• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

2026 prediction thread.

tall_guy1 said:
There was an ESPN 3? (And yes, know about ESPN Ocho from Dodgeball.)
Click to expand...
ESPN3 was ESPN's first online-only venture, offering games and events of lesser general interest than those aired on the cable channels ESPN and ESPN2. It wasn't a "channel," really, just a website with links to coverage of dozens of events, many happening simultaneously. When ESPN+ launched, many of those events went there, leaving ESPN3 with odd scraps like New Zealand cricket, winter league baseball, and basketball from minor college conferences. Now, with the launch of ESPN Unlimited, Disney has chosen to eliminate ESPN3, which apparently -- a development previously unknown to me, a longtime ESPN+ subscriber with YouTube TV access to the main networks -- had become a way to access some main-channel content as well. Now, anyone who wants to see the most desirable ESPN programming needs to either get cable again, subscribe to a streaming TV provider like YTTV, or pay for ESPN Unlimited, which costs significantly more than ESPN+.
 
thewaltdisneycompany.com

The Walt Disney Company and OpenAI Reach Agreement to Bring Disney Characters to Sora | The Walt Disney Company

Disney and OpenAI have reached an agreement for Disney to become the first major content licensing partner on Sora, OpenAIā€™s short-form generative AI video platform.
thewaltdisneycompany.com thewaltdisneycompany.com


Wow Disney is on a roll here in partially debunking some of the predictions we said were going to happen later in 2026 at least some of the predictions for AI will happen sooner than expected like Disney having their movie and tv characters appear in the Open AI system sometime in 2026 as part of their plans to have a deal with OpenAI. The other one was Disney shutting down one of their channels like ESPN3 to protect their flagship TV apps like ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu. Yes protecting TV apps is going to continue in 2026.

The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday announced it will make a $1 billion equity investment in OpenAI and will allow users to make videos with its copyrighted characters on its Sora app.

OpenAI launched Sora in September, and it allows users to create short videos by simply typing in a prompt.




As part of the startupā€™s new three-year licensing agreement with Disney, Sora users will be able make content with more than 200 characters across Disney, Marvel, Pixar and Star Wars starting next year.
Click to expand...
 
Back to the predictions with a close to home prediction:

The Peoria-Bloomington DMA gets their first ATSC 3.0 station. WYZZ Bloomington (RF 28, virtual 43.1) becomes the host station.

43.1 Fox programming is hosted by WMBD-31; whatever 43.2 is now (formerly Merit) gets carried on WHOI-19, and 43.3 (GET) gets carried on WEEK-25.

Also plans are announced for Rockford to go ATSC 3.0 with WFBN-LD (RF 35) as the host station.
 
PBS affiliates in large cities would have to consider getting a ā€œSuperStationā€ status has to be considered given that Arkansas TV will lose their PBS affiliation in 2026. Yes one has to know which out of state PBS affiliate will cover Arkansas given where this is going. The remaining donors to PBS in Arkansas has to send it to places like KERA, KUHT or even go as far as donate to WETA, KQED and WGBH given where this is going.

katv.com

Arkansas PBS rebrands to Arkansas TV, ending long-standing affiliation with PBS

59 years after they first signed on the air, Arkansas PBS is undergoing a major change.The company will soon be known as "Arkansas TV" after announcing Thursda
katv.com katv.com
 
CTListener said:
It's a prediction, isn't it? The thread got derailed by all the ESPN talk.
Click to expand...

I think
KilowattKat said:
I just thought we were keeping the predictions to radio/TV broadcasting, and not if someone is getting a bio pic movie, seems to be off topic to me...but then again, what do I know.
Click to expand...

Lifetime is still a cable channel ... isn't it? But the real problem is that @nickp's prediction goes into zero detail as to why he thinks that would happen, or any explanation as to why he made that one sentence statement completely out of the blue.

I think Kat was correct to question it, and I would hope for some illumination on the prediction in a subsequent post by Nick.
 
Don CT said:
I think NBC has 3 tentpole shows that they hang their hat on. Today, Tonight, and Meet The Press. If any of those 3 go down they are signaling a major shift.
Click to expand...
Law & Order (x2ā€¦or 3), The Voice, expanding sports coverageā€¦.yeah, there is far more than MTP, Today and Tonight. Letā€™s keep a bit of perspective.
 
michael hagerty said:
Yeah---that's exactly what happened.
Click to expand...
When that happens to me, I'll report my extra posts.

Back to the predictions:

ATSC 1.0 will be sunsetted and all of ATSC 3 will be DRM.
Smart TVs will have built in modems to discourage "dumb" use.
Radio stations signing off and migrating to apps. One or 2 in our area did that.
With increasing popularity of pinball, there will be coverage on the sports networks.
 
radiofan2023 said:
I predict that with more colleges opting out of football bowl games, especially big names like Notre Dame, more football bowl games will be eliminated and some will go streaming only next year.
Click to expand...
Over The Walt Disney Company's corporate dead body.

Not only do they own the rights to the College Football Playoffs (although two of the quarterfinal bowl games will air on TNT), but they either control or own outright most of the existing non-CFP bowl games, save for the Sun (CBS), Arizona (CW), and Holiday (Fox). No way does Disney give up those bowl games without an increase in the number of CFP-eligible schools to at least 16, if not 32. Even the dregs like the Sasparilla Gasparilla Bowl and the Famous Idaho Potato bowl make them money.

