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I have to wonder if any of the people wish speculating about future owners for stations that may or may not be for sale have set foot in a TV station as an employee or have any glimpse of the reality of the economics of local TV in 2024. I'm three years removed from TV employment, and it was bleak then. Friends left in the business (who are all looking to get out) say it has only worsened. I am cheering for the unlikely fairy-tale outcome of new financial success for the local TV business, but that won't happen with more of the same that got us to where we are today.

Please don't post walls of text irrelevant to the topic thread for the sake of posting walls of text. It's honestly deeply aggravating. This is a thread about Sinclair Broadcast Group, not an invitation to spout off verbal diarrhea about whatever the CBS stations are doing. Who freaking cares? Like Scott Fybush said in reply to you in RadioDiscussions: "Going forward, the discussion on this site needs to more than just 'lists of things.'"

Please do us a favor, "dzonershow", "Darrenvision" or whatever your name is: Stop commenting.

Byron Allen is too badly overleveraged and has acquired a bad reputation for talking up deal after deal and failing to actually make them. He is not a credible candidate for anything.

With all do respect, the only purpose of commerical broadcasting is to make money. "Public good" is secondary, if it is even a factor.

Why? Because they are the only ones who would want to buy these stations that, for the most part, have no local news presence, little viewership or zero infrastructure. The spectrum hogging would matter more, and it does with a bottom-feeder like INSP. Well, I live in the real world, and these stations being sold are those the megachains or the networks would not want. Hearst is not going to spend money on a bunch of fixer-uppers or total rebuild projects, and neither would Gray, Graham, Scripps or Tegna.

No no. They are going to crap too: https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/5/1/more-on-the-allen-media-massacre https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/4/29/allen-media-swings-the-ax https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/5/7/no-more-401k

Here's some more information as to which cities are on the selling block. https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/cnbc-sinclair-considering-selling-some-broadcast-stations

Serious question: why in the wide wide world of sports would any of those groups want basketcase stations that need a massive amount of investment just in order to be remotely competitive in a declining industry? Plus Apollo Global Management isn't buying anything and Byron Allen is too badly overleveraged. With all due respect, what makes anyone think Apollo is going to have the soulless husk of Cox Media Group buy anything or that Byron is going to do anything but make vacant empty promises he can't deliver?

It was her choice to downshift. She has done just about every shift there when she was alongside Cynthia Santana and John Davis since she got back to Chicago. She wanted more time with family. I agree that Ed should have more (but it’s his call if another promotion was in the books). When it comes to anchor talent, I’ll give Jen some credit for at least having a few Local native roots pairs anchoring. Jim, Marie, Ryan, Dana, etc.

WKYT is about to launch soon!

Thanks, that conversation Tuesday was just stupid at best, and at worse, just plain ANNOYING.

In all fairness, they do use a gold color scheme for their Saints coverage/segments. Not so much the entire newscast, which is fine.

My guess is that CNN will join ABC and make the debate(s) available to others. Nothing is gained by maintaining exclusivity for the sake of ratings. As far as other networks counter-programming; despite being a re-match of 2020, I can't see anything being of interest that could draw viewers away from watching the debate(s).

Bold of you for assuming that Nexstar thought any of this through to begin with when they wanted to be the leader of forgettable Z-level sports. But "all part of the plan," I guess.

Last I checked, we weren't in Speculatron here...

Shut up. I'm not magic wanding anything. You have no idea what in the hell you're talking about. This is not a speculation thread. You are clueless and have no idea how things work. They will buy these stations and you will be disappointed when reality slaps you across the face. I will only ask this once. Do not quote me and try to prolong this as your time here may be severly limited.

There is a Speculatron thread for Sinclair’s possible station sales that a lot of these comments can be put into.

Totally irrelevant to the topic field. Disney won't be looking at these stations. Stop this magic wand wishcasting right now. I'm not "cheering" anything, I'm just not engaging in magic wand thinking and foolishly spouting off "Hearst! Graham! ABC!" when the facts state otherwise. They aren't buying a bunch of laggards, or anything else, for that matter. You are really getting on my nerves and I would strongly suggest refraining from making more posts like these.

