TVIntheDesert

They've already posted their reason on http://tvpromise.att.com

KPNX is getting back in the midday news business...sort of. They’re introducing a 12-minute program at noon which appears it will be nothing but light stuff for stay-at-home moms. The sales department-produced “Arizona Midday” will air from 12:15 to 1pm. https://www.12news.com/article/life/announcements/12-minutes-of-news-commercial-free-12-at-12-launches-on-sept-9-tram-mai-arizona-midday-daily-blast-live/75-38647175-c94f-4aa1-a171-8bf859026b46

Since Entertainment Studios is a content partner, you'll probably see episodes of The American Athlete and Cars.TV repeated ad nauseum instead of World Poker Tour and Destination Polaris.

A number of promos for KNXV from 1984, pre-Scripps. One year in to being a full time independent (notice the video glitches when they switch from commercial to commercial/program, possibly using 3/4" U-Matic players).

Just like Gray, TEGNA is going to handle national sales for their stations on their own, shunning a Cox division (which may also lose the Tribune-to-be-Nexstar stations in the near future too). https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/237403/bad-news-for-cox-reps-tegna-goes-in-house/

Now that Kidvid has been "overhauled," maybe the FCC can get to retransmission reform.

It was bound to happen when they lost their full-power signal and was sold to Stryker (CNZ). I have a feeling they'll go back to their '70s low-budget roots (the "C" in "CNZ" is for Terry Crosby, the son of former owner Leon Crosby).

All the creative work of Richard Holland. Mainly 1986-87 to 1996-97. I liked the short at the end featuring Del and Jewell Lewis, Bill Miller, and the rest of MAC America's management, explaining their growth potential (which didn't come to be after the sold KTVK in 1999).

KRLR was the established #2 independent by 1989, but still far behind KVVU in the ratings (which I would have still considered an independent at the time). Las Vegas was a smaller market than Tucson in 1989 (which had three independents but lost one that year), surely LV couldn't support four of them. If I recall correctly, The Count's father, who was a gospel singer, founded KFBT (and also helped start WFBT-29 in Minneapolis as a religious/family-themed independent eight years earlier, eventually selling the station and it became KITN then WFTC). I believe KFBT focused on religious programming its first few years too. KBLR's story reminds me of KPOL (now KHRR) in Tucson - KPOL went dark for a couple of years before becoming a Telemundo station, and I think KBLR did the same too.

Interesting. KBLR was the third independent. KFBT had signed on a few months before, but I think they were a mostly religious station at the time. KBLR was sold and became Telemundo while KFBT ended up becoming the WB affiliate for a couple years.

Yet she's gained a lot of new fans among the MAGA crowd (just look at the comments on the YouTube video).

Yet she won't get fired, given who her employer is and also that it's Phoenix. She's untouchable at KSAZ because her actions aren't enough to hurt her or the station's brand.

Also, KPHO was using magnetic boards for weather long after the other stations had electronic "green screen" maps.

KPHO had an understaffed news organization during their pre-CBS independent years. Their studio was modular, meaning it was taken apart when the daily kids show "Wallace & Ladmo" used the room in the afternoon to tape their show between the 11:30am and 9:30pm news shows. Sports scores were almost always reversed on their Chyron. I don't think they had a live truck back then either. KNXV was about to come in with a 9pm show as a Fox station so they got a little more serious about their product in '93.

KSAZ may have the most viewers, but KNXV has become the gold standard for news in Phoenix, despite it being a Scripps station. KSAZ's intent of mixing opinion with hard news kind of bogs them down. KPHO was never a good news station when they were independent more than 25 years ago. I'm hoping you meant "independent" in the sense when they weren't joined to the knees with KTVK.

No surprise here. KPNX has been a dumpster fire since Gannett became TEGNA, and they make KPHO/KTVK look like a newsroom of stability.

WDRB/Louisville GM Bill Lamb, known for his conservative leaning editorials during the evening news, has left the station and said he was moving to a "top-10 market." Is it a Sinclair station he's going to, perhaps? https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2019/06/18/louisville-news-wdrb-general-manager-bill-lamb-leaving/1486361001/?fbclid=IwAR10_PMXwsDmSjKqEomvoj9wyTu3hZ_ByI0V8BhxxJih2JRprm43C4YXgbA

Scripps basically had no choice but to inherit those Azteca affiliations on the McGraw-Hill stations. Entravision took Azteca away from them in San Diego, maybe they're planning on doing the same in Denver?

Hey, there's a local LPDTV here in the Phoenix market in which one subchannel is an obscure mix of music videos (legally sourced, I don't know) and another is all car classifieds, all the time -- in Spanish (with weird stock video footage in between cars). They are trying to lease out one or two of their channels, but no takers yet. Or they may just have a wealthy funding source, willing to take two or three years of losses.

All this time, I thought KPNX was hubbed out of KUSA since the move out of 1101 N. Central.

I'm sure then-KWCH GM Ron Bergamo, a University of Arizona graduate, wasn't happy with the result of this game. Ironically, he would end up in Phoenix two years later running KTSP. -- Here's a couple 1992 promos from then-newsless Fox affiliate KNXV-15 (whose call letter-based image campaign that season was produced by TVbD, IIRC): And some rare pre-Scripps KNXV (I've started at a promo for "The Greatest American Hero," which ended with graphics featuring their slogan at the time "Where The Stars Shine"). Then co-owned WCGV-24 in Milwaukee used the same slogan and similar graphics.

According to RabbitEars, NewsNet has landed a big-four station: Marquee-owned WSWG in Albany, GA (soon).

WPGA looks like HC2 bait to me. How would Marquee make the station profitable without a major network affiliation? This was the Registers' mistake for dropping ABC over morality issues. TV is business. If you don't like what's being broadcast, sell the station.

Here's a block of commercials and promos from KUTP (IND) 45 in Phoenix from 1986. The promo design and TOH ID are the original from their 1985 sign-on. They would become a #3 (yet respectable after picking up the "red hot"--at the time--Phoenix Suns in 1988) indie (I'm counting KNXV during their first few years with FOX as still independent).

While Full Measure had limited syndication outside of the Sinclair group (the only station outside the group I recall airing the program was KAZT in Phoenix to pair with a locally-produced show hosted by a local right-wing radio host, but they no longer air it), van Susteren's new show (now named Full Court Press) is being shopped around by an outside distributor. Two non-Gray markets (Chicago and Milwaukee...Weigel?) have signed on so far. Hearst has had better luck distributing Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien outside their owned station footprint, even though that program slightly leans left.