tyrannical bastard

Media General is laying off 45 corporate and "shared services" employees.... http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/media-general-to-cut-45-jobs_b119985 They did a similar layoff after they spun off the newspapers. A lot of this likely has to do with the overlap of Young positions, and whatever "de-centralizing" they plan on doing. Whatever they have, will pale in comparison to when LIN comes under their control (and may very well evolve the company to be more like LIN than Media General ever was) This actually makes a lot of sense, seeing as how the company doubled in size with the purchase of Young, and double after that when the LIN merger happens.....

WFMJ took the lead soon after the sale of the WKBN-TV to Grapevine/Piedmont, and heavily capitalized on WKBN's sale to out-of-town interests by starting their push as "Our Valley's Only Locally Owned TV station", and quickly snatched up anchor Bob Black, who was canned by the new owners of WKBN soon after they took over. I'm not too sure about now, but WFMJ was dominant during this era. WKBN was fortunate enough to have been sold to New Vision, since most of the other Piedmont properties were dumped to owners who either drove them further into the ground, or sold them to companies that struck in-market deals to run them, forming some of the first SSAs in the industry to challenge ownership rules. WKBN then became the senior partner in the merger with WYTV since it was one of the few Benedek stations that was not folded into Gray, then Chelsey Television sold out to Parkin, which was a sidecar company of New Vision.

Hopefully that is something Gannett is planning on fixing....same can be said for WWL and WHAS.

....and the set purge of 2014 continues at Media General! With WCBD changing, this pretty much eliminates all of the 2000s era FX sets that they had. WSPA's is starting to look like a WCMH clone, while WKRG's is heading in a different direction...and is NOT an FX set.

WOWK's 1997-2003 image is a pretty close Hearst knockoff as well....the biggest difference is using the 1990's ESPN-style font in place of Bank Gothic. But the oversized bug, font kerning, overall style, and use of Gari's "Image News" give it away.....

Gray seems to be one of the major "ripoff factories" in the industry. Something about them doesn't seem right to me. There's bits and pieces around everywhere. One of the most glaring is WKYT in Lexington (ripping off KDKA and WBZ), and bits and pieces of WVLT in Knoxville. They like to over-slogan things like "Your Breaking News and Weather Authority" Since they're based in Atlanta, I wonder how much influence the local stations there have on Gray's own products. The same can be said for any company that doesn't own stations in the market they're headquartered in....

Speaking of KALB and Hoak....lest we forget their low-budget ripoff of WKRG...even down to the Gimme 5! :bang: http://www.kalb.com/category/185185/video?clipId=9923832&topVideoCatNo=185184&autoStart=true And let's not forget their "replica" of WEWS's 2004 logo that ended up verbatim on KREX-TV for awhile (and later bastardized as seen below) and KAUZ...(scroll to the 2:30 mark to see the KAUZ-ified WEWS logo.....) Here's another KAUZ clip with their news intro....it looks like a custom version of West Virginia Media's 2002 graphics package used by WOWK, WTRF, WBOY and WVNS... I know that this has been going on since the beginning of time in TV, but in this age of YouTube, video streaming and email, it's painfully obvious anymore. Some companies buy their way into it by purchasing syndicated packages (like WWSB, WTXL and WAAY buying the old WTVG Giant Octopus look). But others, take an idea and rip it off en masse. Local TV LLC and Newport were notorious for doing this, since they were both owned by private equity shops and headquartered in places where they didn't even own stations. I'm thinking KMBC (and their logo) played a major hand in how Newport imaged WSYR (since Newport was out of KC). WHAM was heavily inspired by WTVG and KTRK's 13abc logo. WOIO was a major inspiration for WAWS/WTEV, WHP, KMTR, and KGPE. WKRC's constant identifier made its way to virtually ALL of Newport's stations, and even the "Local X The Weather Authority" brand made its way down to Mobile and WPMI. WREG-TV almost looks like a Post-Newsweek station with their L3s, and WJW hasn't changed since they've been a Fox owned station. WTVR and KDVR are almost identical. Most of this lives on with Sinclair, Tribune and Nexstar, but it could be done away with over time. In this day and age of centralization and corporate control, the stations are getting weaker and original ideas are being eschewed in favor of "tested and true" things that have worked elsewhere, or "whatever works in X, has gotta work in Y" mentality. It's pretty sad to see something done verbatim in another market just because someone higher up had a "brilliant idea" they saw on Youtube.

