Shreveport Station Names Husband/Wife Anchor team

KTAL/Channel 6/Shreveport has announced its new anchor team for the station's weekday evening newscasts,5, 6, 10.  The husband/wife team of Dan and Jacque Jovic will be anchoring all three weekday evening newscasts.  The Jovics joined KTAL in October 2012, Dan has been the morning co-anchor and Jacque has been the evening co-anchor.  It's not known who will be the new co-anchor of the morning program.   Nick LaFave left the station in August. 

KARK Hopes the Early Bird Gets the Viewers.....

KARK/Channel 4/Little Rock has announced changes to its morning program.  Beginning Monday, September 29th KARK Today will begin at 4am...and have new faces.  A press release says the 4am to 5am hour will be hosted by Aaron Nolan and meteorologist Natalie Walters.  

"We've seen a trend of people waking up earlier and either turning on the television or jumping on social media," said KARK 4 News Director Austin Kellerman.  "This additional hour will be targeted specifically to them."

 Mallory Brooks and meteorologist Greg Dee will join the pair for the 5am to 7am hours.  KARK Today will be the earliest starting morning program in the Little Rock market as all the others begin at 4:30am. 

Former KTHV Sportscaster Passes Away

Former KTHV/Channel 11/Little Rock Sportscaster Max Morgan has passed away.  Morgan was on the air at Channel 11 during the 1980's.  According to KTHV, Morgan left Little Rock in 1989 for Baltimore..then on to KDFW in Dallas for 20 years.  Morgan was in the hospital being treated for congestive heard failure and passed away Monday.   KTHV has a tribute posted on its website. 

7 Is The One in July 2014

Better late than never huh?  The numbers from the July Nielson Ratings book are in.  Arkansas Business.com has all the numbers and analysis for your viewing pleasure.   The numbers show KATV swept all but one of the news broadcasts for the month of July. 

KATV Hires New Weekend Sports Guy

Well KATV/Channel 7/Little Rock seems to have found its new weekend sports anchor.  Kyle Deckelbaum from WKBT/Channel 8/La Crosse, WI is joing the Channel 7 crew.  Kyle is a Washington DC native.Kyle posted his departure from WKBT on its sports face book page.

KATV Weekend Sports Anchor Says Goodbye

KATV/Channel 7/Little Rock weekend sports anchor Robert Burton signed off Sunday night.Burton is moving to Washington DC 's WJLA.   Burton had been  at channel 7 since 2011.  

KTAL Texarkana Newsroom Evacuated...

This from the tip box:

KTAL TV Texarkana newsroom evacuated today after suspicious substance/device found inside.

I wasn't even aware had a live living newsroom in Texarkana anymore.  I know they have their call letters and logo on the outside of a building on Summerhill Road.  I thought when they pulled out of Central Mall that was it for a studio/newsroom in Texarkana.

Long Time NWA Anchor Leaving

KNWA has announced long time anchor Neile Jones is leaving the station.

The announcement states Jones will be moving to Tulsa, Oklahoma to be closer to her family. Jones joined KNWA in 1997. You'll find the entire announcement HERE

More Raycom Crap

I wonder why Raycom doesn't tell its viewers the full story as they seem to want to continue to dawg Direct TV.  I would think they would be thanking Direct TV and paying them as without Direct TV the station's wouldn't have many viewers as it has.  Take a gander at what WMBF..yes a Raycom station posted about Direct TV. 

RAYCOM MEDIA JUST THE FACTS
Raycom Media is a company built on local news. As journalists we pride ourselves on sticking to The Facts as opposed to the conjecture and opinion DIRECTV is sending to customers and Washington.

Here are the facts:

• DirecTV earned $2.3 BILLION dollars in 2013, and their profits were up 14%, yet they profess to be "fighting to hold costs down for their subscribers."
• DIRECTV has removed stations from its lineup at least 12 times in the last 3 years as a negotiating and political tactic, including another broadcaster, just last week.
• Since our last agreement with DIRECTV, Raycom Media has successfully negotiated more than 200 agreements without disruption to our viewers. That's a 99% success rate.
• In the history of our company only 3 providers have removed our stations from their system-DIRECTV being one of them.
• Raycom Media looks forward to working with DIRECTV to turn our agreement in principle into a final, fully-binding document. We fully support the terms both parties agreed to Sunday and hope DIRECTV will too.

 Local TV isn't worth paying for.  They preach you will miss your news, weather and sports...really!?!?  The internet is available 24/7 with all that information.  Maybe stations can take those pennies they get from the sat and cable companies and get some reporters/anchors worth watching.  Direct TV and the others should hold out longer..long enough to hurt the station's ratings. Then see whose pocket book it really works. You lose viewers by being greedy you will soon suffer. 

