kdex86

I'm sorry, but this is "one step forward, two steps back" for Nexstar and DirecTV. The "Mission Broadcasting owned" stations have been dark on DirecTV (satellite and stream) for almost a year now, when it's obvious that Nexstar "operates" these stations. Nexstar is clearly double-dipping with TV providers when it comes to retransmission fees, and the FCC should really do something about it.

Now WFXT is starting their weekday morning news at 4:30 AM again. Boston is an unusual TV market where you have five local news stations, when some markets ahead of them (in terms of DMA rank) have no more than four. All five local news stations were airing live local news at 4:30 AM, until a few months ago, when WHDH decided to move their morning news start time back to 5 AM.

In my area, the CBS, ABC, and NBC affiliates in both Boston AND Providence are all airing local news at 10 PM tonight. While WBTS is still fairly new, I’ve never seen WBZ, WCVB, WLNE, or WJAR air 10 PM news on their main channels. Even WPRI is airing local news at 10 PM tonight, when their sister station WNAC usually airs local news during that time. The program guide reads “WNAC 10 PM News”. Very weird. I have 2 questions: Are local TV stations (at least in the Eastern time zone) saying bye-bye to 11 PM news in 2023? Why is my program guide displaying listing these broadcasts as 11 o’clock newscasts? 11 PM ≠ 10 PM.

Lol, this commercial is coming from WPRI in Providence. The city of Providence itself (along with the rest of Rhode Island) is served by Cox. Comcast only transmits WPRI in Massachusetts, and they also carry WBZ out of Boston everywhere they carry WPRI. If this station goes dark nobody will be missing CBS programming in Massachusetts.

Mission (and Nexstar) stations are still on Cox cable. I can confirm WPRI and WNAC are still on Cox in RI. But Mission Broadcasting stations are still off DirecTV (satellite and stream). Is there some sort of loophole that Nexstar is exploiting by "directly owning" one station in a market and "Mission Broadcasting" owning a different station in the same market? For example: in Providence RI Nexstar owns WPRI (CBS) and Mission owns WNAC (Fox). WNAC airs local news at 10 PM that has the same graphics and on-air talent as WPRI. in Burlington VT Nexstar owns WFFF (Fox) and Mission owns WVNY (ABC). WFFF airs local news at 10 PM that has the same graphics and on-air talent as WVNY. in Albany NY Nexstar owns WTEN (ABC) and Mission owns WXXA (Fox). WXXA airs local news at 10 PM that has the same graphics and on-air talent as WTEN. Currently DirecTV subs in Providence and Albany don't have their local Fox stations but still get the other station in the duopoly. Burlington market DirecTV subs lost Fox but still have ABC. And during the Nexstar/Verizon Fios dispute, these markets kept their Fox stations but lost WPRI or WTEN. This seems very weird and confusing to me.

Can confirm - I drove by it a few days ago.

I think they're doing it to bully residents of Bristol County, MA. Also, if someone decides to cut the cord and use an antenna to watch TV in that area, they may see NBC on Channel 10, only to find out it's WJAR, "NBC 10 Providence".

WBTS is back to having the NBC peacock cover part of the number 10 in their logo. Side note - when WBTS launched, it was known simply as "NBC Boston", and had a logo very similar to KNTV. Why did they abandon that logo/branding in favor of being called "NBC 10 Boston", especially when there is a very close by NBC 10 in Providence?

With the Olympics over, I've noticed the NBC O&O stations are back to using their "regular" logos during local news broadcasts. This marks the first time that the regular logos are used with the "Look S" graphics - I believe these stations went the entire 2021 calendar year using the "Olympic" versions of their station logos. Has that ever happened before?

Tuned in briefly this morning and noticed Savannah, Hoda, and Al were all absent. Instead we had the "old Saturday" team of Sheinelle Jones and Dylan Dreyer, along with an unidentified male anchor. What's going on here? Is this related to the studio rennovations?

Ah, okay. It looks like Today has embraced a "hybrid work model", just like my employer.

On Monday, there was a segment where we saw Savannah, Hoda, Carson, Al, and Craig all gather together to eat at a restaurant, celebrating how they're all vaccinated and that they can safely gather together as a group again. But as they were introducing this segment, we notice all of them in 5 separate camera shots, socially distancing. Why would they all be apart when they wanted to celebrate being together?

And now Hearst is in a potential dispute with Verizon: Verizon Warns Viewers Hearst Signals Could Come Down | Broadcasting+Cable (nexttv.com)

Any reason why the ads cannot be evenly spaced out? Regardless of when they air, it still pays the station's bills.

