Rusty Muck

After watching the 11:59 sequence with DNCE standing behind a robotic Seacrest (yeah, I'm being redundant) looking like rejects from Andy Warhol's The Factory, I'll never watch ABC's countdown ever again. What a shameful display.

I honestly thought that Greta would make a return to CNN. Assuming that she does sign a deal with MSNBC, does she starts immediately or have to sit out for a period of time?

WCMH was home to Doug Adair and Mona Scott for about 25 years after they left WKYC... which really WAS run as the minor leagues for WNBC.

A six-month non-compete is more than enough time for WKYC to move Ellen and Phil McGraw up one hour each... and finally launch a 5pm newscast with Denise and Jim Donovan. WJW already has a lot of news anchors in their stable. And given Tribune's recent insistence on contract buyouts...

Unless you are a company unapologetically friendly to Trump... (**cough cough** S!nclair **cough cough** Fox **cough cough**)

It's a great move for WJR. Micheal Savage was a corporate cramdown by the Dickeys and was a terrible fit for a station known for congenial hosts like Paul W. Smith, Frank Beckmann and Mitch Albom.

Where would Brian logically go? 11pm is probably the only timeslot where he can't compete with Nightly News. Unless the plan is to eventually loosen that provision because he wouldn't pose much of a threat...

Hell, map it as 19.3 just to alleviate any confusion.

Now, now... let's not get too ahead of ourselves. Because... it's WJZ.

Yup. In this order: WJW, WKYC and then WEWS and WOIO/WUAB waaaaaaaaay in the back... WKYC now leads at 11pm mostly because WJW doesn't have an 11pm newscast (and they haven't since 1994, when they cancelled a truncated 11-minute newscast at 11pm that debuted following the Fox affiliation switch).

Which then devolved into the ultra-generic "19 News."

WOIO just can't catch a break. Now they had to respond to apparent numerous requests to drop this afternoon's Browns loss to the Bills in favor of the Steelers-Bengals matchup. [MEDIA=twitter]810496185857359873[/MEDIA]

Because it's Nexstar, I wouldn't be surprised if they invoke the Olentangy River in some way.

Have any of those divestments been cleared yet?

It's probably in Raycom's best interests to either sell or trade WOIO/WUAB to someone else. Will they? Who knows. The consolidation news operations in a market like Cleveland is still a few years away. I don't think that either one of these news departments are in immediate trouble to justify such a move. Should the economy go into recession, though... it's anyone's guess.

Can't wait to see what WCMH's new URL will be. WeAreBrutusStrong DOT com? ScarletAndGrayMatters DOT com? CaringAboutThe614 DOT com?

Not to mention that Armstrong Williams (head of pseudo-shell company Howard Stirik Holdings) is the spokesman for one Ben Carson. Grifters R' Us.

Unless the plan is for WKYC to launch a 5pm newscast (which they should, and it shocks me that they haven't), where would Denise go? Robin, outside of the April Fool's Day stunt at WKYC and her "Throwback Thursday" guest appearance at WJW last May (alongside Tim Taylor, Dick Goddard and Tony Rizzo), has mainly been absent from the local airwaves. I was somewhat surprised that she didn't make an on-air cameo during Dick Goddard's "final forecast" last month, given that the two have been friends for decades... (so much so that, when she initially left WJW in 1991 for a New York NBC daytime strip that went nowhere, Dick offered to take a pay cut for her to stay!)

Strange as it sounds, it seems like Scripps may have done the right thing in spinning off their cable networks.

Keith is doing video podcasts for GQ. It's probably the best avenue for him: he gets total editorial control and no fixed length of time... the run times range between 5-10 minutes. He wouldn't have that degree of freedom anywhere else (while he HAD control of Countdown, I don't think that he enjoyed the task of having to fill an hour with airtime; that in itself begat the "Special Comment").

It's actually not that big a surprise. Channel 24 has languished in last place since... what... the early 1970s? Had they remained under Raycom ownership, it's possible that they could have been somewhat competitive against long-dominant WTOL and WTVG. Channel 24 has been snake-bit ever since it was the (not kidding) flagship of the Overmyer/United Network. Creditors even owned it throughout the early 1980s when owner Don Overmyer defaulted on loans! It was a miracle that WTVG was bought by ABC, thus giving WNWO the NBC affiliation on a silver platter. (WXYZ would outdraw channel 24 in Toledo during the ABC years, and I wouldn't be surprised if WDIV outdraws WNWO today.)

What's the difference between that and the radio conservatalker KDNL runs at 6 and 11?

At least they are still offering something resembling a news product. S!nclair easily could have canned the newscasts entirely and run it as another KDNL.

11 and 13 own the market. Not a surprise. That makes S!nclair's retrans fight with Block/Buckeye Cable two years ago even more pointless and stupid.

How. Does. This. Happen. [MEDIA=twitter]799017010080452608[/MEDIA]