Adam MadMan

"Daytime Jeopardy" in prime time. That's syndication for you.

Leno was just an attempt to cheap out while keeping the timeslot. This sounds more like a scorched earth strategy, and one that's a million times more attractive to the affiliates.

Remember when I mentioned that one Civil Rights organization that backed the deal? Well, a bunch of state Black Caucus leaders are pushing for this deal under the same grounds.

Funny you mention Bozo. David Arquette bought the character last year and is looking to bring him back to the limelight. That said, I don't see any evidence that local TV stations are part of the equation. As for local stations making more diverse programming, I think the last major push for that kind of thing came from USA Broadcasting, who used WAMI in Miami as model for CityVision, which was supposed to be a group of stations emphasizing locally produced programming. Unfortunately, the WAMI experiment was a ratings disaster, and the rest of the USA stations abandoned the idea of a big local push in favor of just being run of the mill independent stations at a time when The WB and UPN were pushing those out, and Barry Diller gave up on the whole experiment within a few years, selling the stations to Univision to form the basis of Telefutura, now called UniMas. I can imagine the failure of the CityVision concept left a massive stink over the concept of local programming outside of news and pay-for-play, and it's probably why stations haven't been more daring. Still, that was in the late 90s and early 2000s, when cable was at its peak and internet video was barely a thing. Maybe it'd work better today, but I can still imagine some executive thinking back to CityVision and saying "Nope! Not again!"

Civil Rights organization Arc of Justice thinks the merger is a good thing, pointing to Soo Kim's commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Since Nielsen has dropped its TV Station Index, the FCC is looking for another way to figure out where a given station's DMA is.

I remember when Les Moonves first announced the CW name, even back then industry insiders thought the name was stupid. But executives felt it didn't matter; they were already full steam ahead, and they had no choice but to keep it. I can see the same thing here, and if anything, there's probably even less incentive to change it; unlike back then, The CW as a brand is firmly established. People know what it is, so why risk confusing the public with a new name? It was actually the same logic used by Nickelodeon executives when they decided against renaming it as part of their move to bring it up from the bottom of the cable ratings back in the mid 80s. Even though it didn't make much sense to the target audience (being inspired by a format that hadn't been relevant since before movies had sound), it was already known to the public, and in the long run, it didn't matter - Nickelodeon, as we all know, saw its ratings skyrocket, and was one of the highest rated networks on TV before streaming came along.

The CW just announced its fall schedule. Scripted originals have been reduced to four three and a half nights (import Professionals follows a Supernatural spin-off on Tuesday). The low-rated Friday and Saturday slots are being handed to cheap unscripted fare, while Sunday is all imports. In other CW news, Mark Pedowitz has shown interest in original sitcoms returning to the network

Who's doing their business planning, underpants gnomes? I got confused when I saw the name on the list. When I went for Google, it just sent me to radio.com, the website of Audacy (formerly Entercom). I had to put in the actual URL to get the right page. Needless to say, I don't expect them to win either.

Within the past month, cable network Oxygen has started to roll out OTA on subchannels of NBC/Telemundo O&Os. I noticed it a week or two ago, when a subchannel with the PSIP OXYGEN showed up on WVIT-DT4, though only yesterday did it actually start showing Oxygen programming, and watching both the cable and OTA feeds side by side, I was able to confirm that they're virtually identical. And in case you don't believe me, Trip of RabbitEars.info has logged the subchannels onto his site, which is a generally reliable source for OTA info.

WSHM still lists People for the time being (on Titan TV, at least), but WFSB will be starting a 7 pm newscast. Gray in general has been rather gung-ho about replacing syndicated programming with news and other local programming. Just look at WBTV in Charlotte. Of course, regulars of this site are probably all too familiar with this trend so it's probably like saying the sky is blue, but I thought it was relevant to point out, since it means less room for syndie programming going forward.

Sinclair's Comet diginet ran a Planet of the Apes movie marathon last weekend, and somehow got 1.5 million average views on it. I'm not sure how exactly they're counting those numbers (I've noticed Litton pulling some monkey business with their Saturday morning E/I fare, adding up the total viewers of all the shows rather than an average), but whatever the case, Sinclair's not passing up the opportunity to brag.

IKR? Kinda hard to make a civil conversation when people are going "blah blah stay positive" "blah blah you're naive" "blah blah give them a chance" "blah blah they don't deserve it" "blah blah calm down" "blah blah shut up you bleepity bleep nitwit". This is what happens when religion and/or politics collide with business. Things get UGLY.

*takes close look at photo* Yes! He is coming to my market! (note the 22 News mic flag) Always nice to have my area acknowledged, even if it is an obvious corporate mandate. Yeah, yeah, I'm a sucker for cheap heat...

It didn't work for Sinclair, why would it work for Appollo?

The sad thing is, it's still more competitive than WRDC ever was.

WSHM has run Dr. Oz at 5 PM between newscasts here in Springfield, MA, so I thought I should check to see if The Good Dish is cleared there. Nope. Nothing. It's not airing at all here. WSHM's just replacing it with a simulcast of WGGB's 5 PM news.

Looking online, the only major Spanish station in the market is Univision affiliate WLLC-LD, which doesn't have an in-house news operation. Also, WSMV used to run Telemundo on its second digital subchannel, but dropped it in 2010.

Update to the Hearst Media Production Group news: the Litton name is being retired, as HMPG becomes a unified producer for all Hearst-derived TV programming. Litton's website now redirects to a subpage on Hearst's site. Three Litton alumi are taking executive roles in the new subsidiary (founder Dave Morgan and CCO Peter Sniderman retired at the end of last year): Former Litton CCO Bryan Curb is now executive vice president and general manager of E/I programming. Angelica Rose McDaniel, formerly exectctive VP of strategy and creative development, will oversee entertainment. Chris Matthews has been named CFO, more or less the same role he had before.

Perhaps not regularly, but I can see them occasionally covering certain national events like elections and presidential addresses, like Fox does.

Gray has announced new appointments for WGCL/WPCH: Kim Saxon from WBTV as news director and Josh Morey from WBRC as creative services director.

Assuming an upstart newscast on a CW station, especially one without a duopoly partner or even a news sharing agreement, doesn't just struggle against established players, if not get outright hash marks. Then again, that itself assumes that CBS even cares about competing rather than just making bank off political ads. Not to mention the decline of syndication in the face of streaming, which makes local programming (i.e. news) way more attractive than some flash in the pan talk show or reruns of sitcoms already on streaming services.

IMO, the idea of trying something different isn't the issue. If anything, I'd gladly welcome experimentation. I feel like local stations can produce more than just news and lifestyle shows, and making different kinds of programming would at least help stem the loss of viewers to streaming at least somewhat. That said, the implication I get from this new show is that it's basically gonna be a clone of The Daily Show; that is, a "comedic" retelling of current events while cracking a bunch of wheezy, stale political jokes done better elsewhere. That's not an experiment, that's just cheap and dumb. At least, that's just my guess. If I'm wrong, feel free to tell me. Believe me, I'd be happy to hear it.

Yes and no. It was recently acquired by Fox Nation, which will run both old and new episodes. But as far as syndication, I don't think we'll be seeing it any time soon, if ever again.

Hearst has launched Hearst Media Production Group to make programming for multiple platforms. Frank Biancuzzo is heading the new department, and Litton Entertainment and Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien will be part of its output.