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2017 Media Predictions

I haven't heard whether or not this particular story is real, but it won't surprise me if it turns out to be fake. As long as news department (and probably sales) suits demand "Live, local, & first" rather than "Live, local, & right," these things will happen.

Same goes for network news operations. Especially network news operations. The most blatant of bad network news coverage, not counting this past Presidential campaign, that I can think of was the Sandy Hook shootings 4 years ago. All speculation at first, with little real news, just so the network common taters could have something to say when they didn't know squat. That wasn't the only one -- even 9/11 had more than its share of that -- but at least to me, that was the worst.

Perhaps this fake news garbage will act as a buffer for real news organizations, and be a good thing in the end. As in, let's make sure we have the correct story. I would be happy to see this.
 
I haven't heard whether or not this particular story is real, but it won't surprise me if it turns out to be fake. As long as news department (and probably sales) suits demand "Live, local, & first" rather than "Live, local, & right," these things will happen.

However, the posting of this story really has nothing to do with suits. It going viral, beyond the realm of established news sites, is why it got picked up.
 
my predictions for 2017:

the sports bubble finally bust and all the sports networks try the lower the budget after ratings issues caused by cord cutting and sports being felt like it's faker then wrestling and ESPN decided to launch a service for cord cutters to watch ESPN live without the need of a 3rd party aka cable, satellite, and SlingTV/DirecTV Now/Playstation Vue just like HBO did.

AT&T/Time Warner merger is approved by the FCC & DOJ after soon to be President Trump appoints his choices to run those respected government agencies.

Viacom merges with either CBS (everyone seems to be thinking of a re-merger due to being formely the same company) or a shocker, iHeartMedia (due to it's ties to Bob Pittman, who now is a part of the iHM board of directors).

all the cables news networks will brace for a major year of political events, maybe the possibility of a presidential impeachment or the start of a huge war that could affect our country either a civil war or the feared 3rd world war.

The Weather Channel will be sold to another company (and) or merges with WeatherNation (the newer weather channel that was created and airs on some TV stations across the country) and if it's a WeatherNation merger, the TWC rebrands into a weather themed reality TV network while the weather coverage moves to WeatherNation in which it retains it's name, but all the TWC staff and WN staff combine to do 24/7 weather and it brings in a much better and improved Local on The 8s with the return of Smooth Jazz all the time during LOT8.

lots of celebrities will die, that will be a sure thing as we seen celebrity deaths every year since being famous was a thing, but let's hope we don't see a lot of them in 2017 unlike this past year.

WWE will induct Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson into it's Hall of Fame, but not in the Celebrity wing for his famous work in Hollywood but instead for his career in the WWE that preceded his acting career.

a few struggling cable channels will either shut down or relaunch with a new branding and format for the station. Esquire Network is clearly heading that direction of shutdown or relaunch as Dish & AT&T (U-verse & DirecTV and the new streaming service DirecTV Now) have dropped it already and i'm sure more providers will do the same.
 
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My predictions for 2017:

1. A handful of smaller tier channels(fyi, Fusion, Esquire Network) will shut down at the end of the year.

2. Fox announces it will shut down MyNetworkTV and launch a new network consisting of original programming sometime before the end of the year.

3. WGN America to relaunch under a new name, particularly after most if not all of the Chicago-related programming were jettisoned from their lineup.

3. Monday Night Football will return to ABC only for the first half of the season with marquee games, with ESPN retaining the second half. Reason I brought this up is because the ratings
are in a freefall with a matchups consisting of teams with losing records. If true, then this season would have been the worst when it comes to ratings. Alternatively, the NFL decides to
ditch MNF altogether, particularly when many people are cutting cable because of outrageous price hikes.

4. Both Brent Musburger and Al Michaels announcing their retirement plans after their respective seasons.

5. Cumulus Media to change its name to reflect the Westwood One programming.

6. Owners of iHeartRadio will launch a TV counterpart to focus solely on music related programming or even play music videos similar to the early days of MTV.
 
My predictions for 2017:

1. A handful of smaller tier channels(fyi, Fusion, Esquire Network) will shut down at the end of the year.

2. Fox announces it will shut down MyNetworkTV and launch a new network consisting of original programming sometime before the end of the year.

3. WGN America to relaunch under a new name, particularly after most if not all of the Chicago-related programming were jettisoned from their lineup.

3. Monday Night Football will return to ABC only for the first half of the season with marquee games, with ESPN retaining the second half. Reason I brought this up is because the ratings
are in a freefall with a matchups consisting of teams with losing records. If true, then this season would have been the worst when it comes to ratings. Alternatively, the NFL decides to
ditch MNF altogether, particularly when many people are cutting cable because of outrageous price hikes.

4. Both Brent Musburger and Al Michaels announcing their retirement plans after their respective seasons.

5. Cumulus Media to change its name to reflect the Westwood One programming.

6. Owners of iHeartRadio will launch a TV counterpart to focus solely on music related programming or even play music videos similar to the early days of MTV.

1) I can see that happening
2) Yes, please? Most of those stations are treated as Independents now, even though FOX has renewed MyTV until 2019 I believe.
3) TribNet perhaps?
4) MNF should go back to ABC, PERIOD, for the entire year.
5) That'll be hard to see but I hope they keep going. If not, it'll just be like Verne last week.
6) Westwood Media your saying?
7) Yes! iHeartTV and maybe Evolution TV as well, please? And make it European-style because they do music video channels so much better than here in the good 'ole US of A.
 
4) MNF should go back to ABC, PERIOD, for the entire year.

