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NewsNation Launch Thread


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Thread Notice: On March 1, 2021 WGN America will rebrand as NewsNation. As it will then become a proper cable news network, this thread documenting the start of the show as it existed on WGN America will be closed on that date. Please consider starting new threads to cover other aspects of the new network.

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On 1/6/2021 at 10:06 AM, polyiguana said:

Looking at the branding of Banfield, is this a Today Third Hour/GMA3 situation? Where it will still be branded as NewsNation and Banfield simultaneously? 

I found it interesting that the commercial they ran tonight, they only used NewsNation branding and not WGN America branding. Makes you wonder...

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19 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

I found it interesting that the commercial they ran tonight, they only used NewsNation branding and not WGN America branding. Makes you wonder...

 

Maybe the entire network at some point will change its name to NewsNation?

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On 12/28/2020 at 5:34 AM, LoadStar said:

Going back to the premature death announcements for NewsNation, here's my rebuttal: if cable operator Spectrum can run 10 different 24-hour news stations, some of which I guarantee get almost no viewers at all (Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin, for example)... I think that Nexstar can afford to run *one* news program on *one* cable channel for quite a while longer.

Spectrum News 1 gets MORE viewers in Southern California than NewsNation gets most nights nationwide. Your argument is a piss poor one since Spectrum has a premium demographic audience that NewsNation will NEVER get. NewsNation is DEAD. Never has been alive. The biggest laugh I get everyday is their promos claiming it's live at 8 pm when it airs on Spectrum SoCal live from 5 to 8 PM.

 

Sell WGN America now as its losing value everyday. Running public service freebies isn't serving the shareholders. 

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1 hour ago, CalItalian2 said:

Spectrum News 1 gets MORE viewers in Southern California than NewsNation gets most nights nationwide. Your argument is a piss poor one since Spectrum has a premium demographic audience that NewsNation will NEVER get.

Spectrum News has the advantage of being a 'start channel' on Spectrum boxes that many viewers don't change because they don't know what that feature is on a Spectrum box, and thanks to the Weather Channel's programming strategy, the one place you know you can get the weather at fixed times, no matter what. It does serve a need, and does have an audience...and it also has sports team tie-ins, so the viewership is there.

 

Meanwhile NewsNation has to market to a bunch of out-of-demographic cranks who took the removal of Blue Bloods and In the Heat of the Night reruns in primetime as a personal affront. Without getting rid of their rerun programming, WGNA just won't build the audience they want. 

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19 hours ago, CalItalian2 said:

Spectrum News 1 gets MORE viewers in Southern California than NewsNation gets most nights nationwide. Your argument is a piss poor one since Spectrum has a premium demographic audience that NewsNation will NEVER get. NewsNation is DEAD. Never has been alive. The biggest laugh I get everyday is their promos claiming it's live at 8 pm when it airs on Spectrum SoCal live from 5 to 8 PM.

 

Sell WGN America now as its losing value everyday. Running public service freebies isn't serving the shareholders. 

 

Out of curiosity, what is the viewership numbers for Spectrum News 1 LA? Its not covered by Nielsen and have not seen any tangible numbers released by Spectrum comparing viewership numbers. Spectrum is only in about 1.25 million homes in the LA market so it would be a very tall order to be getting higher viewership numbers than NewsNation that is available to 75 million households. This means that 10% of spectrum users are turning into Spectrum News which is not happening. 

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3 hours ago, ehatt493 said:

Appears NewsNation is covering the Inauguration this morning/afternoon. First big event after Nexstar got WGNA carriage on YTTV (and any cable company that carries a Nexstar station)

Nexstar Media’s Cable Network, WGN America, Names Jonathan Killian Vice President, Creative Marketing and Brand Communications

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9 minutes ago, Weeters said:

According to Robert Feder, WGN America will officially become "NewsNation" on March 1st.

 

https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/01/25/rebranded-newsnation-moving-joe-donlon-solo-news-hour-6-p-m/

 

No word on what happens to the syndicated reruns...


I bet a morning show is right around the corner.

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42 minutes ago, Weeters said:

According to Robert Feder, WGN America will officially become "NewsNation" on March 1st.

 

https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/01/25/rebranded-newsnation-moving-joe-donlon-solo-news-hour-6-p-m/

 

No word on what happens to the syndicated reruns...

Last Man Standing might go to a different station in Chicago and just air locally. It’s already on CMT anyway.

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1 hour ago, Weeters said:

According to Robert Feder, WGN America will officially become "NewsNation" on March 1st.

 

https://www.robertfeder.com/2021/01/25/rebranded-newsnation-moving-joe-donlon-solo-news-hour-6-p-m/

 

No word on what happens to the syndicated reruns...

According to Nexstar's official release, the news programming will only be five hours at first, so I'm guessing the syndicated shows will remain on the network until contracts expire. As they do, additional news shows will be added would be my guess.

 

Although I guess it's possible Nexstar fills the non-news slots with paid programming like CNBC does on weekends.

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1 hour ago, Weeters said:

According to Feder, WGN America will officially become "NewsNation" on March 1st.

Unsurprising, but a great vote of confidence by the company. I like what i saw so far so I can't wait for this expansion.

 

1 hour ago, Weeters said:

No word on what happens to the syndicated reruns...