I have a bone to pick about ABC World News Tonight: WHY IS THE BACK HALF SO COMMERCIAL HEAVY????????? There have been several instances where I tune in at 6:47 PM (Eastern), to find the program at a commercial. Sometimes I'll have to wait up to 3 minutes before the news is back. At that point there'll be a short story, then David will say "when we come back..." This is followed by another 3 minutes of commercials. Then 1 minute later ... "WHEN WE COME BACK!" AGAIN!!!!!! I understand that commercials "pay the bills" but why do you have to go BACK to commercial 1 minute after airing 3 minutes of commercials! I swear from 6:47 to 7:00 I watched 10 minutes of commercials to 3 minutes of actual news. Is this time of the evening a "cold" time for TV viewing (or a "hot" time for advertising)?

Did you mean to say there *was* some backlash from NH residents that lost WGBH?

Dropping WCVB in Bristol County, MA and dropping WMUR in Grafton and Sullivan Counties in NH would cause serious uproars in these areas. If programming costs are an issue, wouldn't it make sense for Comcast to drop WMUR in Massachusetts and WCVB in New Hampshire? There are some parts of MA like Framingham and Marblehead that get both, but towns adjacent to these two cities and closer to the NH border (Wayland and Salem) do not.

I've noticed some weird "behavior" with WCVB and WMUR between 7:20 AM and 7:30 AM. This 10-minute segment is very "commercial heavy" on both stations, with about 2 minutes of local news/weather/traffic sandwiched around *8* minutes of commercials. I've noticed the local news cut-in from GMA starts at 7:23 on these stations instead of 7:25, and even more annoying, they go back to commercial within the local news update, separating the "news" and the "weather/traffic" segments. WHY do they do this? you have about 3 minutes of commercials, then 1 minute of news, only to go BACK to commercials for another 2 minutes, then 30 seconds of weather, 30 seconds of traffic, then another 3 minutes of commercials before returning to GMA. Who in the right mind wants to watch 8 minutes of commercials? Are there certain times of the morning like this one where "the bills MUST be paid at this time"? WBZ and WBTS in Boston air their local news updates at this time of morning "in one piece", starting at 7:25. "One piece" meaning news/weather/traffic in about 2-3 minutes, with no commercial break within the update.

Is there a significant financial or marketing gain by going "national weather --> ad --> local weather" (in that order) vs. "national weather --> local weather --> ad" during the 7:00-7:30 half hour? Seems very weird to me.

I've noticed some weird quirks about the weather hits during Today: 1. During the 7:00-7:30 half hour, the weather hit is around 7:17. During the 7:30-8:00 half hour, the weather hit is around 7:35 AM, just 5 minutes after coming back from a local station break. Why is this? Doesn't it put a strain for the meteorologists at the local NBC affiliates since they're not evenly spaced out? 2. Why does Al Roker NOT say "here's what's happening in your neck of the woods" during the 7:00-7:30 half hour? It seems so weird for him to say something along the lines of "now here's your local forecast" instead.

Someone explain how WCVB is #1 in the Boston market? Today their Facebook page posted another obnoxious caption photo that read “Sunday without the Patriots is Boring!” Focus on local and national news!

Really? I used to like this station. Now they're slowly becoming very tabloid-y like WHDH. Plus, their weather graphics are the worst of the 5 Boston local news stations. And don't even get me started on their Facebook page. It has become the digital equivalent of a tabloid newspaper. Every other day they post a photo with an obnoxious-sized caption in capital yellow or white letters.

Aren't the :25 through :30 and :55 through :00 time periods handed back to the local affiliates though? In Boston, both WCVB and WBTS (and WHDH prior to 1/1/17) air local news updates at :25 and :55. Still, that equates to two 5-minute commercial breaks (with no local insertions) on GMA, which is just as bad.

Has anyone found the commercial breaks during Today to be very lengthy? I turned on my TV and changed the channel to NBC at 7:38 AM. They were on commercial. It wasn't until 7:42 AM when the show finally returned from commercial break. Then at 7:44 AM they go right back to break, which lasts another 4 minutes until 7:48 AM. In a span of 10 minutes, that's 8 minutes of commercials vs. 2 minutes of "regular programming". But wait, it gets WORSE... They come back from break at 7:48 AM, go to the "Orange Room", then at 7:50, guess what? ANOTHER commercial break! This one lasts at least 5 minutes, all the way to the local news insert! WHAT THE HELL!!??!?!?!?!? Over the course of 17 minutes, that's 13 minutes of commercials vs 4 minutes of actual Today show programming. For a major broadcast network (NBC) that's available for free OTA, this is absolutely unacceptable. It's a surefire way to lose viewers and ratings. Also, what is the "Orange Room", why is it called that, and what purpose does it serve?

I have a couple questions about WCVB. 1. Why do their reporters say "WCVB, News Center 5" at the end of their live reports? They used to just say "News Center 5", . Reciting the call letters at the end of a live report is verbose and unnecessary. 2. Why does the Ch. 5 logo during Chronicle look much sharper and vibrant? Why can't this also be used during the regular newscasts? Instead, the logo is superimposed on 2 blue parallelograms, which looks ugly.