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TVIntheDesert

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Everything posted by TVIntheDesert

  1. The syndicated E/I product from Cassie Yde's TVS is pretty bad, too. I can't imagine how some of the shows her company distributed to stations in the past ten years ("Ultimate Choice"; "What's Up? Que Pasa?"; "Jane's Sew and So") ever made it to air. That's all I'll say about E/I on this thread. Let's get back to "regularly scheduled posts about anchor/reporter moves!"
  2. When the producers of "Gina D" were originally syndicating the show in the mid-2000's, they reveled in the notoriety they got from "The Soup," but Gina D never stopped by the show. IIRC, the show was owned by some penny-stock company that morphed into some phantom TV manufactuing firm, and the distribution rights have jumped a couple times. I don't know who owns the show now or why some stations still air it, given the producer's prior shady dealings. Most E/I shows don't make money for its distributors. They're usually mom-and-pop companies that make money selling programs overseas. I believe the only ones that do are the Litton-produced shows, and that's because they're good at sponsor integration in each show.
  3. I thought most programs considered "E/I" outside of NBC's block are live-action shows, most notably wildlife- or career-related. Slightly related, for some reason, Fox Business airs an E/I compliant cartoon regarding childhood financial education on Saturday mornings called "The Centsables," and it's pretty bad. Not "Gina D's Kids Club" bad, but almost there! I believe the producers are buying time on the cable channel.
  4. If the ratings do skyrocket while Guthrie's gone (which I believe they will), then I would say if she's the future of "Today," the person who hired her to replace Curry needs to be fired (if he/she hasn't left already).
  5. It depends on how the competition fares. In a small market like Medford, Oregon, where the Sinclair station has more resources than the locally-owned competition (KOBI), that may be the case. This may change once Prather takes control of KDRV and if he invests in making that station competitive.
  6. KSAZ has got to be the most understaffed news operation in Phoenix (technically), so I can't see them expanding an hour on Saturdays without it being a disaster.
  7. I don't know if KAZT would want The CW, especially if the contract terms aren't in their favor. They're a standalone independent, and the CEO of the family company that owns the station just passed away while the patriarch/chairman is getting up there in age, so they may be sale bait too...especially for the Class A in the Metro.
  8. KASW is most likely to be sold separately if Wheeler gets his way. And, the most likely buyer that could make a standalone KASW successful is a Spanish-language broadcaster. The CW may have to go to a subchannel in Market 13 (I doubt Meredith would want to put underperforming CW programming on KTVK).
  9. He shouldn't have a problem competing with KOBI (which LOOKS and FEELS small market), but KTVL might be a little more challenging. The one good thing Sinclair brings to small market like Medford is a bit of a larger-market feel.
  10. Sinclair worshipper Harry Jessell of TVNewsCheck (who named SBG his "Group of the Year" this week) is back with a new "save JSA's" editorial (I wonder if he's getting paid by the large JSA-abusing station groups to write this???): http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/74516/the-dojs-antijsa-arguments-are-so-1997
  11. They'll probably upgrade "RightThisMinute" into those slots next season (in the markets which they don't compete with Scripps).
  12. I wonder if he made his decision before or after the announcement of the sale to Meredith?
  13. Followup to my replies this week: According to the TitanTV Listings of KNXV, they are dropping LiveWell for Antenna TV on their 15.2 subchannel on Midnight, January 1. And KPHO is still wasting their 5.2 away.
  14. There is another forum/message board full of videophiles that monitors the PQ on the HD stations in town. They were the ones that pushed KPHO to become the first Meredith station to broadcast in HD approximately ten years ago--the last station in town to do so (they had been broadcasting in SD only on their digital channel)--when the company was dead set against upgrading and instead considering buying devices that would "speed up" the commercials so they could run more of them. The AVS crew have the phone number for the "Viewer Relations Director" (basically, the program director) on speed dial. That's one of the reasons they're not budging on the HD bandwidth. Hey, I believe the bandwidth they're currently dedicating for the .2 is enough for a network like Antenna TV. I hope someone at the station is reading this, because there is no good explanation why they haven't switched, and Dyle is flopping (according to the electronics rankings on Amazon for the Audiovox receiver). I don't know what the Belo (soon to be Sander) stations' plans are. The Program Director of the stations told me that they had plans for the KASW bandwidth, but didn't give me any specifics, but maybe they could squeeze in a 3.3. Given that it took them over three years to get cable carriage (which is important to the subchannel networks) for 3.2, it will take them that long to do the same for a proposed 3.3.