After a while, the word will be "gone".

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49 minutes ago, Nelson R. said:

Last Man Standing might go to a different station in Chicago and just air locally. It’s already on CMT anyway.

Last man Standing actually airs on "WGN 9" during the 8pm hour I believe.

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59 minutes ago, Action Newsroom said:

Unsurprising, but a great vote of confidence by the company. I like what i saw so far so I can't wait for this expansion.

 

Great vote of confidence or we have no other plans for this property so we might as well keep throwing money at it since it's Compton's baby.

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1 hour ago, Georgie56 said:

 

 

4 hours ago, Georgie56 said:


I bet a morning show is right around the corner.

And you'd be right. This summer, according to the Twitter video.

 

BTW, it probably would have made more sense to keep the WGN America branding until all syndicated content was purged from the lineup (or at least from daytime). It makes less sense for a network evolving from a rerun farm to a news channel to use a universal news-centric name than it does for a local station that just offers news, syndies and network shows to use such a brand on a generalized basis.

 

Also, technically NewsNation would be offering eight hours of news per day starting in March, on account of the channel already replaying the prime time NewsNation broadcast at 11:00 ET and Banfield likely going to be replayed within the existing three-hour replay block in late-access/late night when it premieres.

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All the syndicated programming they have is on other networks anyway, so no real loss there.

 

It sounds very weird that they're already changing the name with non-news programming still airing for the time being. I agree with keeping the WGN America branding until the network exclusively goes all-news.

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I hope they plan on filling the time with news-related programming, or else we'll have another HLN on our hands, except this time, they're focusing on the evenings and working backward..

 

It would make sense to keep the WGN America brand around at least until the programming is changed totally over to news.  Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite has done this for years, going all the way back to when channels didn't fill the entire day and relied on others to maximize the channel slot.

 

The question is, what would they fill the time with... might as well fill it with news-related shows like Mary Tyler Moore, NewsRadio, Early Edition, Murphy Brown, and maybe some movies like Network, Anchorman, Newsies, and the like...😆

 

So on March 1st, the superstation could be officially declared dead.  Even though WGN America long-ago separated from it's parent station in Chicago, and likewise with WTBS slipping away, it's the end of an era for sure, since both stations played a part in the rise of basic cable TV and all of the channels that followed.

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42 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I hope they plan on filling the time with news-related programming, or else we'll have another HLN on our hands, except this time, they're focusing on the evenings and working backward..

 

It would make sense to keep the WGN America brand around at least until the programming is changed totally over to news.  Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite has done this for years, going all the way back to when channels didn't fill the entire day and relied on others to maximize the channel slot.

 

The question is, what would they fill the time with... might as well fill it with news-related shows like Mary Tyler Moore, NewsRadio, Early Edition, Murphy Brown, and maybe some movies like Network, Anchorman, Newsies, and the like...😆

 

So on March 1st, the superstation could be officially declared dead.  Even though WGN America long-ago separated from it's parent station in Chicago, and likewise with WTBS slipping away, it's the end of an era for sure, since both stations played a part in the rise of basic cable TV and all of the channels that followed.

Agreed on the final point. However, what would be funny is to see the reaction on Twitter from someone on either Last Man Standing or Blue Bloods upon finding out from a viewer on Twitter they're broadcasting on a channel called NewsNation (and having no idea what is going on re: the impending rebrand)! 😁

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2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I hope they plan on filling the time with news-related programming, or else we'll have another HLN on our hands, except this time, they're focusing on the evenings and working backward..

 

 

They could do a 5 hr. morning newscast (7A-12P CST, repeat 12-5P CST) followed by the new evening lineup (and a repeat of that) and they're set for the day. On the weekends, tap the Nexstar affiliates to help supplement news coverage during the day. This would be the most-cost effective way to get things going without wasting a ton of money.

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35 minutes ago, jase said:

 

They could do a 5 hr. morning newscast (7A-12P, repeat 12-5P) followed by the new evening lineup (and a repeat of that) and they're set for the day. On the weekends, tap the Nexstar affiliates to help supplement news coverage during the day. This would be the most-cost effective way to get things going without wasting a ton of money.

They would still need to find something from 5-6pm, probably they would expand the 6-7pm news to that hour.

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Even though it's off to a slow start, Nexstar ultimately benefited from getting Tribune and the WGN properties.  To think had Sinclair succeeded in getting both (either by succeeding with the sham WGN deal or not) they would have ultimately done the same thing, except for the stuff we all know Sinclair is (in)famous for....  Now we have a new national news channel in the works, powered by the largest group of stations in America, as well as a stated commitment to truly be "fair and balanced".

 

The implosion of the deal made Nexstar the winner, and twice as big as Sinclair as a result.  Sinclair thought they won the battle by getting WGN's most prized and storied asset (The Chicago Cubs), but ended up shooting themselves in the foot once again.  This as a result of posturing with Marquee, demanding too much money for their RSN's they bought from FOX, and the COVID-19 pandemic making all of these RSN's virtually worthless.  Nexstar may be greedy with their retrans deals, but at least they are going about adding WGN America/NewsNation smartly, gaining favor with the OTT systems, unlike Sinclair alienating them with their demands and leaving sports viewers out in the cold.

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