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Side note.. for those in the atlanta market who know.. I am curious.. has the rebrand to WANF and all the investment there made a dent in the ratings? Where do they stand? That news operation still seems to have a lot of turnover for all the money pumped in. The CBS Atlanta of the mid 2000s rocked. The tough questions era.

Oh boy...

I'm just looking forward to the new CBS Atlanta rebranding itself every few years like the old one did. Hopefully, they'll skip the awkward "Clear News" phase 46 went through starting in 2000.

I can see Gray doing just that. I could also see it being a regional superstation that becomes a sub on Gray's other Georgia stations (although they'd probably want to go from 95% coverage to 100% coverage as they are missing Chattanooga and Jacksonville in the corners of the state).

And WJXT/WCWJ…

Well there is the WHDH/WLVI duo as an example of an indie/CW pairing. Since Gray made a big deal over airing some Braves games you might as well go for all of it on the old WTBS.

Just move the CW to 46 and put sports PBP on 17. Simple enough and it would make WANF a news-intensive CW station just like WPIX, KRON, KTLA and WGN.

Wow. Wooow. Woooooooow. Gray is going to take serious advantage now of WANF and its new status as a news-intensive Independent. I wonder how they'll use WPCH now since they'll use WANF to air more news.

Wow. Wonder what the path forward is for WANF/WPCH at this point? Not sure what the benefit is of having an independent primary/secondary pairing. Shows how much I watch linear TV here in ATL. Completely forgot CW was on WPCH now.

It only took them 30 years.

From how I understand it, CBS has been demanding an extraordinary sum to affiliates to keep CBS on their channel (tens of millions of dollars in markets the size of 60-70, so imagine how much they wanted for Atlanta). Gray basically told CBS to F off, we're not going to pay you that much. CBS's response was 'ok that's understandable' and went to WUPA (which CBS already owned!). Good thing channel numbers don't matter much anymore (WUPA is channel 69).

For that matter, is there an off chance of Weigel buying the chain in general.

The least surprised person has to be @Weeters, he suggested to me privately that WUPA easily could become CBS-owned after WWJ-TV finally got a news service. Or that they'd be used as a bargaining tool with the other groups. Now it's a matter of when WTOG and KSTW become CBS-owned, not if. As KIRO is already for sale; things could get spicy...

Long predicted, interesting to see this come into fruition. Top market Atlanta will now have another O&O besides WAGA. Hopefully whatever newscast they produce isn't as generic and lifeless as their former CBS "Nowcasts". I don't anticipate CBS News Atlanta will perform any better than WXIA or WANF but let's see.

In an explosive announcement, CBS is moving their affiliation to WUPA in Atlanta, making it an O&O.

Gray just got their calls for the former WYOW allocation in WNWE, so it's very much possible all of the moves of the last seven years around Wausau will lead to a flat circle and them becoming an ABC affiliate again as a new license, though with it as a sub in Wausau proper. As for WJRT, I could see Sinclair putting WSMH in the Rincon scrapheap and trying to buy them, though honestly a Weigel purchase with WJRT carrying most of their services as subs isn't far-fetched either as they have a good ABC relationship with WBND.

KBTX has debuted grayone with new music Screen_Recording_20250602_130114_Samsung Internet.mp4

Regardless of what happens, here's how I feel. https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxK6-SmN4Tj_KS1jKZfDRBWmNLN28LbOG9?si=vxwtIOQD1DWwQpNr Unless they sell to Sinclair or Coastal that is or Gray shells them out.

Tegna is a non-factor in Tucson as KMSB-KTTU are fully shelled out to Gray. They wouldn't waste money on an unfixable station like KVOA. Think about it. Who else would want KVOA or any of the other Allen stations? Coastal? Marquee? NP&G? Gray is IMO the prohibitive favorite and the only buyer who would continue to operate the stations with any semblance of locality.

On the other hand, unlikely since they own the FOX affiliate there, but it'd be kinda cool if the Big 3 network stations in Tucson are owned by the same owner of the Big 3 stations upstate in Phoenix with Gray/CBS, Scripps/ABC, & TEGNA/NBC.

They're all Gray's to lose. KVOA can be a subchannel of KOLD, WJRT can be a subchannel of WNEM and the OW stations can be rumps of WSAW and WMTV. It's a perfect test case for the NAB begging for full dereg, especially with how much Byron completely destroyed the viability of each and every one of those stations.

Before the piecemeal sale to operators who aren't buying speculation posts start, repeat after me: Byron Allen is going to want to sell to a single operator, structure it as a merger, and the buyer will divest assets they can't retain to minimize his tax costs and maximize the money made on the sale.

