Challenging economic conditions have claimed another national industry trade publication. Citing “escalating challenges in the industry’s business environment,” TVNewsCheck has paused operations as it works to build a subscriber base for a new offering called TVN Plus. The pause follows last year’s shutdown of news at All Access, which covered the radio and music industries.
Noon and weekend newscasts have been dropped from CTV’s CKY-DT/7 (Winnipeg) as part of 4,800 job cuts across Bell Media. The cuts drew the ire of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. CTV reported that all but one market lost noon news and all but three lost weekend news. There are no other local midday TV newscasts in Winnipeg while the Global and Citytv stations continue weekend news.
Following December’s retirement of Jeff Wagner, Good Karma News/Talker WTMJ/620 (Milwaukee) announced it is revamping its midday lineup and adding a two-hour lunchtime news block matching its morning and afternoon drive programming. “Wisconsin’s Midday News” with Greg Matzek and Jessica Tighe will air from 11 to 1 starting Monday, Feb. 19. Meanwhile, current 9 to Noon host Steve Scaffidi will host “Political Power Hour” in the 9 a.m. hour followed by Jeff Sherman‘s “The Upswing” at 10. In the afternoon, former Civic Media midday host Kristin Brey is joining WTMJ for “Spanning the State” from 1 to 3 p.m. WTMJ will also add the Madison-based Mid-West Farm Report in the 5 a.m. hour in place of a second hour of America’s First News with Gordon Deal, which continues at 4 a.m. The Journal Sentinel notes that the changes mark a continued shift away from Conservative Talk.
Meanwhile, Civic Media announced that Margaret Daun is leaving her longtime role as Milwaukee County Corporation Counsel to become the company’s general counsel and host an expanded show from 2 to 4 p.m. weekdays on 11 Civic stations, including WAUK/540 (Jackson-Milwaukee).
More TV stations have confirmed that they will be carrying ten Milwaukee Bucks games this year: Gray TV announced that the games will air on WBAY (Green Bay), WSAW/WYOW (Wausau-Eagle River), and WEAU/WECX-LD (Eau Claire-La Crosse), while Morgan Murphy Media’s WISC (Madison) announced that it will carry the games. As noted here over the past couple of weeks, the games will air in Milwaukee on Weigel’s WDJT/WMLW and also be carried on Tegna’s WQAD (Moline-Quad Cities). A few of the games will air on big-four network-affiliated channels while the rest will run on other channels.
Meteorologist Jared Piepenburg has joined FOX owned-and-operated KMSP/9 (Minneapolis) as morning meteorologist.
North Dakota’s Prairie Public has made changes to its Sunday radio schedule, adding “The Ezra Klein Show” at 9 a.m. and “Open to Debate” at 5 p.m. Online listings show the network has also dropped a three-hour block of Classical music on Sunday evenings, moving “From the Top” from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and “To the Best of Our Knowledge” from 9 p.m. to 6 p.m. while adding “Mountain Stage” from 8 to 10 p.m.
In case you missed it here:
- Station Goes Classic Rock with Launch of Suburban Milwaukee Signal
- Iowa Public Radio Buys Third Des Moines FM Signal
- Ops Manager Buys Marks Radio Stations in Montana, North Dakota
- CRTC Approves New Multicultural Radio, TV Stations in Winnipeg
- FCC Monitor: New Iowa FM, Five New Upper Midwest LPFM’s Granted
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Disclosure: Jon Ellis is an employee of Gray Media Group. The statements and views expressed in this posting are his own and do not reflect those of Gray Media Group.