Re: mid-sized to smaller markets: The time has already come on that. Pre-recession there were a number of stations in the 50-100 market range flying choppers (just look at late 90s/early 2000s news opens -- a LOT of stations had them). Now, to my knowledge, there's only KOTV in Tulsa, and the ultimate outlier, market 140-something WBOC. You can rest assured that their choppers would be grounded if either got sold. As for drones, they are absolutely not a replacement for choppers, regardless of how companies will try to spin it. Try getting a drone to an industrial fire clear across town in 5 minutes. Not gonna happen. At the same time, stations probably aren't sending their choppers up much to get aerials for a non-breaking-story. The two pieces of technology largely don't overlap IMO. Drones can be used for breaking news, but they can only get to scenes as fast as everyone else can driving, they take a while to set up once at the scene, and the operator has to hope that it's in a zone they're able to fly in and officials haven't put up any drone flight restrictions. Also, unless it happens to be near your station, you're probably getting more of the aftermath than the event itself. Choppers don't have the same restrictions over where they can fly, when, and how. You can fly a chopper over a crowd of people all day. Forget about a drone doing that. Basically, companies getting rid of choppers have decided the juice isn't worth the squeeze, and that whatever they're gaining in terms of spot news coverage doesn't outweigh the enormous amount they pay to fly the thing. A drone may soften the blow slightly, but I think it's a move these companies would be making whether drones existed for news or not. Having a drone just softens the blow a bit. I don't think you'll see Top 10-15 stations dump choppers anytime soon. They're still getting their money's worth. I'd consider them endangered in lower markets, especially the 30-50 range.

Crappy recording of a WISC weekend newscast in 1998 with the Star Trak theme. Would be nice if this person would digitize it (or send the tape to someone who can). Talent open at about 6:28.

If WAVY got to keep Newswire I'd imagine WOOD gets to keep Primetime (I hope). If they switch it to Aerial or This is the Place...yuck.

I was using that as more or less a generic term to describe their farmed out newscasts. You could call it a Fresno or West Palm Beach special, but doesn't have quite the same ring.

I guess Sinclair figured it wasn't even worth producing a South Bend Special...

Aren't they doing better than WISH?

What I find interesting is that it seems the cuts have so far haven't hit the more unionized ex-Trib stations. Haven't heard anything about WGN, KTLA, WDAF or KTVI. Could be just a coincidence though. https://www.sagaftra.org/files/sa_documents/BroadcastStationListOCTOBER2019.pdf

I'm a little salty about the KLFY and WRIC logo changes. They went from something unique to something completely bland.

Advertisers do.

There's something to be said about how competitive WCBS has gotten as of the last year or two. They're no longer a mere also-ran.

There was a KTVI news teaser from 1994 with Marion Brooks and Tom O'Neal from the Crane "2NewsTeam" era that was on Youtube and is no longer. Don't know if the person who posted it reads this forum, but it would be nice to see it back on.

Not sure I'd call it "new" precedent per se. WAVY got to keep Newswire after the MG deal, WROC (a legacy Nexstar station no less) commissioned a custom pkg, and WKBN got to keep Impact, which everyone seemed to figure would be as good as gone, and so on. What I'd be more interested in seeing is if there will be a Nexstar station not named WROC that ends up switching from an Arnold/360 pack to something else.

I stand corrected then lol. KWTV and WBOC.

Isn't their chopper shared with KWTV or am I incorrect?

Which means that Nexstar did.