Ma Bell seems to consider CNN a crown jewel, at least for now... Then again, Time Warner's treasure trove of intellectual property was probably a stronger motivator for AT&T to make the deal...

Honestly, CNN had problems even before Zucker came in. He just brought the sideshow with him.

I thought The WB jumped over from KXTX to KDAF right away. I know they were only doing two nights of primetime a week though...

Fox could've had a great bargaining chip/dumping ground had they really gotten that second terrestrial network going...unfortunately, the world just wasn't ready for its Amerinovelas...

I love me some flashy 3D stuff, for sure, but local TV in general seems to lack an understanding of building a multimedia brand. TEGNA has a lot of issues but they have a ton of stations that would sure as hell rather swim than sink.

Armin hardly EVER acknowledges local TV...

Is it because Disney had a stick up their ass about it?

Essentially enlarging the post-split Viacom was a horrible idea. Their philosophy is to water everything down and hope people don't notice, or take shortcuts and then sink into a tar pit once those shortcuts stop working or disappear entirely... Remember how, back in 2008, Paramount had Iron Man/Marvel, Indiana Jones, and both DreamWorkses (Animation and the live-action side that they owned at the time)? Notice how all of those things are gone now? And of course how Nickelodeon has basically spent the entire period since the mid-2000s becoming The SpongeBob Channel? This philosophy is going to damage CBS a lot. Bakish and co. seem very much like neophytes to CBS News, and they hardly seem to care about the O&Os at all. (Plus Bakish basically seems to be Shari's puppet anyway)

I don't think they can ever consistently compete against Today and GMA. The public seems to like their style better, and aping them isn't in CBS's DNA. This Morning is a counterweight - little-loved by the masses, but given more respect by the intelligentsia. They repeated the strategy with Colbert's Late Show before its style gained broader relevance. The entire network clears This Morning, right? Because CBS's morning news has been so historically moribund that I know several affiliates that didn't bother to clear whatever they were airing against Today and GMA for years; didn't WWL just never run The Early Show?

I really don't think CBS would go as far as to axe the Evening News entirely. That would be suicide. Its ratings may be crap but the inevitable headlines and stories about how disrespectful this would be to Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and such would probably rankle the suits too much for them to go through with it, no matter how desperate ViacomCBS gets.

I take it corporate can't force them to air it?

How often do VNRs air? It seems like every now and then people manage to spot one and there's a big to-do about it...it makes me wonder how many get through without being noticed...

What do you mean?

Nexstar has a virtual duopoly in Joplin...it would need to be up to Morgan Murphy there!

Scripps seems to be run competently and have a vision beyond "don't get bought out," so... (The fact that the Scripps family owns the voting stock helps!)