Notre Dame basically acted like crybabies when they opted out. They got rejected in favor of Miami (officially) or Alabama (more likely -- ESPN has the SEC rights. Think about it).
 
Negin said:
ATSC 1.0 will be sunsetted and all of ATSC 3 will be DRM.
Click to expand...
If a TV falls in the forest...
Negin said:
Smart TVs will have built in modems to discourage "dumb" use.
Click to expand...
They already have Internet connectivity via WiFi. That's what makes them "smart."
Negin said:
Radio stations signing off and migrating to apps. One or 2 in our area did that.
Click to expand...
Stations will sign off when they either go broke, or the land underneath their towers is worth more than the station is.
Negin said:
With increasing popularity of pinball, there will be coverage on the sports networks.
Click to expand...
Huh? Pinball? I haven't seen a pinball machine in probably 20 years. I take it that it's still popular in some other parts of the country other than metro Phoenix. But on TV? Naaaaaaaaahhhhhh. Now if somebody comes up with Jackpot Bowling Machine or Celebrity Foosball.... :LOL:
 
KeithE4 said:
Over The Walt Disney Company's corporate dead body.

Not only do they own the rights to the College Football Playoffs (although two of the quarterfinal bowl games will air on TNT), but they either control or own outright most of the existing non-CFP bowl games, save for the Sun (CBS), Arizona (CW), and Holiday (Fox). No way does Disney give up those bowl games without an increase in the number of CFP-eligible schools to at least 16, if not 32. Even the dregs like the Sasparilla Gasparilla Bowl and the Famous Idaho Potato bowl make them money.

Notre Dame basically acted like crybabies when they opted out. They got rejected in favor of Miami (officially) or Alabama (more likely -- ESPN has the SEC rights. Think about it).
Click to expand...
There have been some ideas floated of doing the bowls at the start of the season not the end. Itā€™s probably just a pipe dream at this point.

The games on TNT are produced by ESPN and sub licensed.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Johnny Carson, arguably the best-remembered host of the franchise, retired in 1992. He had the longest run as host (30 years, with second place going to Jay Leno if you combine both pre- and post-Conan O'Brien for around two decades) and made the show into the "marquee brand" you rightly call it.
Click to expand...
Let's not forget the "opening act" with the great Steve Allen. While I was an early teen at the time, I started watching it. My colleagues at WJMO made fun of me, as they found the show "way too white".
K.M. Richards said:
So it is entirely probable that -- marquee brand or not -- it could disappear tomorrow and be largely forgotten within a year or two.
Click to expand...
Absolutely. It was always a 25-55 type show from the 50's into the 90's, and the younger half of today's audience in that age group has largely abandoned OTA TV.
 
Don CT said:
When NBC pulls the plug on The Tonight Show it means they are admitting network tv is dead.
Click to expand...
If you look at how much original content goes directly to Peacock, we could say that it is "Dead Man Walking" right now.
 
davideduardo said:
Let's not forget the "opening act" with the great Steve Allen.
Click to expand...

Since you brought it up, mi amigo:
Allen, the original host, had only three years as host (and for the last two years, Ernie Kovacs was host for two of the five nights.

Jack Paar, who succeeded Allen in 1957, did five years.

And it was only from Carson on forward that it was called "The Tonight Show". Under Allen and Paar it was simply titled "Tonight" (reportedly because the late Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, then head of NBC programming, wanted it to be a counterpoint in viewers' minds to the "Today" show which debuted in 1952). There was a six month period in 1957, between the Allen/Kovacs years and Paar, when it went more in a news direction and was titled "Tonight! America After Dark", hosted first by Jack Lescoulie and for the last month by Al "Jazzbo" Collins.

Incidentally, when doublechecking the timeline on Wikipedia, it appears that someone actually tallied up the number of shows under each host. There were approximately 2,000 shows pre-Carson (Allen, Kovacs, and Paar combined). If you combine both of Jay Leno's stints you get 4,610 shows, which puts Carson in second place with 4,531. This is largely, it is explained, by Carson's cutting back to three new shows per week in the 1980s, and the number of guest hosted shows during Carson's years. Leno did five new shows per week and also did not use guest hosts. Leno's total does not include the shows he did as permanent guest host during Carson's last five years.

Fallon has done 2,229 shows and poor Conan O'Brien only got to do 146 before NBC pulled Jay back from that disaster of a 10:00pm show in 2010.
 
KeithE4 said:
Over The Walt Disney Company's corporate dead body.

Not only do they own the rights to the College Football Playoffs (although two of the quarterfinal bowl games will air on TNT), but they either control or own outright most of the existing non-CFP bowl games, save for the Sun (CBS), Arizona (CW), and Holiday (Fox). No way does Disney give up those bowl games without an increase in the number of CFP-eligible schools to at least 16, if not 32. Even the dregs like the Sasparilla Gasparilla Bowl and the Famous Idaho Potato bowl make them money.

Notre Dame basically acted like crybabies when they opted out. They got rejected in favor of Miami (officially) or Alabama (more likely -- ESPN has the SEC rights. Think about it).
Click to expand...
I had no idea Disney owned the rights to so many bowl games. There will be an expansion of the CFP next year, but they're negotiating the size of the expansion now.
 


Back
Top Bottom