Versant

MS Now logo

 Versant are the new group that have MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), USA Network, CNBC (which will stay the same), E!, Rotten Tomatoes (although a film review site, not a network), Bravo, Syfy, and the Golf Channel. Comcast are spinning off NBCUniversals cable group into a separate company with their own NASDAQ ticker to boot. Resident morning power couple Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski even said on air that they had to move to a new studio. USA Network may still have the Law & Order franchise since Scripps's ION and Fox's MyNetworkTV do as well. Not sure if it'd go back to how it was in the old days before sister company Studios USA briefly absorbed Universal Television. The channels with scripted and reality shows should start to come up with new, original programming instead of resting on their laurels and relying on reruns of old guard classics in order to compete with streaming. Versant are a fresh new, young company with several assets carrying decades-old legacies.

Sign above TV at Planet Fitness revised.

CBS 5 WKOF

Logo for the now-WKOF

 On their 77th anniversary, and for the first time in nearly five decades, CBS 5 WTVH at CNYcentral will change their call sign again, this time to WKOF. It is unknown why, yet periodically, stations just register new letters with the FCC. The station was originally WHEN and on channel 8 until the letters were just for the radio station on AM 620 and the Rochester affiliate WROC moved to that position, putting then-WHEN on channel 5. To boot, the tier will move to 15.1-15.3, stemming from WKOF's low-power signal on analogue, even though nobody uses that anymore, and TBD have rebranded as ROAR, switching to comedy as extreme sports, viral videos, and documentaries just moved elsewhere. Charge! is on 15.2. Just the few who still use terrestrial have to rescan as of December 1. It's automatic for everyone else. It's the lone station owned by Granite in an LSA with Sinclair. Maybe Granite could buy overlapping Tegna stations that Nexstar can't get, but that's for another day. As for the new call sign, no one knows what they stand for, since not all of them really have to mean anything. They just can't be offensive. The 5.1 signal and longtime callsign are now just used for ROAR instead in a bit of a switch. CBS 5 is still channel 5 on cable, satellite and streaming, just like sister station CW 6 one channel up (it used to be on channel 6 on cable in the city, but this is not Albany). The over-60s in CNY may have known just 3, 5 and 9 since 1962 when the latter started, yet the local landscape for TV has to adapt to emerging technologies. Any change in life or on the air will take getting used to. WKOF could even mean What's Kenneth's Old Frequency? (REM reference, even though they did radio a bit more). It's more because of ATSC 3.0 that this swap has occurred, with CBS 5 being the main priority, and ROAR is low-rated, yet on a higher frequency. This could mean more small networks could fill the tier that are not yet in the Syracuse DMA, but that will be for another post because that needs much more research.

New logo cheaply edited on MS Paint

Logo obtained from Wikimedia Commons. CBS are a Skydance Corporation.

Nexstar-Tegna merger and WNY

NBC 2 WGRZ On Your Side studios in Buffalo; 16 August 2021.

Andre Carrotflower, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 TV station conglomerates Nexstar and Tegna have announced their merger. Of course, this needs approval from the FCC and FTC, and some stations will have to be sold off, particularly where they overlap. One area I know is Buffalo. Tegna, which spun off of USA Today owner Gannett in 2015, own NBC 2 WGRZ, their only station in New York State, while owning many NBC affiliates in other states. Nexstar are far bigger, owning NBC 2's competitor CBS 4 WIVB, as well as CNY's ABC affiliates NewsChannel 9 WSYR in Syracuse and ABC 20 WUTR in Utica to name a few. Since Buffalo is a larger market than Syracuse, having the boys' turf nearby for added ratings to boot, having it like CNYcentral back in my area may not work, which has CW 6, while CBS 4 is sister to O&O CW 23 WNLO. So much for WNYcentral, if you like. NBC 4 could be sold to Hearst, Hubbard, Weigel, Mission, Cox, Gray (who have CBS 12 WBNG in Binghamton and CBS 7 WWNY in Watertown in the state to date), or Deltavision (who just bought CBS 12's rival Fox 40 WICZ and their sister stations Fox 68 WSYT/my 43 WNYS). Scripps already have yet another WNY station, ABC 7 WKBW along with ION (who have the affiliate for Buffalo and Rochester run out of Batavia), while Sinclair have Fox 29 WUTV and my 49 WNYO. Even in the age of streaming, these deals are still lucrative. Tegna also own ABC 16 WNEP in the Scranton/Wilkes Barre area, the other NBC 3 WKYC in Cleveland, and flagship CBS 9 WUSA in Washington, DC. As for NBC 2 and in other markets in the same boat, Nexstar CEO Perry Sook said he won't have his and Tegnas stations operations combined, so it's likely these will all be sold over the next year or so, even as FCC policies are changing.