Some news & notes out of Mobile/Pensacola..... WEAR anchor Mollye Barrows is leaving the station... http://flnewscenter.com/?p=8013 During coverage of Mardi Gras, the WKRG anchor team did a live FaceTime interview with longtime sports director, Randy Patrick. He's been off the air due to surgery and health issues, and is hoping to return sometime in March or April. With it being Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras), Mobile stations pulled out all of the stops to provide coverage of the local parades. WKRG went with coverage from 9am-5pm; WPMI did 4 hours of live coverage from 10am-2pm, and WALA did two hours of live coverage from 12noon-2pm. Since WEAR is a Pensacola station, they did not pre-empt regular programming. Outside of New Orleans, Mobile is the only major market that pulls out all of the stops for today.

After less than 6 months at WSET, former WALA news director Bob Cashen is out. (See below post....TVSpy and WSET beg to differ) It's too late for him to go back to WALA....as they have JUST hired WCBD news director Scott Flannigan. http://www.rickgevers.com/news-director-updates/

...and in more WOIO news....they are giving away their anchor desk to one of their facebook fans! It will be autographed by the anchor team. Seems like an interesting idea.... Which means....a set refresh is definitely on its way....stay tuned! Whoops! See the next thread. I've been out of Cleveland too long it seems. WOIO seems to be headed to oblivion in my book with them getting the cookie-cutter Raycom stuff and now Bill Applegate retiring.....

WOIO/WUAB General Manager Bill Applegate, the man responsible for bringing "Action News" to Cleveland....is retiring... http://www.ohio.com/the330entertainment/heldenfels/robin-swoboda-announces-wkyc-exit-woio-wuab-general-manager-retiring-1.465913 Details in the 2nd half of the article after their account of Robin Swoboda leaving WKYC....

Robin Swoboda is leaving Cleveland television......yet again! http://www.wkyc.com/story/news/local/2014/02/11/robin-swoboda-to-leave-wkyc-tv/5401773/ http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2014/02/robin_swoboda_leaving_channel_3.html I've lost track on how many times she has "left" Cleveland television... She first left her primary anchor gig at WJW in 1991 to follow her husband (former Browns player Bryan Wagner) to New England when the Browns cut him and he signed with the Patriots. She returned to Cleveland and WJW in 1996 to re-assume her old job anchoring the 6pm news. She left WJW in 1998 to take a job at WEWS, in their last incarnation of "The Morning Exchange". When it was cancelled in 1999, she became the 11pm anchor alongside WEWS veteran Ted Henry. The first departure to "spend time with her family" came in 2000, when she left WEWS. After spending a couple years as a radio show host for a Christian station leaving in 2005, she returned to WJW for a THIRD time in 2007. This time, she had her own talk show called "That's Life" and later "The Robin Swoboda Show". She left WJW in 2011 after management wanted to reformat her show into a paid segment show....which is now "New Day Cleveland"....and WKYC hired her soon after to anchor their 7pm show. It is said that in order to be able to afford her salary, several longtime staffers either were offered lower salaries and/or shown the door. I can only wonder how long this departure is going to last....will she be working for WOIO by May?

WTVH in Syracuse is another possibility....especially if Sinclair is forced to eventually unwind or discontinue the SSA with WSTM. Otherwise, WMYD and WKBW seem to be likely candidates...anyone else would seem far-fetched. This could put WMYD under local control unlike their arrangement with WPTA/WISE in Fort Wayne, and resurrect a LOCALLY PRODUCED 10pm newscast produced by WXYZ....and anyone could do a better job of running WKBW than Granite!

