Mark Binker. (More expensive. Less access.) Just like ObamaCare.

WRAL’s Binky is making his move.  No longer will he be the on-air Grace to Miz Leslie’s Will.  Binky is moving on to edit something called The Insider.

While WRAL News serves as the opening act for that night’s broadcast of ‘Inside Edition,’  The Insider is more along the lines of bathroom reading material for the striped-pants influence peddling crowd in The Wachovia Building.  So, Binky is arguably moving up in the world.

On one hand, he’s shrinking his audience. But on the other hand, its going to be more expensive to keep an eye on the rascal.  To get WRAL, all you really need is basic, basic cable (roughly $50 per month, $600 per year).  A subscription to the Insider?  $1500 PER SESSION PER YEAR.  And that is ONE account.  It’s $150 per session per year per session per extra account.

So, if you really want to continue getting your Binky fix, you’re going to have to shell out at least THREE TIMES AS MUCH to access a web site that doesn’t have near the number of readers (or amount of valuable info) that we do.  

So, WRAL didn’t work the wonders for Binky that it did for some people.  Fox’s Bret Baier used to prowl the streets of Raleigh for WRAL.  So, did Fox’s Kelly Wright.  And let’s not forget CBS News’s Jim Axelrod, who gets to anchor the evening news every so often.  (And look at Mark Binker — inheriting Pat Gannon’s old office furniture.)

We’re going to miss Binky as he disappears into this journalistic black hole.  From his painted-on constipated expressions, to his publishing of home addresses for concealed-carry permit holders, to his inane Tweets,  to his transformation of a pro-life awards ceremony into a celebration of slavery — Binky is a true North Carolina treasure.