American Dad!: 20 Years On

Roger and Klaus at ComicCon in San Diego County, 2007

 Two decades after it started and over once since it changed networks, American Dad! is coming home to Fox after eleven series at TBS. The Warner Bros.-Discovery merger has not been the best move, and studio brass David Zaslav is getting much of the blame. Even the studios own animated legacy isn't safe, with the classic catalogue dropped from Max and a third-party distributor reportedly finally releasing Coyote vs Acme after being held back. Disney actually own American Dad! and other 20th titles, and they maintain a working relationship with Fox several years after their separation, while the latter have also started their own shows. In the age of streaming, Hulu would also carry all of these along with the Fox app. One stipulation is that Dad! won't be quite as edgy anymore since it will be back on terrestrial, and can go no further than related series Family Guy. I won't have to subscribe to Hulu or go to a pirate site to watch new episodes anymore. I can watch it locally like old times for pennies. It's just that some shows have to be put on hiatus for a period, and there's still an emphasis on reality shows and live-action scripted series. American Dad! should last more than three years' time when they return in September to outlive their run on TBS, where they'll still have reruns until 2030. 

Fox and WOLF

Gnax the Fox furry and Wolfhard the red WOLF furry

 It turns out there are two stations called WOLF affiliated with Fox; one being Fox Sports Radio right here in Syracuse where I am, and the other being a TV station in Northeast Pennsylvania, which is why the post is based there. With Fox Sports Syracuse 92.5 FM and AM 1490, the latter original station used to be Top 40, hip hop/R&B/urban contemporary, and Radio Disney. Fox 56 is in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. The two are unrelated, and the FCC can allow a radio station in one market and a TV station in another to have the same callsign. While I've known about both for a long time (the local one longer, of course), I only recently learned that the one in my hometown are now part of Fox Sports. Terrestrial network radio hasn't been as much of a thing in the US since TV became more dominant in the '50s. Stiff competition from Spotify, Sirius XM and podcasts make it obsolete. Network TV also has less relevance today because of streaming, and Lackawanna and Wyoming Valleys are a "UHF island" because of VHF cross-signal interference with the tri-state, Philadelphia quad-state, and NYs Southern Tier (mainly just CBS 12 WBNG in Binghamton now, while analogue channels 6, 8, and 10 were retired, even after 2009s DTV mandate and LP/CD [not that kind] exemption). To boot, Craig Fox owns the WOLF in CNY (he is likely not related to the late William Fox, founder of the original Fox studio). He is a presenter who owns several radio stations in the region. Now that's irony. It takes a Fox to know Fox, or one Canidae to another.

Merit Street TV from Dr Phil

Dr Phil McGraw in Jackson County on 9 October 2008. Courtesy Craig O'Neal. CC-by-NC-ND-2.0

 Dr Phil McGraw is Americas therapist. Since Oprah Winfreys beef with beef in 1998 in Amarillo, TX, his tough love tactics have made him a household name. Dr Phil aired in first-run syndication from 2002-23 for twenty-one series (on NBC 3 and CW 6 in CNY). Now he and his wife Robyn have returned to their North Texas/South Oklahoma roots and moved back to the DFW area and started Merit Street Media. While there have been bumps along the road, Merit Street has taken the brand to a new place. However, less than half the country can get it on terrestrial or even cable if they don't want to get the app or their streaming service doesn't provide it yet either. Dish and DirecTV have it coast to coast, as do some streamers. RabbitEars have an affiliate list with some major markets and smaller cities. On Merit Streets own site, you just put in your zip code as would with the old guard to see how to watch in your area (this is how you "Check your local listings" in todays world). In mine, all three major station groups have room on their tiers, while the flagship in the tri-state carry Merit Street on two smaller stations, one being frontline and the other with two more upstart networks that need their own articles, which will have to wait for another day, since I've focused more on the sister blog lately and other other one on occasion. It'd take forever to canvas roughly 200 markets to see who has room, but even the lowest rated ones (population-wise by the Nielsens standards) could somehow squeeze it in somewhere.
    Dr Phil is as much a quotefest as Yogi Berra or any classic film, and his southern wisdom guides me to this day, and I could use him with my own personal issues, even though his Primetime show is not quite the same as its predecessor. He is now independent from CBS/Paramount, which is about to change hands again, which may have been a factor in breaking out of LA and the post-postwar studio system (the infancy of television was a catalyst for the studios' spinoff of cinemas, but not right now).

UPDATE (3 July 2025): Merit TV have entered administration, so there may not be much expansion at this time, since they're showing reruns for now. The partnership with TBN has also soured, with pending litigation. Dr Phil and Steve Harvey have launched the content-driven app Envoy Media Co.