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/mobile/index/article/id/73376 WALA Fox 10 is expanding their morning newscast another hour until 9am starting January 27th....this will bump their lifestyle show "Studio Ten" to 9am and send "Bethenny" over to their sister station, CW affiliate WFNA....

WPMI's longest tenured personality, morning anchor Pat Greenwood is leaving the station to assume a new role in the University of South Alabama's athletic department.... http://blog.al.com/live/2014/01/pat_greenwood_leaving_wpmi_to.html#incart_river_default He'll be with the station until the end of July. Aside from anchoring the morning news, he has also hosted "The Joey Jones Show" featuring USA's football coach Joey Jones which airs in the fall on sister station WJTC. He has also been a sideline reporter for that station's high school football telecasts.

An account executive is suing WOIO alleging a "sexually hostile working environment".... http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2014/01/lawsuit_against_woio_channel_1.html#incart_m-rpt-2

http://m.weartv.com/news/WEAR_reporters_car_engulfed_in_fire_just_before_live_shot WEAR reporter Christina Leavenworth's car was destroyed by fire while she was on her way to a live shot this morning...

You're right sanewsguy...that was the webpage I was thinking of! I've edited my last post. That was the hosting site WMBB used after Hoak took over.

I could see NorthwestFloridaOnline.com or PanhandleHomePage.com making a return to WMBB, especially if they still own the rights to those domain names. The first one was used as a separate community portal in the last days of Media General's ownership and the last one (PanhandleParade.com) was the actual hosting site for WMBB.com after Hoak took over.

I think Jordan only does them occasionally during the morning show. Taren Reed still does them live and on a daily basis for the noon show. Abby Gresham did them for a very short time, but this was short lived last year. Either her facebook page or twitter page must still be active. Jordan and Abby must have some kind of role behind the scenes at WPMI....either as a producer or some kind of P.A. job....

I'm hoping that as a condition of the sale, Gray will have a period of time to sell off any conflict stations. I remember when Media General was selling WIAT in order to purchase WVTM, they were granted a temporary waiver to keep both stations. They ended up selling WIAT to New Vision soon afterwards (well within the time period granted).

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/72285/station-trading-roundup-7-deals-3812m According to BIA Kelsey, WMBB and KREX (plus their satellites and KGJT-LP) will be sold directly to Gray. KFQX will be sold to Excalibur. I wonder how long Gray is planning on keeping these stations....hopefully it's a temporary move so a buyer can be found for these (or other conflicting properties) since Gray ownership would represent a total monopoly in Grand Junction and a virtual monopoly in Panama City!

Good Lord...... If this happens, it would be a boon for satellite and the phone companies. If you hate Time Warner, you'll be begging for them back after Comcast drives them further into the ground!

I think "MyZ" is going to remain similar to its current form, being a ThisTV/MyNetwork hybrid, and the newscasts (and any first-run syndication) will likely move to WQCW. Interestingly enough, when WQCW was a WB affiliate (as WHCP), it carried UPN as a secondary affiliation from 10-midnight from around 2001 to the merger of UPN and WB into the CW in 2006. Unlike other primary UPN affiliates, the shows were "bugless".

I think one of the big reasons the WQCW deal went down is because Excalibur's owner, Don Ray, was the longtime general manager of WSAZ, and even was a regional VP under Gray's ownership of the station. Once the deal goes down, I imagine that any efforts in programming WSAZ's "myZ" subchannel will shift to WQCW, including their prime time news. Since WQCW is technically licensed to Portsmouth, Ohio, It would be interesting to see if the efforts focused on Ohio and Kentucky....but I imagine it will be an extension of WSAZ's current focus on the Huntington side of the market with a taste of Charleston news thrown in there.