TheRob

Anyone on this board could afford to buy a half-hour of time on a mid-market local TV station.

KNPN (St. Joseph) anchor Bob Heater died over the weekend at age 63. He had been a part of St. Joseph, Missouri radio and TV for 40 years. https://www.newspressnow.com/news/local_news/voice-of-st-joseph-bob-heater-dies-at/article_b103b42e-b0e0-11e9-bc01-af1413bcf4bc.html

Scott reports that former Headline News anchor Bob Losure has died. I haven't seen it anywhere else. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2019/7/23/headline-news-anchor-has-died

The fine will be in the millions of dollars. No one's losing any licenses.

FCC calling: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fcc-investigates-whether-sinclair-showed-lack-of-candor-when-trying-to-buy-tribune-11561600586?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1 In a June 25 letter to Sinclair viewed by The Wall Street Journal, the FCC said it is investigating whether the nation’s biggest owner of local television stations “engaged in misrepresentation and/or lack of candor” with the agency when it was seeking approval for the $3.9 billion deal.

Former KUSI anchor files lawsuit: https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/former-kusi-anchor-sues-for-10-million-claiming-pay-inequality

KOTV's former news director Jeff Bardach (former co-worker of mine) has landed at KDKA in Pittsburgh as assistant news director. He was out of work for several months.

By my rough count, we would have to reassign around three more people to achieve that digital-first mantra. We already have a lot of people who are titled "multi-platform" and report to the digital content manager. I could see it being difficult for those mid-market stations that produce a lot of news, but don't have the resources to devote to a lot of web content. Personally I would start at ten percent and maybe assign a different reporter each day to be the "digital reporter of the day."

WTHR has been a longtime ratings leader in Indianapolis, but they've been cutting back in recent years too. Good news for the competition...

The New York Post (I know, I know) reported today that Tongen thought he had Lewy body dementia. Only his doctor would know for sure.

TV companies are gradually coming after the managers after years of cutting talent salaries. Make one general manager run two or three stations. Give the ND a new title and double the duties. Gray recently "promoted" a few news directors to be general managers, even though those people will continue to be their station's news directors. Meredith added "station manager" titles to a few sales directors and news directors recently.

The sales staff visits the newsroom:

"You're free, news director. Go on now. Get."

KSHB'S news director is leaving.

Here come the layoffs. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2019/5/6/breaking-cnn-to-to-cut-bodies

I remember a time when KCTV had no sports, or outsourced sports. Now they're throwing resources into a nightly sports show on KSMO.

I'm not sure what's happening at KTVI, but KPLR hasn't had any 12:00 newscast rundowns in the system this week. The aircheck recordings are blank. I assume KTVI's 11:00 news is just straight-up re-run on KPLR right now (the two were mostly the same anyway). I don't see evidence of anything else airing in its place.

I doubt Missouri has ever seriously entertained the idea of selling KOMU. That journalism program attracts students from all over the central U.S., students who are willing to pay out-of-state tuition to be a part of that professional network. Even KBIA expanded to a second radio station (bought from Stephens College). As hostile as Missouri's legislature is to education in general, I think they view the Mizzou journalism program with pride. --------------- At least they got some cake on the way out the door. "Good luck." (I have no idea why my two posts were merged)

KRCG in Jefferson City lost programming for about six hours Sunday afternoon, both over-the-air, and on cable/satellite. That outage included the NCAA Tournament games. https://sports.yahoo.com/mid-missouri-cbs-affiliates-tech-issue-prevents-elite-eight-games-from-being-aired-003055821.html

I'm here for the embezzlement. https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/cbs-credit-union-embezzlement-shuts-down-1203176576/

Latest on Circa: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/435957-sinclair-to-shutter-general-interest-website-circa