this big is not done without studying the market. At some point, TV news cannot go on doing the same old things. You would have to assume, and I'd want to hear about this, that research was conducted. Perhaps people identified the Action News brand with an older style of newscast or one that didn't appeal to them. Perhaps adding "Detroit" was seen as necessary for SEO reasons. That said, if "7 News Detroit" is installed without a brand proposition or other points of differentiation from its competitors, then it will get lost in the sea.

I hate to break it to you but all three major stations in Detroit will have now rebranded at least once. It happens. Folks in this market seem to like the hype of WDIV and absolutely nothing 7 has tried seems to work. They have been stuck in second since 2009 and there for 22 of the last 28 years. Even though their newscasts are really well put together now they spent years in the doldrums quality wise and never really followed the format to begin with even in the 1970’s. Their newscasts weren’t so different from KABC or WABC or WLS that we should say they reinvented the ABC local news wheel. It’s not the tradition it is in Philly or something either. If it means better graphic elements and a new voiceover and maybe talent opens and a new style that’s probably a positive on aggregate. Their focus is gonna be on using 7 and Channel 7… they don’t even have a slogan anymore. I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Not necessarily, there's always The CW Plus cable feed.

THIS!!! I remember randomly discovering this site and it felt like a safe space and knowing that there are so many people around the country and world who geek and nerd out on TV news. This site continues to Thrive and Grow!

Thank you for bringing us back! Even though I"m done with TV (for now), this site is still a daily one for me to keep up with what's going on in the crazy world of TV.

Thank you Weeters for in a way bringing us back to our roots. (Early 2000s) If we all remember correctly this forum was originally born from an AOL or Yahoo Geocites page haha. if I vaguely remember and it was called Local News Discussion lol. So in away the new name, Local News Talk brings us back to our roots! Glad to be back!

I was always curious about this. An NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX-owned station would call another O&O a sister station, a network affiliate would call a station owned by the same company a sister station, but why is it that a CBS, NBC, ABC, CW, or FOX station would call an affiliate owned by a different company or a network O&O a sister station? I've been wondering about this for years.

"We're finally not alone!" -- WMUR

Because Disney only treats WPVI as a budget line item that generates a boatload of money in revenue without any effort. Disney is only focused on Disney+ and the soulless meat packing plant that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's it.

I'd say Sunday at 6 is the perfect time; few are watching, but the ones who do will provide feedback if something went wrong, or for the 11. You never want to launch at 4 on a Monday and then everything breaks down minute one, whereas you can dump to an infomercial on Sunday evening without even a whimper.

Unsurprisingly, Hank Price decided to humiliate himself in this op-ed claiming it will be a "body blow" to the megachains and depress salaries for talent, and openly pled for "an appropriate court" (translation: a right-wing court dominated by Republican appointees) to overturn it. It's easily the most depraved, tone-deaf and out-of-step reaction by a man who runs a website—TVNewsCheck—now wholly subsidized by rich old white males Perry Sook, Hilton Howell, Adam Symson and David Smith.

If you're an hourly employee and have to sign one, that is downright criminal. The only way they should ever hold up is if if the employee is important enough and compensated handsomely because of it.

From paragraph 54: 15% of 168 hours means Nexstar cannot supply more than 25 hours and 20 minutes of programming per week. The CW primetime takes up 15 hours total per week, meaning they cannot program any more than 10 hours of sports per week or any NewsNation simulcasts. Mission got a greenlight to purchase a boat anchor for $75 million.

So now we know Perry was that one superdonor that saved TVNewsCheck from oblivion. Sure helps to have influential people in your back pocket, doesn't it, Harry?

Yeah it pretty difficult to get WPLG on board with a subchannel. Especially that WPLG does News for WSFL and with them dumping the affiliation that newscast is likely over. That might put a bad taste in Grahams mouth that means Scripps was not happy with their deal.

No eye here.

They been stuck in 2nd since 2009 overall and third in the demo… they have nothing to lose.

Those markets have been relegated to receiving CW through cable on The CW Plus Cable channel.

People always notice that funny part thinking they will forget. People will always remember. People were upset when WXIA dumped 11Alive moniker in the 90s.

Given the hot water Nexstar is in for running WPIX, and Adell's (mis)management of WADL, a subchannel affiliation on WDIV is their best hope. And there's no way one of the Windsor stations could pick it up and retarget their signal to an American audience. That ship sailed after all of the San Diego issues with XETV in their later years. Also CBC's CBET was once CKLW which RKO once had a stake in and used the station to target Detroit.

