doublejman69

This is going to be the year that many 3rd and 4th rate stations are going to be dropping news and not just Sinclair, it’s going to be Scripps, Nexstar and the other big groups. In Milwaukee WTMJ and CBS58 are only averaging 5,000 viewers in the demo at 10, WISN and WITI is about 14,000-15,000. When I came to Milwaukee in 2000 WTMJ had a 15 rating and wisn was about 10, viewership taste has change thought out the years but Milwaukee has always had one of the higher viewership of local news in the country. This is a business first, many of these 3rd or 4th rate stations are only breaking even at best and likely losing money on news. There is no company that’s going to come to buy and bunch of money losing operations with almost no viewers. The stations that have dropped local news so far had no viewers in the first place, basically no one will notice.

Ads for digital don’t even come close to regular broadcast, even if you can sell it many stations and groups can’t sell all slots and just put up slide saying that the newscast is in a commercial break. It’s kind of a lost cost at that point if the only way someone can watch you channel is by the website stream, at least with OTA they can watch your full network and syndicated programming and more importantly ads that you’re getting full price on. The reason I asked how many people that are streaming newscast, I know a station about 5 years ago, top-25 market dominant number 1 in all newscast, number 1 website beating the local newspaper and the web stream count was in the hundreds, the only time it would get in the thousands if there was breaking news or severe weather. Things have change from 5 years ago but I can’t imagine many advertisers rushing to get on a streaming product that can only average a couple hundred people.

There’s been rumors for awhile now that it’s been toxic inside CBS news so the ny post story isn’t shouldn’t be a total surprise. With cbs’s ratings trouble they likely won’t bother to renew Khemlani contract or even pushed him out before it expires.

I’m not defending what nextstar is doing but How many viewers do watch live streaming? And how much money do tv stations make off it? It’s very costly to stream, whatever the viewership was when a station was live streaming its going to drop now there’s a delay.

Occasionally I check out job posting for various groups and I notice for Scripps except for 2 or 3 stations almost all the stations have one or 2 openings when many routinely have upwards to 10-15. https://scripps.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/Scripps_Careers It’s possible the website is not updated, or Scripps went on a huge hiring spree in the last few weeks (highly unlikely). Even if you’re at full employment you want some job openings (especially in sales) so you’re always recruiting because there will be turnover. After this election season and the holidays and a possible recession in the near future it’s going to be a soft period for the news business. It’s possible we will see job freezes and even cuts and Scripps and other companies maybe gearing up for that.

This is WINKs last few hours on air, this might include when WINK was cut off or shortly before. After 62 hours of simulcast coverage NBC2 and ABC7 will do its own coverage starting today. Edit: looks like the nbc2 and abc7 simulcast continues. Edit 2: Fox4 came back to its building and studio some time this afternoon, coverage has been getting somewhat better in the last 12-24 hours

Insurance will take care of the building but it will be awhile before things get back to normal for WINK. Before WINK went off the air both WINK and the abc7/nbc2 simulcast did a very good job covering the storm. Fox4 production was done remotely from Detroit and apparently they were broadcasting at FGCU in a makeshift studio, also Fox4 may have taken on water. I’m sure everyone was trying their best but Fox4 coverage was a technical disaster the times I check, everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I’m a winter resident of SW Florida and gone past each station several times, WINKS building is across the street from the caloosahatchee River that connects to the gulf and a creek that’s snakes almost around the whole building.WFTX is in Cape Coral and the Cape has canals all though out the city and many connect to Gulf. It makes both stations susceptible for storm surge (Waterman’s building is inland Fort Myers). In the last 10 years or so each building has been renovated to withstand major hurricane winds but they will likely have to do more against storm surge, WINK has a barrier around the building and reinforcements for all the doors but those weren’t high enough.