I honestly hope that KTUL is one of the stations that gets sold. They’re a good station. They just need a bit of TLC. It’s a real shame how far they’ve fallen. Don Woods is rolling over in his grave.

Only one station you named is even a CBS affiliate. you took a question I am posing and added nonsense and irrelevance to it. When CBS used "CBS Texas" on KTVT instead of "CBS DFW", some of us wondered if it was purposeful for a broader plan (going back to February 2023) in their implementation. We all believe that CBS is looking to divest rather than buy, which made my question a long-shot (and probably gave some here a headache on its' own); but your add-on nonsensical.

This ain't PBS, this is about Commercial Television Stations. They make money, that is the PURPOSE. Were talkin' about the owners of KOMO-TV and KATU, not Oregon Public Broadcasting or KCTS-TV.

Way too much going on in here that I can't keep up with. That said, I know these are mostly stations losing money now and rated very low in markets.

Correctly said. I wanna also say that station owners like Hearst, and Graham Media rarely aquire stations.

Bryon Allen may be a joke but at least his TV stations haven't gone to crap, I believe he'll do something eventually.

Thank you for saying that. I don't know if it's a bug or a feature about the TV fandom in the present day but it has also irritated the moderators over there considerably.

I’m sure Hearst might expand with more stations from Sinclair. More versions of Very Local anyone?

TBH Sinclair ruined local sports and the local traditions of local news in Seattle, Porland (OR), and Washington DC. Not quite the markets to lure conservatives.

WRCB Local 3, the Sarkes Tarzian-owned station in Chattanooga, is in the process of replacing their decade-old set and are currently doing their newscasts from temporary setups throughout their building.

Given that TNT's parent company WarnerMedia also operates NBA TV, I wonder if there is a scenario that "Inside the NBA" can somehow continue on that network. Over the years, NBA TV's studio shows have featured Shaq, Kenny "The Jet" Smith, and others, from TNT, after all. I haven't heard anyone specaulate about that scenerio in the media coverage yet.

There are some potential scheduling conflicts with Xfinity races. Who gets bumped to NewsNation?

While we can still maintain civility in this thread, allow me to make a suggestion: Let's all stop responding to "dzonershow" altogether. Freeze them out, and act like they don't exist. At the same time, those of us who are also on RadioDiscussions should do the same thing to "DarrenVision". Perhaps that will teach them the message.

Exactly. It's about the SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP for Pete's Sake, not some dumb list which gets off-topic easily.

Even without the links to Old Scotty's blog, it's fairly obvious that Byron Allen is overleveraged and likely is being crushed by debt. One could argue that his fruitless "bids" to buy ABC, Tegna and Paramount Global have been simple distractions to hide what is a much more serious problem.

FTVLive is reporting the Freeze and Frazier are both essentially leaving at the end of their contracts...

I wouldn't be surprised if Byron Allen will say he'll buy the 60 TV stations from Sinclair since he likes to put his name out there when media is selling and for attention as well. Why didn't Byron take a pay cut sell one of his mansions or fancy cars to save the jobs at his local TV stations and The Weather Channel.

Are you "DarrenVision" from Radio Discussions? (The avatars are the same.) If so, that would explain your eagerness to see more M&As without taking reality into account. Respectfully, don't bring any of that here.

They also bought WVTM and WJCL a decade ago. But I do wanna see a duopoly with either Sinclair's CW or MNTV station, although Nexstar might get more CWs to make duopolies with the Big 4 stations. WJCL used to have an LMA with WTGS but Hearst wasn't in the business in owning Fox affiliates. Of course with the cutbacks last year, the Sinclair owned Fox affiliates in Scranton, Macon, Savannah, and Columbia SC are bare bones staff as does WPMI in Mobile AL unlike WEAR in the neighboring Pensacola and WEYI/WSMH in Flint.

Hearst almost never aquires stations besides WBBH and WZVN in Fort Myers–Naples, Florida because then-owners wanted to sell the stations before someone turns 100.