The AMG TV stations may be up for grabs. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/byron-allen-selling-local-tv-stations-up-1236235004/ https://deadline.com/2025/06/allen-media-group-hires-investment-bank-to-sell-tv-stations-1236420381/

@GraphicsMan I've grown to appreciate Austin Reed. A lot us in this forum thought he was some hotshot who bragged but had no talent, that was based off of seeing a newscast with a very low budget and weird music choices, especially during the weather segments. I still remember Sexual Seduction by Snoop Dogg playing in the background while a weather map of Fresno was shown. I and others were shocked with Austin Reed made an account a few years back to address criticism of the newscast that was airing at the time, he was really annoyed and frustrated with his initial posts but what struck me was that he wanted to take the profession seriously and even made attempts to make the newscast better in the process taking our criticism to heart. It's sad that the newscast was canceled by the station due to factors like them wanting the station to make a huge profit. They did not care about the product at all and only saw you as filler that was immediately made irrelevant when the station decided to fire the people who made the newscasts. Terrestrial TV is on life support at this point in time. I have ideas on how to run a terrestrial television network in a way that can actually stand up to not only the other TV networks but to streamers as well. Like how the TV networks valued streaming over a terrestrial television network, I would value terrestrial television over streaming with my terrestrial television network. Even I am having doubts that nothing anybody could do would make a difference in the terrestrial television medium we grew up with. With any company you must pump absurd amounts of money to get results and the results don't work then your company starts to fail and when your company starts to fail you become broke and you are forced to get another job that is lesser than the company you once ran. I still carry on this idea because even if it doesn't really pan out, I would at least like an opportunity to prove that the terrestrial TV model is still viable as a medium. If you're asking, none of my plans involve a streaming service or a film studio. Those combinations worked well initially but soon became ultra disruptive to the point where the only content you will find that's good is on a streamer that you have to pay a monthly fee for and you can't even share the accounts with other households for the sole purpose of making people give them more money. Having either a streaming service or a film studio to me is ultimately detrimental when it comes to traditional TV. ABC, NBC, CBS and even FOX get less attention when it comes to content and investment and their owners also own a streaming service and/or a film studio, it's is also more absurd that we do not have traditional TV transmitting their content in 4K60 with HDR and Dolby Atmos which is part of the ATSC 3.0 standard. It's all reserved for the streamers and a lot of movies that are on Fandango at Home. I'm tired of seeing other countries broadcast traditional TV in 4K60 with HDR and Dolby Atmos, we are the United States of America for crying out loud, why are we stuck on a standard that was first developed around the millennium and has never really substantially improved after. TV is stuck at 1080i/720p with 5.1 surround sound and some 480p/i channels that may or may not broadcast in widescreen and it's just pathetic at this point. 25 years of ATSC 1.0, even the NTSC standard that was introduced in the mid 40s/late 50s was able to have color in the 60s, stereo sound in the 80s and surround sound and closed captioning in the 90s. That analog standard has managed to have more innovation than ATSC 1.0 and it's lasted longer than even ATSC 1.0 and that transmission format is still going. I'm sorry for going off topic, so yeah... It's really terrible what happened to you. The broadcasting industry has become absolute shit, all the consolidation that went on was crazy and it's possible the current FCC could actually allow more shit mergers that reduce choice until there's a few left. Scripps is on it's last legs and was the first channel group to do lazy automated newscasts which Sinclair and Bryon Allen soon starting doing. TEGNA is still doing a lot of local programming, Grey is still taking care of it's stations and even Nexstar is doing some positive things with WPIX, WGN and KTLA and even KRON which was at one point the least watched station in San Francisco due to Young Broadcasting's ridiculous mishandling of the station. Those station groups may not have started to automate their newscasts but it's getting to a point where they're considering it. Every broadcast group also has to deal with the networks reverse compensation fees that have grown to values that don't really represent each network's value and also have to fear about a plan B if any network decides to leave traditional TV entirely for greener pastures like their own streaming service. The impending ESPN streaming service that will contain every bit of ESPN including the live sports is seen as a benefit by cable TV companies but harmful for cable TV itself. Nexstar and others rely on retransmission fees that both often create disputes around and things will get to a point where cable TV companies will have every bit of control when it comes to rejecting what TV channels get to be on it's systems, that includes Nexstar which has a cable channel called NewsNation of which is profitable now but in the long term is unviable solely cause the channel relies on retransmission fees that cable companies have to pay as part of deals with Nexstar that use local stations as a bargaining chip. Call me crazy but I really believe that in a year or shorter, the landscape will change in a way unseen since the 1994 New World affiliation deal except there's no real winner here. There is going to be one broadcast network that will call it quits thus leading the way for others to follow eventually, there will be a lot of TV station closures that will ultimately be worse then CHCH and CKX combined, there will be a slim number of broadcast groups with Scripps, Sinclair and Bryon Allen eventually going bye bye and a small number of mergers that ultimately create monopolies similar to radio groups like iHeartMedia and Audacy. In short, it is really going be a shitstorm out there. I hope Austin Reed makes it out okay, he really has his heart set on the TV journalism profession. I also apologize for those who had to read those long nerdy paragraphs.

I'm actually waiting for the point where I can buy Nexstar stock. Right now it's too expensive. I don't know if anybody really wants a linear broadcast TV network anymore, doesn't stop a man from dreaming right?