WINK was live overnight and so was the NBC2/ABC7 simulcast. FOX4 started coverage at 4am, they were having a lot of problems for the first half hour or so I watched. All the stations do or did have newsrooms in Collier County, none are studios by any means, basically a camera in a workspace, but it’s a option if any of the main studios do have any problems. WINKs building is very close to water in DT Fort Myers but to a certain point of several feet shouldn’t take in any water apparently. FOX4 building had a major renovation right before Scripps bought the station and Watermans building also has recently been renovated, all 3 should be able to withstand the winds of a major hurricane. Water and flooding could be an issue for all the stations.

Many teams have taken control and are managing the preseason TV and radio aspects either by producing themselves or by using a third party. The Bears are using the same graphics for team promotions. The Packers almost everything is in-house, they have in-house video editors, producers and videographers. It’s getting to the point where there is little difference between the flagship radio or TV station or an affiliate for the Packers, the team has hired a few personal from the flagships for pre or post game work but that’s about it and that’s all under the Packers control.

The construction part is near completion if not completed for the studios and offices. Right now there is no radio equipment or computers in the new studios or office space. I imagine it’s still going to be months before GKB fully moves out of Radio City. The Avenue is turning out to be a very nice place (and that whole stretch of Wisconsin Ave). There is a lot of empty space in Radio City already. it use to house Journal’s TV and radio executives. When GKB radio leaves I wouldn’t be surprised if more than half the building would be unused. GKB will have as many people downtown as Scripps employs in Milwaukee. Last I heard Scripps has no plans for the radio space or executive offices.

Just a lighting upgrade, they should be back in the main studio in a week (they are in front of a screen in the secondary studio). they recently repainted the weather center and put in some new desk and computers, it doesn’t look like it will regularly be used on air much if at all.

I liked Stelter when has was at The NY Times and tvnewser, his look into the network morning shows is very good, it was kind of disappointing when he went to CNN, for the most part he stop doing that kind of reporting, he was a weak host for the kind of show he was doing. When the new management came in it seem like Brian knew that his days were number so he was open to criticize CNN. When Zucker ran the place I don’t remember him being critical of cnn except when Jeff would hire Trumpers (most of the newsroom was upset with that not just Brian). It felt like the show was about defending non Fox News/rw media from criticism.

Yes, it was expected that NBC was going to carry golf at 2pm.

The bulk of station revenue comes from local news, WJZY was getting hash marks for some newscast, you can’t sell that when no one is watching and you can see why Fox dump the station. Fox gets a percentage of retrans revenue from local stations and they also sell ads regionally for sporting events and network programming. The network gets almost all of the ad time, local stations make very little during network programs or sporting events. there really isn’t a need for Fox to own a struggling station even in larger markets. The only reason for Fox to return to Charlotte is if Nexstar turns the station around or if a stronger station wants the Fox affiliation (seems highly unlikely), and for someone to drop news. Fox dump a lot of money in the WJZY startup, they aren’t going to do it a second time.

The problem in Charlotte is that there are too many stations producing news. There is only so much ad money in the market, the pie doesn’t get bigger the slices just get smaller. It takes several years for news startups to make a profit, WJZY is likely losing money and was definitely losing money when it was a O&O, WCCB is likely just barely turning a profit. With those issues Fox isn’t going to re-enter the market, it doesn’t matter with supposed growth or how many sports team the market has. At some point either WCCB is going to have to drop news or WJZY is going have to do something completely different, I don’t think “Queen City News” is going to work out but they have nothing to lose.

The Wausau market allotments are interesting Gray doesn’t need the Eagle River one anymore with WYOW but do they bid on it so WAOW or Wisconsin PBS can’t grab it and then don’t build it out? Can Gray own multiple satellite stations in the same area or move it to the UP of Michigan and simulcast WLUC? Ch. 31 in Whittenburg is the former full power Fox affiliate WFXS, Gray has a CP for a low power station on ch. 31 atop the main tower tv tower in Wausau, would WJFW bid on it to improve the signal where most of the population lives? Gray is going to bid for the Freeport allotment. In any event it’s going to take years before any of these stations sign on.

