Trib Total Media TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions every Wednesday at TribLive.com in a column that also appears in the Sunday Tribune-Review.
Q: I’m wondering if you could find out when KDKA-TV will let Jon Delano out of his attic?
— Ken, South Park
Rob: In fairness, he does get out of his attic for some reports, including an interview with then-gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro. And Delano was in-studio for election coverage last month.
But given the types of stories Delano often does, interviews with political leaders in Harrisburg and Washington that can easily be conducted via Zoom, one can imagine the station happily allowing him to remain in his attic so they don’t have to send a videographer out with him, saving that videographer for breaking news — which newsroom management undoubtedly sees as a more vital area of coverage when it comes to competing with local TV news rivals in the ratings.
Per KDKA news director Shawn Hoder, Delano remains in his attic in part because the KDKA newsroom is undergoing a renovation that is expected to be done sometime early next year. The station plans to air a TV special on the makeover once it is completed. The renovated newsroom — no upgrades to the station’s studio are planned — will include a new desk for reports from the newsroom.
Q: Channel 11 carried the Steelers vs. Colts game broadcast on ESPN. WTAE has carried ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” games in the past. Do local stations bid on these games not shown on broadcast network TV? How much can these stations pay for such an event?
— Mike, via email
Rob: As noted last week, it seems likely Hearst lost the right to simulcast Monday Night ESPN games on its local market stations as WTAE wasn’t the only Hearst station to lose those games (it happened to Hearst stations in Boston and Kansas City, too). So yes, it seems the rights were put up for bid and Hearst lost, which is kind of crazy given that Hearst owns a 20% interest in ESPN. Perhaps more nickel-and-diming by recently defenestrated and now-former Disney execs Bob Chapek and Kareem Daniel?
Regardless, yes, these deals are expensive, though I’m not privy to how much local stations pay ESPN. However, ESPN spends $2.7 billion annually on Monday Night Games, per The Washington Post, so they’re certainly not letting games go to local stations for a pittance.
Q: How can CBS call the Nov. 27 episode of “The Equalizer” the “fall finale” and then in the next hour call the episode of “East New York” the “winter finale” when both are broadcast on the same night?
— David, via email
Rob: Many media companies are in disarray at the moment. When that happens, details tend to fall through the cracks.
Streaming was supposed to save media conglomerates as linear ratings decline, but it turns out streaming is a money-losing proposition even as conglomerates cut budgets to their linear networks.
I put David’s question to CBS’s head of publicity and didn’t get a response. Unless the difference in seasons of the finales has something to do with when the shows will return in 2023 — “East New York” is back Jan. 8; “The Equalizer” doesn’t have a return date that I could find, and an email to the show’s CBS’s publicist was not returned — my best guess is two different promotions/marketing copywriters wrote up promos two different ways, and no one at CBS clocked the inconsistency.
Q: Any idea when “Love and Death,” the HBO Max series about Candy Montgomery/Betty Gore, is dropping?
— Kitty, Charleroi
Rob: “Sometime in 2023” is as specific as HBO Max is willing to get.