  15. I doubt if anyone at KPHO, whether it be the GM or the News Director (by the way, did they ever hire a new one?), would care if the weather channel went away, the way they don't promote it and hastily program the "three-hour rule" E/I shows. I do believe the GM's word that it's a placeholder until they know if Dyle is a flop or not.
  16. I believe the GM is trying to defend his earlier decisions, how obsolete they are (EDIT: the weather channel was put online by their previous GM, who is now running WBNS, which has--surprise--Antenna TV!). Their sister station in Hartford is running 1080i HD, a weather subchannel, and another SD CBS simulcast, and Meredith's Nashville station has 1080i HD, a widescreen SD subchannel network (Heartland), and ATSC M/H. Me-TV is a bona fide hit in the Phoenix market, and now with Antenna TV now airing more traditional classic shows and not just the Norman Lear "urban" sitcoms (which I do enjoy personally), it would be a winner here too. KPHO has a pending application to maximize their OTA signal (being held up by government shutdowns and Mexican authorizations--it's been almost two years since they submitted the application), and that's where (I believe) the ATSC M/H signal comes into play. KPHO is already using variable bitrates for their HD channel, there is no excuse for not doing so on the .2 subchannel.
  17. Dyle TV uses a portion of the 19.5 MBps bandwidth of a station's data stream. Many stations have a 1080i primary HD channel, a .2 subchannel, and ATSC M/H DTV (such as the Dyle system). The GM's logic was having enough room for Dyle to grow and add more channels if it became successful, and that would mean dropping the .2 subchannel entirely instead of degrading the PQ of the primary HD channel.
  18. Hopefully, the sales of the Dyle TV tuner will be disappointing. In my chat with the GM of one of our local (non-O&O) stations which is underutilizing its subchannel bandwidth, this is what is holding them up from putting a service like Antenna TV on their .2 subchannel which currently runs an automated weather loop (and E/I programming at the worst possible time any station could schedule it).
  19. The Lockwood business model is similar to a company that fell hard--Equity. Buy a bunch of independent or CW stations, run them from a centralcasting hub, and ????? I just don't see standalone independent or CW stations in mid-size or smaller markets as a good business model to begin with.
  20. KUQI has been plagued with technical issues from the day it signed on. As far as their Chapter 11 filing, it was involuntary. The parties who forced the Chapter 11 own a couple of Spanish-language stations in the Western United States. For all I know, they could lose the FOX affiliation and go Spanish. If that's the case, where would FOX end up? A subchannel of KZTV (which is already operated by KRIS)?
  21. The rise of KCWY mirrors that of KKCO in Grand Junction, CO, which was a new sign-on in the mid-'90s. Soon, they'll be sister stations. KTWO was hampered by Equity ownership. They sold it a year before their demise, and management was outsourced to notoriously-cheap Wyomedia (owner of KFNB and also operates KGWC in Casper, whose GM was recently arrested for DUI).
  22. Ironically, KGWN was not included in Gray's buy of Benedek over a decade ago. Things have come full circle. That gives Gray a footprint of most of Colorado outside of Denver.
  23. If they believe in family values, then why do so many of their stations run those confrontational ("trash") talk shows?
  24. Also, KTUD was able to share the rights of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" with KLAS until she left broadcast TV (ironically, the Greenspuns founded KLAS in the '50s and were successful with it until Howard Hughes purchased it as his personal late-night cinema), and they scored a coup in 2007 by winning the rights to off-network "Family Guy." However, the writing was on the wall when Sinclair kept getting bigger and were the go-to guys for program distributors, leaving KTUD with the leftovers, like "Community."
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