tyrannical bastard

WVTM has the potential to become the #2 station again if they play their cards right. Undoing the damage inflicted by Media General is the first step. They wasted no time putting in their own people and dumped the "Alabama's 13" brand as soon as they could get the Hearst material up and running. WIAT ran out of gas when they reset their managment and rebranded under LIN. They had a good thing going on for the first time in their history and tossed it out the window with all of the changes. For 33/40. James Spann. That is all. The Sinclair look and feel is a massive improvement though. WBRC will continue to rule the Birmingham market as long as Raycom owns them.

WVTM has always been a hubbed station, going all the way back to NBC when they hubbed their master controls. I believe they finally have built or are in the process of building their own master control. Graphics-wise, they went from the WNBC Pyburn package to MGFX, and over to Hearst's look. MGFX probably supported them in the interim until the Hearst changes were implemented.

...or resurrect the death star, make it a symbol and call it "The company formerly known as Gannett" And since the Comcast deal is on death's door "Spinco" sounds pretty good too.

They would have been better off resurrecting "Multimedia" or even "Combined" for their spinoff. In this case, it looks like the company is spinning off the non-print business unlike other deals which spun off the print sides like Media General.

WJHG in Panama City, FL is moving their hour-long noon newscast to 11am on Monday April 13. http://www.wjhg.com/home/headlines/299263801.html This will make way for a half hour noon show on low-powered sister station WECP, which recently began airing a 5:30 newscast as "Local 18 News"; pushing the CBS Evening News to 6pm. This now means that WMBB and WJHG will compete head-to-head at 11am. Since WECP relies so heavily on WJHG, this arrangement makes sense since newscasts can't air on top of each other. I'm surprised it took this long considering WTVY in Dothan began producing a 5:30 show for WRGX right from the get-go. And Panama City still lacks a 9pm newscast of any kind.

Probably one of the last stations that used the interface and software to run the channel, which long outlasted the original channel and concept itself. WPMI kept theirs going until late 2013-early 2014, but it was re-branded as "The Weather Authority Network" soon after the national shutdown, using the same template and software as WeatherPlus, but with a branded look that matched the station's branding.

I had mentioned it before it was "moved" to another thread about the "possibility" of The Now going on hiatus.

Former WKRG Meteorologist and "County Road 5" reporter Jere Hough has passed away at the age of 74. http://www.wkrg.com/story/28622764/remembering-longtime-wkrg-meteorologist-jere-hough

David Rogers worked at WKYC from 1997 to 2000, when he jumped to WCBS. He was later fired from WCBS because hit and ran over two construction workers on the interstate....one critically while under the influence.

If "Captain Kirk" got canned from WVIR, that's the end of his career, unless he succeds Emelie Boyles at KXGN in beautiful, picturesque, Glendive. WVIR is like a rehab market for people who have done things that have gotten them canned elsewhere. Is David Rogers from WKYC and later WCBS still there?

The Scripps/Journal deal closes March 25th..... http://www.tvnewscheck.com/mobile/index/article/id/83727

It looks like sports isn't completely going away at WXIA....after checking Gannett's jobs page, WXIA is hiring a "Sports Multimedia Journalist." It is indicative of trends of making sports just another beat, but a puzzling move for a station in a place like Atlanta.

http://lagniappemobile.com/circulars-racialsocio-economic-issue/ WKRG will begin their 9am newscast on March 30th and will be a half hour show. Lagniappe also confirmed Devon Walsh will anchor at 9am, noon, and at 5pm with Peter Albrecht. Ashley Knight will replace Avery Cotton on the weekends, who took over Walsh's anchor slot on the AM show. Station management also hinted at the possibility of expanding to other times. Could this mean additional news on WFNA? Weekend AM news would be nice, as WEAR is the only station that does it for an hour on Saturday & Sunday....could Mobile/Pensacola be the largest market with such a minimal presence on the weekend?

Whether Journal is getting cold feet about the upcoming merger, sheer incompetence of Scripps' management, or some other bombshell, I have a feeling that Scripps' days in TV are numbered. Something is VERY wrong here. Even at the Journal stations, the people are running towards the exits it seems. Inbred content is going to be this company's downfall, ESPECIALLY after casting off top-tier syndication to their competitors on a silver platter.

Mario Gabelli had a large stake in Media General prior to the Young merger. He even mediated between Media General and hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners (siding with them) who was trying to buy 3 seats on the board of directors, prior to the economic collapse of 2008. Harbinger wanted to divest the newly purchased NBC O&Os in Columbus and Providence and other "non-core" internet assets. By the time Harbinger sold their shares less than a year later, the economy and Media General itself was in peril.

More WKRG news on the upcoming anchor shuffle.... Devon announced on her WKRG facebook page that today was her last morning show, and she will begin anchoring the new 9am show, and also for the 5pm as well. She will continue anchoring the noon show as she has done for the last 6 years. Presumably, she will join Peter Albrecht on the 5pm show, while Mel Showers and Rose Ann Haven will continue to anchor at 6 and 10. Since Avery Cotton anchored on the weekends, no word on who will be taking her place. And a piece of trivia.....Avery is the daughter of Drexel Gilbert, who anchored across the street with Peter Albrecht at WPMI until they were both canned back in 2007.