Channel 7 Promotions Director Leaving

KATV/Channel 7/Little Rock promotion manager Rob Thomas is leaving Arkansas.  A post on Well Dunn Talent's blog confirms his move.  The blog says he will be heading to Louisville, KY and working at Raycom NBC affiliate WAVE-TV.  Thomas had been with Channel 7 for 6 years.

Raycom Ends Retrans Spat With Direct TV

Raycom broadcast channels, including KSLA/Channel 12/Shreveport are back on Direct TV.  Raycom says it has reached an agreement "in principle" with Direct TV.  Raycom stations have been off Direct TV since September 1st due to failing to have a new retransmission agreement in place.   In a news release Raycom Media President and CEO, Paul McTear stated, “We appreciate our viewer's patience. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank them for their loyalty to their local stations throughout this process. We are very pleased to be, once again, serving them on the DirecTV system and will keep them informed as we work to finalize this agreement.”

Of course the specifics of the agreement will not be released...I would be just curious as to what the "fair market value" of KSLA's signal really is.......


Now we wonder how much Direct TV subscriber's bills will go up.   

Additional: 9.8.14  Direct TV commented on the deal:

We thank all of our affected customers for their patience over these past several days and regret that Raycom and too many other broadcast stations are willing to resort to these contrived blackouts to antagonize the public rather than serve it,” said Dan York, chief content officer at DIRECTV.

“Broadcast station groups who ransom their content back into their communities at exorbitant fees deserve the scrutiny of the Federal Communications Commission and local Congressional representatives. Raycom's intentional recent black outs of DISH, Cox and now DIRECTV customers creates an even greater sense of urgency for lawmakers to review and overhaul this anti-consumer retransmission consent process once and for all.”

Someone PLEASE Tell KSLA It Is NOT a Cable Channel.....

Raycom/KSLA/Channel 12/Shreveport continues to be dark on Direct TV.  What is so funny is KSLA's latest tactics in defending its reason for charging Direct TV "fair market value" for its signal.  Check this out from the KSLA website..one can't help but laugh....

UPDATE: September 5th, 7:35pm CST
Raycom Media has worked all day to get a deal done and offered to continue into the night. DirecTV admitted it only needs under 2 hours to get Raycom back on the air so why are they walking away from the discussions now? Call them and ask… We have an offer on the table and will be here all night if needed to hear back from DirecTV.
We Live Here
Over the years we value that you have come to rely on KSLA News 12. We value your loyalty, and we regret that our service has been interrupted for some of our viewers. There is a lot of noise and half-truths in the media about the situation with DirecTV. Please bear with us while we give you more background on what's really happening.

As a local broadcaster, we have a longstanding special relationship with the Ark La Tex that we have been serving for 60 years. We have teams of people dedicated to providing local news, weather, sports and entertainment 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You know a lot of those people. While DirecTV, located in Los Angeles, may not think too much about dropping KSLA from their service, it's a big deal to us- we live here.

The Economics of KSLA
Our economics are simple. We invest heavily in the content that makes KSLA great. That includes local programming, like hours and hours of local news and weather and top tier national programming from our network, which costs us much more today than it did three years ago. We offer all of this programming at no cost to you in its entirety, 24/7/365 over the air and on our digital platforms.

In addition to offering our programming over the air, online and on mobile devices, we also provide it to pay TV providers for a small fee per month. This dispute is about what that fee is for DirecTV. We offer some of the best sports and entertainment programming on TV, like NFL and College Football, NCIS, The Big Bang Theory and 6 hours/day of top quality news and weather coverage from the Ark La Tex. All of that comes at a cost, and those costs increase over time. In fact the cost of our network programming has more than doubled every year on average for the last three years.

We are asking DirecTV to cover their fair share of those increases, like any business would, since our last deal with them is 3 years old. But you deserve to know that what we are asking for is a fraction of what DIRECT TV pays some cable networks that are not nearly as popular in the Ark La Tex. In an average hour, 20% of the Ark La Tex viewing audience watches KSLA. DirecTV pays other content providers that have a much smaller audience 4x more than what we are asking for. Said another way, DirecTV pays certain cable networks four times what we are asking for, while those same cable networks have a fraction of our audience! DirecTV doesn't understand why KSLA is so important to the ArkLaTex. Why else wouldn't they be willing to pay a fair price?
We Need Your Help

Retrans Spat Turns Raycom's Stations Dark on Direct TV

The end of August has come and gone and yes Raycom has pulled a number of its stations off of Direct TV. This includes KSLA/Channel 12/Shreveport.. Oh what's that...that's right Raycom wants you to believe Direct TV is the bad guy in the retransmission spat.  On KSLA's facebook page, Channel 12 wants viewers to believe it's Direct TV's fault.  KSLA replies to many posts telling viewers it wants "fair market value" for its signal.  Well this is day 3 of the Raycom stations being dark on Direct TV. How long will it last...just what is the "fair market value" of the station's signal...