Thanks for the correction I don’t get to watch The Green Bay locals that all that much. It quite noticeable when WBAY switches from Barrons products because the base maps are in the correct aspect ratio and then when they go to WSI some are stretched and then there are some national maps that aren’t, you can even see it more clearly with Dodge County, it’s supposed to square. Edit: looking at WBAY closer it’s clear at least some of the weather maps are not in the correct aspect ratio, it’s looks like someone was fixing it when they went to HD but didn’t get to all of them. For how long WBAY has been in HD it likey won’t get fix until Gray upgrades WBAY’s WSI boxes.

WKBT’s low power signals in Eau Claire and Tomah, WI that they got from Magnum Media signed on simulcasting WKBT and subs. Now both Eau Claire and La Crosse have local signals of every major network.

There isn’t much you can do to change WSI weather graphics except for changing the colors on the base maps. All stations in Madison uses WSI, WISC used blue for its base map and now it’s gray/black, some stations use white.

Gray mostly uses WSI for weather. The majority of stations groups uses WSI and Barron/viper is a distance second then there are a few very small players. In Wisconsin, WSAW and WMTV looks like they have the latest WSI software while WBAY which Gray has own for only a few years uses some Barron products mostly for severe weather coverage (station owned radar that’s maybe 20 years old) and uses an older version of WSI for day to day weather, some of WBAY’s base weather maps look like they were design for 4:3 and then stretched for 16:9 TV. It will take time for Gray to get that all fixed. If you did a poll of TV Meteorologist most would say WSI is best for regular weather and social media but it would be much closer between Barrons and WSI for radars. Back in the day Barron was a clear number one for radar products and many stations would use Barrons for radar and WSI or Weather Central for weather graphics. WSI does sell radars to local stations but NWS radars have improved so much that the need for station owned radar isn’t like it was 10 or more years ago unless if you’re in a NWS radar dead zone.

I don't know about that, if the Packers wanted to be just be on FM Craig Karmazin would of put the packers on 94.5. It comes down to $$, Good Karma is a smaller radio company than even Journal/Scripps was while Iheart is the biggest. Iheart locally was under a pressure to do something more than run a few local shows on 97.3, the Bucks and Brewers rejected Ihearts offers to switch stations, also one of the top mornings shows in Milwaukee rejected 97.3/Iheart. Iheart Milwaukee brought in a lot of people in the last few years to sell and market sports pbp and local personality talk/ sports shows, getting the Packers was the last chance to do that otherwise 97.3 was most likely going to go back to a music format, now it should be a top 5 male rated station in Milwaukee.

https://wtmj.com/news/2021/10/27/wtmj-radio-packers-radio-network-parting-ways-in-2022/ Going to Ihearts 97.3. The Packers will also lose out on Northern Illinois fans which is a significant number, the Badgers have heard complaints from fans from Illinois when they also left WTMJ a few years ago. During the Scripps ownership a lot of behind the scenes people left WTMJ and went to Iheart but I’m very surprised WTMJ wasn’t able to hold on to the radio rights.

Scott Steele? Turn over at WTMJ has been significant since Scripps. It’s going to difficult to track who is leaving on there own/ getting the boot for other reasons and who’s leaving because of no vaccine.

To add to this, KTTC's translator in La Crosse goes to WEAU and is now simulcasting WECX-LD and subs. Gray has CP for a LP in Wausau, when that gets fired up really soon, it looks like its going to mirror WYOW for that part of the Market, and finally Gray has another unbuilt LP licensed for Eau Claire but most likely will get moved elsewhere in the market (Tomah area?).

Morgan Murphy is in the process of purchasing Magnum radio's three low-power stations in the La Crosse and Eau Claire area. It would seem likely the LP stations would simulcast WKBT, viewers in the northern half of the market and far east have struggled to pick up WKBT's VHF signal. The station is looking for sales people that would be based in Eau Claire, WKBT sales focus has mostly been La Crosse area and the southern half of the market.