DJonNews

And I believed right. There was a theme to all this. According to Sports Video Group, the graphics package was designed to deliver "a punchier presence that leans into the pomp and circumstance of on-campus game days." And yes, there will also be minor tweaks to the graphics as the season goes by. I'm hoping one of them regards the team names directly below the logos. After all, what good are they if you can't read them and the font makes it no easier to do so?

Here's more of the new college football scorebug, including the indicator of how many points a team has scored in a play (+6, +3, etc.), and the specific penalty a team will have committed. The more I study this, the more I become inclined to believe that the graphics were designed with a sticker theme in mind, which explains the tilted logos, tilted placement of the exact penalty committed (complete with exclamation warning marks, as if the black and yellow wasn't enough to let you know already), and even the slightly tilted bar containing the quarter, time, and down and distance. They've well and truly accomplished the style, but where's the readability, especially in the team names below the logos (not helped by them also being handwritten and sometimes in colors that clash with each other)?

To which I offer up this: https://www.thedailybeast.com/house-oversight-chair-james-comer-promises-newsmax-hell-investigate-directv Again, theatrics when it's not needed. They did it because they got viewers angry enough to get the government (or one side of it, to be exact) involved. Now, they're threatening to investigate DirecTV for "censoring" Newsmax. Do I dare repeat myself once more on the reality of the situation? I feel like with each passing day that this drags on, I feel more and more of an urge to belt out, "Just give it a rest!" Two days of this was enough. That's all.

Speaking of culture wars, guess what Newsmax also did? They set up a website called IWantNewsmax.com (I'm not linking this). Here's what they want disgruntled DirecTV subscribers to do: They want them to call DirecTV and demand that Newsmax be brought back, or else they'll drop DirecTV. They want them to call their senators and representatives and stop the - ahem - "political censorship." They want them to go to said website and sign a petition saying that they fully back Newsmax. I talked about this in The News Center server. It's nothing but theatrics. Carriage disputes like this are the inner workings of business. Channels don't come cheap. Carriers have to negotiate on a deal for every channel. This is why you've been seeing regional sports networks drop like flies in the late 2010s. And "political censorship?" That's a bit rich considering DirecTV replaced Newsmax in the interim with The First, which is markedly similar to Newsmax in terms of content. DirecTV really wanted to continue carrying Newsmax. Newsmax wanted DirecTV to pay them for their position on the program guide, since their ratings are declining. The contract was allowed to expire instead. Another thing: If you connect the dots and look at how OAN reacted to also being dropped by DirecTV and eventually being dropped by Verizon (both from last year), you'll begin to notice that all they like to talk about is how the opposition are a bunch of losers, crybabies, etc. for doing what they did. Nowhere in their complaints do they state that they've simply been dropped -- they substitute the word for either "cancelled" or "censored." Both urged people to "join the fight" and call government officials in urging the providers responsible to reconsider. Guess what happened? OAN's efforts were ultimately fruitless, and if memory serves me right, Newsmax's effort will also come up short, simply because they failed to realize that the act of providers dropping channels is all part of business.

Inaccuracy at its finest... The Weather Channel is listed as an "uber-liberal bastion," according to Newsmax. To quote JaguarGator9, "I'm sorry, what?!" I'm pretty sure last I watched The Weather Channel, they have no politics whatsoever. Actually, they never had politics to start with. It's self-titled for a reason, despite the entertainment programming in primetime and for much of the weekend. I'm actually surprised they put Comedy Central (they call it "Comedy Channel") as a liberal news network, considering how far away from the definition this channel really is, with the only programs that fit their description being "The Daily Show" and "Tooning Out the News." The only thing that would've been the cherry on top is if they somehow watched Scripps News and managed to list that as "liberal..." I don't want to be the type of person to say this, but Newsmax is really being unreasonable here. Carriage disputes like this happen more times than they think. It doesn't help that streaming is helping put cable and satellite on the brink of extinction. It's a matter of survival now. It's ironic Newsmax is angry that DirecTV "cancelled" them, because as pointed out earlier, they're about to "cancel" themselves out of a free streaming option, leaving viewers with less options to watch Newsmax. If their goal is to make viewers angry, mission accomplished, but really?

And because it worked so well for OAN last time... Newsmax is urging people to "join the fight." This is from Newsmax's website: The title in question? "They're Coming for NEWSMAX, Are You Next?" The writer of this article even went as far as to include the First Amendment, word-for-word. I kid you not. I wish I could say "this is drama for the sake of it," but I'm going to be nice here. No one's coming for anyone. It involves carriage fees. DirecTV wanted to continue carrying Newsmax, something that appears to be lost to the fine folks there. Now that they've been displaced on DirecTV in favor of The First (another right-wing channel)...