Miami is going to be the most interesting market to watch where The CW goes. The only realistic places I could see are as either a WSVN or WPLG subchannel. In Tucson, KTTU could be an option, or if all else fails, it could be a KVOA, KMSB, or KOLD subchannel.

I've lost all respect for Scripps at this point.. They just really want to screw everyone: employees, viewers, etc...

WXYZ Will be rebranding from 7 Action News to 7 News Detroit starting Monday morning at 430am. The morning show will be “7 News Detroit This Morning” which doesn’t have much ring to it. This is the first time they’ve rebranded their newscasts since 1972. They even have a nifty new logo that vaguely looks like it means hard news:

Bumping this thread after almost 2 years, but one of the new Hearst-ers in WZVN got the WMUR Hearst package and Hearst Classic theme music today.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Morgan Murphy move ABC and/or CW to WJMN. It's a far better station to be broadcasting on than both WBKP and WBUP. Also, merging news staffs would be a benefit, since WBKP and WBUP don't have that much to begin with.

Setting aside Nexstar/Mission for a moment, technology and generational shifts result in fewer eyes on all kinds of news sources. The pie has been sliced into far smaller portions, and consolidation didn’t cause that.

I’ve always viewed as more ownership based than affiliate based. For instance, KHOU and WFAA are sister stations in Texas despite one being a CBS affiliate and the other being ABC.

Less than 100 days out. Here's CBC's coverage plans.

Yea, given the fact of the Canadian programs on The CW, it's an good idea that CBET never grabs the affiliation without the CRTC knowing or the CBC is in hot water. And yea, WJBK is not really the best alternative because of its Fox Ownership (WJBK probably just say no to that immediately) but WDIV works. Not surprisingly, there was less controversy with the Nexstar purchase of Tribune Media in 2019 than when Sinclair tried to aquire Tribune in 2018, probably because Nexstar weren't going to put any divested stations to an side-car company like Mission (other than WPIX but that was opinional (XD)) and also because Sinclair was acting stupid, ignorant and not like an good Broadcast owner for putting Must-runs and false information and FORCING its anchors to say what EXACTLY Sinclair said. (Madison, Wisconsin got lucky, thanks WISC-TV.) Also, Nexstar got KASW because of the Meredith—Belo weirdness in Phoenix with KPHO, KTVK, and KASW that also affected St. Louis with KSDK and KMOV. Also, Nexstar doesn't really want to own CW Stations without an backup for some reason in Phoenix and South Florida. (Miami—Fort Lauderdale) Which confuses me because they can do that in Jacksonville with WCWJ (The former WJKS) but can't/won't in Miami, like how does that work?? ... Ummmmm, how would I explain this? In Kansas (with the former Kansas State Network KSNW, KSNT, and (semi) KSNF, Nexstar didn't mess it up an lot, same in Missouri with KTVI/KPLR and KOLR/KRBK/KOZL. Don't think WDAF-TV is an worse product now from 2017. It might be an really dumb move from Nexstar, but I don't think there should be an RKO-General-type of TV Station investigation. (Sorry if I'm acting stupid or something, I was just randomly thinking about the 'you can remove Local TV from your cable provider' thing.) Yes, Nexstar is stupid sometimes, but that's how Broadcasting is for it feels like for an long time.

I’m loving the red on the website. Please keep it even if you do migrate back to the old domain.

Makes sense, since ABC 10 is a bare bones station that does literally nothing news wise....WJMN would do much better for ABC

Henry Jessel has editorialized about WPIX; the short of it is 'how dare the FCC actually enforce its market cap rules instead of brushing them aside like they did under 45 and GWB and they should be PAYING Nexstar to run the market's lowest-rated news operation, which cannot survive any other way. Also Jessica Rosenworcel should be giving a medal to Perry Sook for trying to save wireline TV with NewsNation and saving the CW, rather than fining him', which is certainly...a view.

2 Pac After Dark

Funny you should mention Spectrum. Gregg Palermo is a KTVI/KPLR alum; They also appear to have an executive producer, a digital producer, a meteorologist, and a reporter, too. A small team, for sure, but more than KDNL, and it's comical The National Desk.

They have their own promotions producers in each market.