channel2

CBS owns the "Eyewitness News" name.

KCNC has been calling itself "CBS 4" since 2003 (and switched from "News 4" to "CBS 4 News" in 2005), so it's not that big a leap. It wouldn't be the first time they had to adapt to a longstanding part of their identity being dropped (they had to drop the KOA calls because GE let Belo keep them for the radio station). But I do think trying to force the major affiliate groups to drop, in some cases, decades' worth of brand recognition and give up at least the appearance of an autonomous newsroom potentially problematic. There are a lot of people who are still, almost 20 years later, distrustful towards CBS News (rightly or not) over their handling of the Killian documents. Plus if CBS News gets into hot water again, why make it harder to distance yourself from the network? The O&Os have every reason to align themselves with the network, being owned by them and aggressively branded with the Eyemark and "CBS" visually or verbally. But if your newsroom is independent from the network, why act like it's not? Wasn't the longstanding "A CBS AFFILIATE" marker meant to indicate exactly that? Also, it sounds eerily similar to NBC's failed gambit to make Young sell KRON to them at a loss. "Call yourself 'NBC 4' and pay us $10 million a year or we're pulling our affiliation." The alignment of the O&Os with the network also serves another purpose I haven't seen theorized: It helps CBS News look like it's "in touch" with large swathes of the country. Over the last decade or so, the national news media seems to have retrenched into a handful of large metropolitan strongholds: New York, LA, San Francisco, Washington, maybe Chicago. Touting a presence in places like Detroit or Pittsburgh or Baltimore or Denver is huge, especially considering the national media's disinvestment in the Rust Belt and general ignorance of the Intermountain West.

It was pointed out that Universal Television wouldn't be happy with having fewer slots to sell shows to NBC in. I'm sure a lot of Hollywood types would need to be pacified as well... (Then again, none of them had any advance knowledge of The WB and UPN joining forces!)

When did people start mentioning WWE among the sporting leagues? It feels like a recent phenomenon...

Wouldn't CBS be unhappy about that? Much of the reason CBS even bothers with a morning show seems to be for the soft power that comes in having clips from interviews and such circulating. It makes the network look important, like Today and GMA make NBC and ABC look important. What might that do to Nexstar's relationship with CBS?

I take it TEGNA wasn't in any mood to add this jewel to KING's crown?

They own a bunch of non-commercial licenses that I can't imagine it would be easy to strip of the non-com designation to widen the pool of potential buyers...unless it's more advantageous to donate them instead of selling them as prime real estate.

Is Twitter so indispensable that businesses won't just go elsewhere? You'd think Elon would have learned from the boom-and-bust cycles of dot-com businesses...

Telemundo must be big business for them - or, at least, it has a ton of upside!

You have to wonder if this is what Scripps owns stations like WPXN for...at least in part... Hell, even stations like WMBC.

Gilmer is originally from California anyway, isn't he?

Any idea why?

Don't they make too much money for that?

The impetus for this deal is that Zaz wants to be in the top echelon of moguls, opportunities to buy media monoliths like WarnerMedia are rare, and AT&T was willing to dump WarnerMedia for a relative bargain.

Why would they do that? ION is the straw that stirs the drink at Scripps, not traditional network affiliates.

Do they not know their own history? Have they forgotten that this is how they killed UPN? (And arguably got the CW created in the first place?)

I get the impression that NewsNation isn't thought of too highly at Nexstar stations...

It also comes off like an indictment of Nexstar's whole approach... Also is WBTS actually a factor?

When Viacom originally struck the deal to buy Paramount Communications, the planned name was "Paramount Viacom International." Then the bidding war with Barry Diller ensued and somehow the rebrand ended up being scuttled. Sumner was very attached to the name "Viacom." I have to wonder if dropping the name is intended to communicate a clean break from him.

Quest seems like it's real bad...

Haven't the Sumralls been slowly winding things down for a while?

Because as the big chains have learned over the last decade, you can replace proven syndicated product with cheap substitutes and people will keep watching. /s

CBS only sold WFRV and WJMN to Liberty for tax purposes. John Malone wanted to dump a bunch of shares in CBS Corporation and you know how much he hates paying taxes.

Why would they care about that?

It's not a "waste of space" if you own it.