Reviving this topic from the dead because DirecTV has officially dropped Newsmax as of yesterday. It did so because of a dispute over carrier fees. Naturally, Newsmax went and did the same thing as OAN when Verizon dropped them, calling it an act of political censorship and bias, never mind that DirecTV included in their statement that they wanted to "continue to offer the network." Oh, and Newsmax said they're getting "cancelled." Yeah. https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/26/media/directv-drops-newsmax/index.html

MTV Live also hasn't strayed from MTV's original purpose, except it also shows music-related programming in addition to a constant cycle of music videos, so there's a bit of variety, at least. After all, aside from FAST channels like Vevo Music, a traditional channel devoted to music videos only wouldn't fare too well nowadays, and that's what's causing MTV Classic to perform so poorly. But that's beside the point. What mrschimpf said is right. Nowadays, it's the norm to put on whatever programming you could and call it a day. No care. No variety. Nothing. Diginets are showing cable how it's done, and that should be the wake-up call for television itself. Forget the rerun farms. How about the channels basically running on autopilot? How many people would want to watch Science Channel anymore besides "How It's Made?" Exactly. And how about speeding up any pre-2014 program to the point that they're PAL-pitched? Yes, it's syndication, and yes, you have to attract those advertisers, but at the cost of just trying to watch the show normally? Paramount Global is the only company I know that is a huge offender of such a practice. Ever wondered why the "Everybody Loves Raymond" episodes sound a bit off on TV Land? This is why.

Uh-huh... They picked a really good time to do this, didn't they? A powerful winter storm is pummeling California, and we have to take a break from this coverage to take a group selfie? Of all the days, this is the one they pick? Look, I'm all for letting them have their fun, but please, any other day but a "Storm Alert" day. Same goes for the promos they shot in Studio W.

Okay, so the website, app, and Twitter account have all been updated to reflect the change from Newsy to Scripps News.

They're that proud of their brief "win," huh? Funny how that works.

I think the block that used to be "The '90s Are All That" which eventually became NickRewind was the only reason TeenNick existed in the first place. It was the saving grace for the channel when everything else around it just screamed "A channel that exists only for filler." Even NickRewind succumbed to decay in its final year or so, to the point that the block - which was what got me interested in the '90s and the '80s in the first place - was a sad shell of its former self. Now, TeenNick is the home of "Henry Danger" and "AFV" reruns. Sad, but not surprising, considering MTV has basically inserted itself into a pattern of show "Ridiculousness" almost entirely on loop when nothing new is on, pretend to care when a new episode of a show other than "Ridiculousness" is on, and repeat. No music-related programming at all. This is what television as we know it has come to. Back in the day, you'd have a wide variety of programming to choose from on a wide variety of channels. Now, it's reruns, reruns, reruns. It's crass and exploitative shows posing as inside looks at child pageants or dance teams. It's actively spitting in the faces of viewers who long for the days gone by and showing no remorse for it. It's true crime dramas when there are already too many of them to go around. (Apparently, we haven't learned our lesson with oversaturation, which is what caused The Great Video Game Crash of 1983.) Channels have lost their plot altogether. No care or thought is put into making a good programming lineup anymore. And somehow, TCM remains the shining example of a channel that actually cares about its viewers in the modern age (a trait that has become all but extinct now). Rewind TV, Antenna TV, and MeTV don't count, since they are diginets, but they also show more care than just about the entirety of cable barring live sports.

And this is where I present to you this: https://newsblues.com/2022/07/15/source-megyn-kelly-not-going-to-newsnation/ Megyn Kelly has decided that she will not be joining NewsNation. The date of the article linked is July 15, 2022. Again, would've been mentioned sooner, but because NewsNation is the embodiment of irrelevance...

NewsNation: The 28-3 of News. (You know what 28-3 stands for if you've watched Super Bowl LI.)

As expected... dead last among all the competition in the demo. And for added paltriness, here's how it looks like in the demo... "Eric Bolling: The Balance" on Newsmax - 16,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo "CUOMO" on NewsNation - 8,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo ...and when it comes to total viewership: "Eric Bolling: The Balance" on Newsmax - 151,000 total viewers "CUOMO" on NewsNation - 147,000 total viewers "The Balance" outranked the "CUOMO" premiere in the demo, and it outranked the "CUOMO" premiere in overall viewership. https://www.forbes.com/sites/markjoyella/2022/10/04/chris-cuomos-return-to-prime-time-lands-in-last-place-at-8pm/?sh=2f5d85a03d95 Not a good start so far for Cuomo on NewsNation. Then again, what do you expect? It is NewsNation, after all.