As long as Dancing With The Stars is still alive and doing well (it's never been lower than #9 overall for one season), that will never happen. If Roger Goodell were to mandate that MNF return to OTA television, I think The Mickey Mouse Outfit would let it go, and Fox or CBS would pick it up (NBC also does well on Monday nights already, with The Voice. CBS's sitcoms are either aging or just plain bad.)
 
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My predictions for 2017:

3. Monday Night Football will return to ABC only for the first half of the season with marquee games, with ESPN retaining the second half. Reason I brought this up is because the ratings
are in a freefall with a matchups consisting of teams with losing records. If true, then this season would have been the worst when it comes to ratings. Alternatively, the NFL decides to
ditch MNF altogether, particularly when many people are cutting cable because of outrageous price hikes.

I can't see MNF going away; however, I will predict that Thursday Night Football will either be curtailed or dropped entirely. Except for the Thursday night before Sunday Week 1 of the season, and the three Thanksgiving Day games. Or TNF just reduced to a smaller package from about Week 5 to the Thursday before Thanksgiving and limited to what would appear prior to the season to be marquee matchups (split among CBS, NBC, and the NFL Network)--and the two participating teams will get their bye weeks the Sunday before their Thursday night game. (and in the case of Thanksgiving Day games, Dallas, Detroit, and the other 4 teams playing on Turkey Day will wait to have their bye weeks the Sunday before Thanksgiving).

And another sports-related prediction with eventual TV effects: I will go on a limb and predict that sometime in 2017 at least one of the Power Five college football conferences (SEC, Big Ten[+4], Pac-12, Big XII[-II], and ACC) will announce plans to expand to 16 teams with a 4-division setup, and their own conference championship playoffs with the 4 division winners. (Most likely the SEC, Big Ten, or ACC as they're already at 14 teams).
 
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As long as Dancing With The Stars is still alive and doing well (it's never been lower than #9 overall for one season), that will never happen. If Roger Goodell were to mandate that MNF return to OTA television, I think The Mickey Mouse Outfit would let it go, and Fox or CBS would pick it up (NBC also does well on Monday nights already, with The Voice. CBS's sitcoms are either aging or just plain bad.)

Or, just have DWTS move to Tue and Wed. Jeez, not that hard. Rather watch MNF than DWTS any day.
 
my predictions for 2017:


Viacom merges with either CBS (everyone seems to be thinking of a re-merger due to being formely the same company) or a shocker, iHeartMedia (due to it's ties to Bob Pittman, who now is a part of the iHM board of directors).

CBS is spinning of the radio stations
 
As long as Dancing With The Stars is still alive and doing well (it's never been lower than #9 overall for one season), that will never happen. If Roger Goodell were to mandate that MNF return to OTA television, I think The Mickey Mouse Outfit would let it go, and Fox or CBS would pick it up (NBC also does well on Monday nights already, with The Voice. CBS's sitcoms are either aging or just plain bad.)

ABC let MNF go to ESPN because they couldn't get late season flex scheduling and they didn't want to Sunday Night games disrupting Desperative Housewives, people want MNF to return to ABC out of nostalgia mostly
 
Viacom merges with either CBS (everyone seems to be thinking of a re-merger due to being formely the same company) or a shocker, iHeartMedia (due to it's ties to Bob Pittman, who now is a part of the iHM board of directors).

The controlling shareholders, starting with Shari Redstone, have stated that a merger of CBS and Viacom is not happening.

Nobody wants to merge a viable company with one teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. And Pittman was a very small part of what is today Viacom and that was more than a quarter century ago.
 
Oh, I forgot to mention two other things.

Amazon will plan to launch its own streaming radio service(similar to SiriusXM or iHeartRadio, but not satellite-based) and have a wide range of formats to choose from, whether it's CHR, AC, Hot AC, Country,
Rock, you name it. Each format will have DJ's just like Sirius XM. It will be on a free-to-play basis with commercials between song breaks.

Pandora will finally move to a subscription-only service, meaning you have to pay a monthly fee to listen to any of the songs streaming to your computer, tablet or other streaming devices. It will be modeled after SiriusXM. This might be a possibility since the streaming royalties are inching higher.
 
The "child dying in Santa's arms" supposedly happened where I live, despite all of the area hospital systems denying it happened at any of their facilities, the timeline continually changing, no local obituaries found for a 5 year old and supposedly a nurse defying hospital protocol by calling Santa into the ICU on an 80 degree mid-October day in East Tennessee. But...locals will say don't dare doubt this kindly gentleman, so there you go.


For 2017 those "fake" news websites will play havoc with CBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, FOX, AP, WTOP Newsradio and so forth......ah forget 2017 it is happening now. A few days ago most of the Denver radio & TV outlets even the Denver Post all did stories about the child that died in the arms of Santa Clause. On Facebook people just couldn't get enough of this. "OMG..SO SAD !!" or "Pray for the family"...and now I am hearing reports that the story about the child dying and Santa is fake. If this turns out to be fake than I am NOT surprised.
 
1. Royalty issues will wreak havoc with local broadcasters and even bigger ones. Some will sign off, more will go spoken word.
2. Pandora will attempt to merge with Spotify or iHeart
3. Facebook and Twitter's attempt to purge conservative opinion will be a huge failure. Everyone will report everything as "fake".
4. Republican Congress overturns Net Neutrality
 
Another "off a limb" prediction: One of the major national cable providers will experiment with at least one of their systems becoming an experimental area for an "all-HD lineup," dropping the SD feeds of most or all cable channels which also broadcast in HD on their systems.
 
Or Google could have their own radio streaming service as well.
The problem with MNF...if DWTS is moved to Tue/Wed, where art thou The Middle/Modern Family/The Goldbergs et al? DWTS would have to go down to 90 minutes or even an hour, with a possibility of even being prerecorded hours before hand.
 
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