I assume because Sinclair wasn't able to get an duopoly in Sacramento. Also, it wasn't and still isn't able to defeat KCRA in the ratings.

They used to own KOVR when Sinclair bought the owner of WLOS, WLXV, and KDNL in 1995. I never expected that Paramount predecessor Viacom bought KOVR and merged with KMAX or at least how SInclair handled KOVR in it's decade ownership.

Sinclair is what would have happened had a miserly 1980s-era owner like TVX Broadcast Group or Media Central somehow existed into the present day.

No one has lauded Sinclair for their shrewd operations.

Perhaps this "cash grab" Sinclair is trying to accomplish is Chris Ripley's last chance before the board sends him packing. His reign has been a disaster. Starting in 2017 when they were chasing Tribune and bungled that deal to foolishly pass off WGN's new owners as an "unrelated entity", even the Trump-friendly FCC chair sent the deal for review. Tribune backed out, sued Sinclair, and ended up merging with Nexstar to make them the super-broadcaster Sinclair could have been while the UHF discount window was open. Then, they thought they won the lottery when they first got the Cubs away from WGN, and later picked up the former FOX RSNs, only to see those devolve into bankruptcy and drive the company even further into peril, as they were saddled with baggage from paying off lawsuits and consent decrees from their corporate incompetence. Then came the layoffs and shutdowns of news operations across the country. And to think they're only now considering selling off their stations to make a buck? They should have never bought half of them to begin with. You thought the RSN's were worthless. After the stripping and cost-cutting Sinclair's done to them, there's no sane buyer that would take some of these on....

Going back to the conversation of WABC being flashy and the editorial tone of it's writing---in the documentary there was a writer who did WABC on the weekdays and ABC national on the weekends. For a story on a Vietnam war attack he wrote "death and destruction rained from the sky". That writer's superiors asked "couldn't you just say they droped bombs in an areal attack?!" to which the writer remarked "we already said that yesterday" and "that's how we do it on eyewitness news". An analyst in the docuntary even explicity stated that WABC's version of Eyewitness News mirrored the NY Post, something theorized by many in this chat. I bring these clips up again---you could really see WABC'S flare for flashy and dramatic language in reports like John Gotti's conviction or John Johnson's report on New York City's crumbling infrastructure in the 1970s. Johnson's report at (9:47)

A friend of mine texted me. I didn't believe it. Sam was just on yesterday! RIP Sam, I watched you since day one. Life is too short. Tell your friends and family you love them. Take the vacation. Take the risk. Tomorrow is not promised.

I think a lot of people are going to be severly disappointed when a bottom-feeder no-budget company like INSP or Vision/Coastal winds up buying these stations instead of these pie-eyed fantasies. Instead of playing speculator, let's just look at these indisputable truths. And they aren't pretty: The television industry is not a buyer's market in any sense of the word and hasn't been since interest rates got raised substantially The few remaining megachains—Scripps, Tegna and Gray—are either too built up or are already in many of these existing markets. Hearst doesn't buy anything unless it's a gigantic waste of money like spending $200M+ for freaking WBBH in a older market in a permanently uncompetitive state politically. Great thinking there, y'all. Apollo Global Management isn't buying anything and may be forced to sell off Cox Media Group if their stupid fever dream of buying Paramount actually happened. Graham isn't buying anything because they just don't. The networks ain't buying anything, and one of them (CBS) is in limbo right now since Shari Redstone took it off the market. The FCC might just repeal the UHF Discount rule (again) just to further erase anything Pai did and not grandfather a thing The continued diminishing returns of retransmission revenue is only going to get worse. Those golden geese are no longer not laying eggs, they're entering hospice care and the likes of Nexstar don't have a plan B. So as you can clearly see... Sinclair is absolutely screwed.

we've come to a point where Scripps isn't much better.

And also sell KDNL, WNWO, WXLV to other companies too. We have had Sinclair's throat for too long.

Now that was unexpected news. I think they realize they are boxed out based on their previous behavior. I think the standalone weaker stations (with no news operation) might be possible duopoly bait for someone else in those markets.