I think I'll just leave this there... AP NEWS: Trump files $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN CNN is the subject of a $475 million defamation lawsuit filed by who else? None other than former President Donald J. Trump. Why? Because he claims CNN smeared his reputation on purpose (that's a lie), conspired to short-circuit his future political campaigns (also a lie), and overused the term "The Big Lie," which refers to Trump's false claims of widespread fraud that he says cost him the 2020 election. Yep. At a time when we're trying to move on from him, let's devote yet another week to Trump vs. CNN! I'm sure that will go over well with the public! Oh, and as far as the lawsuit? Laughable at best.

"Cuomo" premieres tonight at 8pm Eastern on NewsNation. And big news (that we missed, because we thought NewsNation would carry on as if nothing happened): NewsNation preempted all of its programming just under a week ago to devote coverage to Hurricane Ian. https://tvnewscheck.com/journalism/article/newsnation-preempts-programming-to-devote-full-day-coverage-to-hurricane-ian/ We could have covered it sooner, but because this is NewsNation we're talking about (the network that habitually neglects important news that happens outside of their news programming hours)...

Okay, the ratings are in for the first regular season installment of Thursday Night Football on Prime Video, and... Not bad, actually. In fact, I'd say "impressive." The Chargers-Chiefs game from last week averaged 11.8 million viewers on Prime Video, according to Neilsen. When factoring in local over-the-air simulcasts in Kansas City (KSHB) and Los Angeles (KTTV), overall, the game drew 13.3 million viewers. Strong start. https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2022/09/amazon-thursday-night-football-ratings-impressive-debut-chargers-chiefs/

Personally, I don't really consider a Trump rally worthy of breaking news or live coverage, in my opinion, since my consensus of Donald Trump as president is... well... to put it nicely, the opposite of thumbs up. Back on topic, NewsNation has a group of former Fox News people at the helm, including Bill Shine. Of course they're going to go to live coverage of a Trump rally! It's not that surprising. And of course, the Trump rally is within news programming. Would they be doing that if it wasn't? Yes. Any other news besides "You-know-who's Cavalcade of You-know-whats" that actually do warrant live coverage outside of their news hours? Not a chance.

Well, it took them long enough, but NewsNation is indeed airing the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II like the other news outlets instead of doing what they always do when it comes to huge breaking news (miss it habitually, which I honestly was expecting them to do since it's been made clear up until now that they couldn't do anything right).

Figured I'd start this thread now, because there's a major development on the broadcasting front. Despite receiving an offer to remain with the NBA on TNT, Dwayne Wade will be leaving TNT's NBA coverage on his own terms after three seasons. According to the New York Post report from Andrew Marchand, Wade said there were no ill feelings between him and TNT over his decision to leave. https://nypost.com/2022/09/13/dwyane-wade-leaving-tnts-nba-coverage/

Dan Abrams I can do without, thank you very much. I don't need that "Us vs. The World" narrative on my screens anymore, especially after applying it to, of all things, a somber moment from three days ago that literally everyone but NewsNation was covering. I do feel sorry for Marni Hughes, though. (This, by the way, is coming from someone who's watched the channel exactly three times ever since NewsNation started out; twice in the first two days of its life, and once three days ago.)

NewsNation has problems. Lots of problems. Hiring Cuomo isn't going to fix any of them, now that I think about it. Sure, it may increase ratings, but the bottom line is this: They are heavily unreliable when it comes to breaking the news outside of their news schedules. "The Queen passed away at 96?" Too bad, no news for you! "July 4th shooting in Chicago right near WGN station headquarters?" Ha! Tough luck! "King Charles III gives speech?" Better luck next time, television viewers! It's going to take a lot more than just a ratings increase and "star-studded" talent for NewsNation to finally get to the promised land, and having an "Us vs. The World" narrative as perfectly demonstrated on "Dan Abrams Live" two nights ago when the Queen died is absolutely, positively not one of them. It's okay if a news organization doesn't have the resources that other more established organizations have, but to habitually miss out on big news like this? Perhaps the people who hoped NewsNation would improve as time wore on have given false hope to some extent. No wonder NewsNation has become the laughingstock of the news industry, not just from a ratings standpoint, but from a trust standpoint, too.

(deadpan) Oh, yeah. I knew that was coming. Let me guess: "Blue Bloods" over live coverage on the main channel?

Oh, my goodness, NewsNation actually acted quick on big news for once... Color me surprised!