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Nexstar...again


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With broadcasting, you take one stream (or multiples) on a piece of frequency and anyone within the signal contour can receive it.

 

Broadband allows for an infinite number of streams to be sent from point a to point b wherever they are connected.

 

In terms of a multi-channel universe, broadband is scalable because you can pick and choose what you want to watch and the provider has the ability to infinitely expand what they provide.   All that is being transmitted is what the user requests to watch, and the data is sent.

 

Whereas other providers are given a set bandwidth and have to shoehorn their content to it. Digital means have stretched this, but it is still a defined limit to how it can be sent, bandwidth-wise.

Edited by tyrannical bastard
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But you still have to pay the bills. I'm just throwing numbers out, but let's say that internet bandwidth costs you four times as much as every cost you have to incur to get out your product out OTA. Unless the revenue is also there by being able to sell to advertisers a way to focus their advertising message more efficiently, it sounds like a shaky proposition.

 

Maybe the revenue will be there in the future, but is it there now? And do they want to cannibalize their less costly form of delivery for something that costs them more?

 

I've become hooked on these free video streaming services, particularly Pluto and Tubi. (That's also why I'm also down on broadcast TV.) For now, the ads are very reasonable. But because of what we've discussed, I wonder if these services are making any kind of a profit or will in the future

 

We'll see how things shake out.

Edited by DirtyHarry
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6 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Another consequence of Nexstar's past digital mishaps, their unwieldy, hard to find, and god-awful website names they launched at many of their stations pre-Media General merger.   Even worse, in some cases they let the original, simple, call letter websites lapse so either they are now orphaned or have been swallowed up by cyber squatters.

 

And to add even more insult to injury in Green Bay, their website is still WeAreGreenBay.com. 

 

WFRVLocal5.com appears to be available, why not consolidate everything under the same name?

 

Oh wait it's Nexstar....nevermind....🤦‍♂️

 

Sometimes I forget that the average viewer doesn't memorize callsigns like we geeks do. Those horrible domains hadn't even occurred to me as a problem, so much as just stupid.

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Depends - abc6onyourside.com is easy to remember even though if it is a little unwieldy, because they've been using that slogan off and on for 30 years for more. They used to use wsyx6.com, which also isn't bad. (The domain for the Fox station myfox28columbus.com is not as easy but you can get there with a little guessing.) Likewise, 10tv.com, local12.com, nbc4i.com, wlwt.com, wishtv.com, wthr.com and several others are very easy to remember.

 

What they have in common is they reinforce a station slogan or nickname, legendary call letters (after 74 years, people know WLWT) or call letters that mean something. If you live in Indianapolis, you will know the WTHR call letters because THR means Channel 13, the call letters are 45 years old and the station is top rated as opposed to being the 9th ranked UHF station. Likewise, SYX means "6" and that's easy enough.

 

Adding "my" to the beginning also isn't bad and neither is "your." The domain for one of the LPTVs here is yourtv22.com, which isn't bad. They also have their domain name up on each of their sub channels when they flash their station ID at the top of each hour.

Edited by DirtyHarry
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These above posts just reaffirms that WJZY/WMYT is going to bounced away from Nexstar like a ball. Nexstar has barely integrated the Charlotte Fox/MyTV duo because it knows it won't possess the stations for long. They know the market is too competitive and rapidly growing to be lazy...

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11 hours ago, TheRyan said:

If Nexstar isn't planning to keep WJZY, then why build them a new set?  It makes zero sense to give them a new set if they would just sell them right after.

 

Same reason WBNS invested millions in a slick new newsroom and why Sears and Kmart were closing newly remodeled stores. You spiff it up to make it pretty to sell.

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Some of the prior moves by Nexstar just defied common sense of websites.   These unwieldly names buried the branding and identity of the stations, while simple and short addresses.  The smart thing to do is keep the old address around for redirecting purposes, and some (now part of Nexstar) got smart, and did like WJW and adopted Fox8.com, ditching the myfoxcleveland.com instituted by Fox earlier.   

 

Going into the mobile era, these shorter websites are much easier to type than the longer unwieldy ones.

 

In the breakup of Newport, Inergize was one of the divisions that became part of Nexstar and ended up taking a lot of the old websites with them.   This was a problem for some of the stations that were not picked up by Nexstar but spun off to other owners like Sinclair.  Stations like WHP got burned and ended up with Local21news.com, as opposed to what they had before.  

 

As a side effect of the reallocation in Columbus, "Fox 28" still has the myfox28columbus.com while WTTE itself now has WTTE28.com, which was the original address that Sinclair started for them and basically used the same pattern for most of their stations at the time.  Nice and simple.

 

Essentially going forward branding is going to be anything these stations have, channel numbers aren't going to matter (especially on OTT services)

 Catchy and easy to remember is going to be the key, and so is a long established brand to a legacy product.

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2 hours ago, east-tx-tv said:

Nexstar tried "easttexasmatters.com" at KETK and KFXK for a while, but thankfully (and quietly) brought on the easier ketk.com and previous fox51.com domains instead in recent months.

I think they had ketk.com and fox51.com during the ComCorp era. I remember after Nexstar bought them, they had myeasttex.com then eventually went to easttexasmatters.com. To me, the ketk.com and fox51.com domain names are better......