WKRG is moving weekend anchor Avery Cotton to the morning show, while current anchor Devon Walsh will be anchoring a newly (re)-launched 9am show. WKRG had one until 2009 when staff cutbacks warranted its cancellation. Based on some job postings...it looks like they are launching a weekend AM show including a 4th meteorologist/weathercaster. Aside from WEAR doing an hour from 6-7 weekend mornings, no one else has expanded to the weekend AM in Mobile thus far...

Mike Murphy, the longtime ABC 33/40 (and now all of Sinclair's Birmingham stations) General Manager, is stepping down for a GM Job in St. Louis, and it's not with KDNL..... http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2015/02/abc_3340_general_manager_leavi.html#incart_river The previous GM of WTTO/WABM, J.C. Lowe was moved to Pensacola to take over WEAR & WFGX, replacing Terry Cole.

Had it not been for the "non-compete" that Oprah and Dr. Phil had which forbade them from being scheduled over each other; WKYC would have likely scheduled Dr. Phil at 4pm. "Ellen" premiered the following year and has held the 4pm slot ever since. Even before "Dr. Phil", the 5pm slot was home for a slew of talk shows from Montel to Donahue.

Unless Dr. Phil is getting trashed in the ratings, it's doubtful. That show competing against the other 5pm shows really helped WKYC climb out of 3rd place and made them a factor in Cleveland's ratings for the first time in decades. They used to have a 5 or 5:30 show back in the 80s and 90s, but it was short lived due to the then-powerhouse "Live on 5" which was the only game in town until WJW added news at 5:00 in the mid 1990s and WOIO following suit almost a decade later.

Meredith's "Better" is no more, instead it will continue to be a brand for their local adver-fluff fests (lifestyle shows)... http://www.tvnewscheck.com/mobile/index/article/id/82436 It was already in the graveyard shift at recently acquired WALA, who also has a vacancy on their "Studio Ten" show after Cherish Lombard departed for an anchor job at WKRN in Nashville. Chastity Byrd has been co-hosting for the time being, and the job is posted on Meredith's job page.... Could this be an opportunity to retool the show with the "Better" brand?

Weigel and FOX's MOVIES! is launching on new stations.... http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/82337/movies-network-adds-six-new-affiliates It's a hodgepodge of stations...and it looks as if ThisTV is going to be bounced from WBNX 55.3. I highly doubt 55.2 is going away since it's the "All Ernest Angley all the Time" subchannel....(since they own the station). That's the second place ThisTV has been kicked off of ever since WUAB sent them packing for "Bounce" a few years back. They've since added Grit to 43.3 in addition to Bounce on 43.2. For WXTX, it looks like it will replace the soon-to-be gone LiveWell on 54.2.

The fact that KDNL's facebook page has less than 2,000 likes speaks volumes on how much this station is in the basement. Even on the low end, average "like" counts are at least ten times that with many stations having counts in the 6 figure range...

The video you post was of the OTHER student-run news program "Athens Midday", which used to run weekdays at noon on WOUB II (the local CABLE educational access channel for Athens, Ohio). The channel itself was run by the WOUB Center for Public Media, but the show was an entirely student-run production of E.W. Scripps School of Journalism students in one of their 4th year Broadcast News classes. It used to show PBSYou and PBSKids programmimng between student shows, but since both of these channels no longer exist, i'm not sure what fills the schedule anymore. "Midday" ran during the school season, but went away after Ohio University switched from quarters to semesters. It used to be based in the basement of Scripps Hall (the Journalism building), but later moved to the same studio that WOUB's newscast came from in the Radio-TV Building (where WOUB is based) WOUB (and WOUC) are full-powered PBS member stations serving Southeast Ohio and parts of West Virginia. They have their own news department (along with a network of NPR stations) staffed by paid members and volunteers, mostly students in Journalism and Telecommunications. They put on a half-hour "Newswatch" which airs weekdays at 5:30. As a result, it was like a virtual duopoly as students could be doing coursework for Athens Midday (being on that show) AND working for WOUB at the same time. If someone was a writer for the Ohio University newspaper "The Post", they were forbidden from participating in other writing or journalism activities, except if coursework required it. And yes, this Louis guy is for real. I had several classes with him, and personally witnessed his other times going on the air. Luckily, he was never on WOUB itself.

WOUB-TV in Athens, Ohio, tries to make sense of their conundrum with Nielsen and the satellite companies... (Athens County is currently in the Charleston-Huntington DMA, and WOUB, licensed to ATHENS, is now going to be carried in the COLUMBUS DMA) http://woub.org/2015/01/12/why-woub%E2%80%99s-satellite-distribution-moved-columbus Because Athens County has bounced back and forth between both markets in the last decade (since it's on the fringes of either market), viewers who actually LIVE in Athens County are denied the right to view their hometown station, which actually has a student-run newscast put on by university students at Ohio University. :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: In addition, WOUB's coverage area includes large portions of Washington County (part of Parkersburg) and Muskingum County (the Zanesville DMA), as well as satellite station WOUC based out of Cambridge (Guernsey County; part of Columbus) whose coverage makes it the only full-powered PBS station for the Steubenville-Wheeling market. Are there actually cases of satellite companies putting significantly viewed out-of-market stations on their systems? Up until DirecTV uplinked the Charleston-Huntington stations (the first time), Athens County actually qualified as a NRTC area, which was eligible to receive feeds from New York and Los Angeles stations. Cable has always carried both sets of the Big 3 stations from Columbus and Charleston/Huntington, with the FOX and CW stations being swapped out depending on what market Athens County is assigned to.