 

Come to think of it, I wonder who the people are/were at Nexstar that came up with the idea of the domain name of (insert cute description of area).com for their station web sites; also come to think of it, I wonder if any of them are still there!! 😯

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1 hour ago, J1975am said:

I think they had ketk.com and fox51.com during the ComCorp era. I remember after Nexstar bought them, they had myeasttex.com then eventually went to easttexasmatters.com. To me, the ketk.com and fox51.com domain names are better......

 

Come to think of it, I wonder who the people are/were at Nexstar that came up with the idea of the domain name of (insert cute description of area).com for their station web sites; also come to think of it, I wonder if any of them are still there!! 😯

MyPanhandle.com (wmbb.com), but the WMBB.com no longer works.

 

This was one of the Hoak stations they picked up because Gray had WJHG in the market, which they have owned since the 50s.

 

I think some of the assets did end up with Gray, like the WMBB transmitter stick, which WJHG now operates from as well.

 

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2 hours ago, J1975am said:

Come to think of it, I wonder who the people are/were at Nexstar that came up with the idea of the domain name of (insert cute description of area).com for their station web sites; also come to think of it, I wonder if any of them are still there!! 😯

I’m pretty sure it was the idea of Blake Russell, who’s very much still there. I guess as his role got larger at the company, maybe it was less important to him, and maybe there was pushback from legacy Media General stations about changing over (their IT head now oversees that function for Nexstar, so maybe he played a role in influencing legacy Nexstar heads the other way)? They also wisely changed their domain registrar from GoDaddy to CSC Corporate around the same time (that’s who LIN and subsequently MG was using).


While most of the flip backs to previous domains came from recent pre-MG Nexstar acquisitions, some legacy stations (like WCIA and KARK) changed back as well. It made sense in KARK’s case because KLRT continues to have Fox16.com and was never integrated into KARK’s ArkansasMatters.com.

 

44 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

MyPanhandle.com (wmbb.com), but the WMBB.com no longer works.

 

Don’t forget they were “PanhandleParade.com” (dumber name) under the latter Hoak days before changing to MyPanhandle.com. They also let the registration on that lapse as well it seems.

 

44 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I think some of the assets did end up with Gray, like the WMBB transmitter stick, which WJHG now operates from as well.

 

Nope, it’s owned by Nexstar.

https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistration.jsp?regKey=606308
 

Gray does operate from the tower as a tenant, paying rent to Nexstar.

Edited by sanewsguy
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Incorrect information. But yes, Blake is still there. He’s the creator of their look, sets and news operations. He’s done a great job making sure local is consistent in messaging and not looking like Tegna, Gray or Sinclair with their very copy/paste approach. 

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7 hours ago, Sendir said:

Incorrect information. But yes, Blake is still there. He’s the creator of their look, sets and news operations. He’s done a great job making sure local is consistent in messaging and not looking like Tegna, Gray or Sinclair with their very copy/paste approach. 

Really? I could have sworn I read somewhere years ago that he came up with the idea of having those unique domain names while running KNWA and corporate liked it and decided to expand it to the whole group.

 

Not sure I understand your statement "local is consistent in messaging and not looking like Tegna, Gray or Sinclair with their very copy/paste approach." 

 

Sinclair is pretty homogenous in their approach (I know very well having familiarity with their operations, so I'm not surprised). But TEGNA and Gray seem to leave a lot of the direction of their stations up to the local management as well. TEGNA does seem more willing to take risks. But Gray and Nexstar take very similar approaches to local news (both are trying to play catch-up on digital and broadcast is still a priority). 

 

Now that I think about it, I don't even think Gray has a corporate VP in charge of news unlike the other companies named here.

Edited by sanewsguy
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I was glad that Nexstar kept WoodTV and didn't try with lame name to the station I'd guess it would've said something with West Michigan in the domain if they didn't keep the WoodTV domain. WZZM went to 13onmyside domain a few years ago I think in the spring of 2018 it was the call letters for the domain. WXMI when it was Tribune changed the domain 11 years ago from the call letters to Fox17Online domain should've kept the call letters for the domain just my opinion short is the way to go. 

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Not that I watch a great deal of Antenna, but this may be a positive move in that Antenna could bring back more pre-80’s programming that hasn’t been seen in a while. More shows, now spread across two channels. 
 

I don’t know what Nexstar’s national diginet contracts are, but here in Philly WPHL carries Antenna, CourtTV and Comet. Both court AND comet are also carried on other stations in the market, so I could see either easily dropped to launch this (no, not that This channel, this channel…😆)

 

 

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3 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

Nexstar is launching a new diginet to complement with Antenna TV. Rewind TV

I'm so excited. It sounds great to have a diginet to air 80s and 90s sitcoms, and it came at a great time.

 

I love watching Antenna TV (and has been since the week it launched), but I do get frustrated when some shows I watch from the 60s and 70s are gone from the lineup. Rewind would definitely give Antenna more space to put back previously-aired shows (and maybe debut some new ones) on the schedule. 

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Looks like what Nexstar is doing is splitting Antenna TV as we know it into two networks.  Antenna TV will have the older shows and Rewind TV will have the newer shows (from the 80s and 90s) along with some additions Antenna TV hasn't had on yet.

 

Another casualty could be MeTV, especially since we're nearing the decade mark where Media General purged out RTV in favor of MeTV in many of their markets.  I"m sure Nexstar would rather carry an owned network over someone else's when the contracts expire.  Now the question is, will this harm MeTV if this is the case? 

I'm told MeTV does VERY well in the ratings in certain markets, with some key demos.

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