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Careful what you wish for. This ain't your daddy's Cox. I should reword that.

The marketplace has clearly collapsed when two private equity vultures are attempting to pick apart a company too big to fail like this. It's an atrocious deal that'll set back local news in a time when they can't afford to. Soo Kim and Apollo are buying Tegna merely to gut it, starve it, then break it up.

lmfao WFXT, the "anchor of a new station group." I think it's be called the S.S. Titanic.

The DOJ and FCC should be rejecting this deal outright. It's an atrociously structured deal that benefits no one but the stockholders at Apollo and Standard General. It will cripple local news in a way we haven't seen in a long time. It's also the logical end result of the M&A mania of the past few years, where there's no one left to buy stations but private equity vultures. (BTW, the Federal Reserve is raising interest rates today, so this was filed right at the deadline.)

Standard General can't afford to buy Tegna on their own, so Apollo is allegedly a silent partner with no voting stock (*SNERK*). These station trades are proof of this; Apollo and Standard are simply picking the company apart just to buy it. Nevermind that Byron Allen offered significantly more for Tegna and was rejected.

I'm staying out of the hypotheticals, at least in this thread (any such belongs in Speculatron). This is, however, a terrible deal for all parties. For those at any stations involving these parties, it is a good time to update resumes. There will likely be a lot of carnage afterward.

Apollo needs to not have ANY stake in the new iteration of Tegna, and if that needs to be accomplished with further trades of Tegna stations to Apollo to recoup the balance of Apollo's planned stake, then so be it. Otherwise it'll be rejected on its face. For perspective, the Dumont Network died in part because the FCC considered them and KTLA and WBKB/2 Chicago to be co-owned because Paramount Studios (which owned both, neither of which were ever Dumont affiliates!) had a minority stake in Dumont. Thus, Dumont couldn't purchase any more O&Os when they desperately needed to.

Correct, that should on its own be a black eye. At a minimum, they need to divest (to an independent buyer) the markets that both are in - namely Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Memphis and Seattle - to an independent buyer not already in those markets. This has Sinclair-Tribune written all over it.

The claim made in this filing is that both companies are going to be independent of each other and that Apollo's stake in Tegna is not of importance because they'll not be holding any voting stock. I don't believe it for a second.

Apollo and Standard General will only be paying for the KPVI look, because KPVI News at 5 is News That Works For You

I'm sure they didn't consider any of this, good thing there are some dudes on a forum who can solve all of these complicated issues and decisions.

Where have you been? Standard had been the front runner for months.

Bloomberg is now reporting that Standard/Apollo are nearly a deal to buy Tegna for $24-a-share What's interesting is that what's included is that the shares will increase if the regulatory approval takes a long (and I mean a long) time to approve (which is a possibility). A deal could be announced as soon as later this morning.

Not to sidetrack the sunny, cheery mood of the thread, but WBKB was channel 4 until 1953. When it was split, Channel 4 moved to 2, and became WBBM. The WBKB calls then replaced WENR on channel 7. But anyway... WHAT WILL THE NEW GRAPHICS LOOK LIKE??? /s

WBKB was on channel 4, lol.

Well, yes. But if the FCC does approve it, it should be with a requirement to divest stations in (going off the top of my head) Atlanta, Charlotte, Jacksonville, Memphis, and Seattle.

Okay. The Tegna Standard Media deal talk is in this thread.

It's official now. https://www.tegna.com/tegna-to-be-acquired-by-standard-general-for-24-00-per-share/

It's only more accessible if you get TV over-the-air and your remote only has arrow buttons -- or your TV has an actual dial. Other than that, I get the feeling you have something against WCNC... I'm sure Graham, Hearst, and Scripps would dispute your characterization of them as "dead-end owners".

WFAA, KHOU, and KVUE going from Tegna to Cox, the owner of WSB, WFTV and WSOC? That's an upgrade. It's not the old Belo, but it's pretty good for this era.

It’s a mess in Jacksonville.

FOX 5 will still be #2 and WSB will still be #1 WXIA will still be #3 until WGCL passes them up. WAGA's philosophy has been what's WSB doing? How are they covering the story? Let try to out do them? Despite Cox/Apollo deal one thing for sure they can screw up any station, but not the mothership WSB-TV. FOX doesn't want WHBQ and there was a reason why they got sold. FOX didn't do much investment into WHBQ.

Why would NBC dump WCNC for Bahakel? I mean WCNC isn’t much better but if they wanted WCCB they would’ve signed on in 1978. WCNC is already home of the NBC News Channel headquarters and where would they go? What is HC2?

With the Olympics over, I've noticed the NBC O&O stations are back to using their "regular" logos during local news broadcasts. This marks the first time that the regular logos are used with the "Look S" graphics - I believe these stations went the entire 2021 calendar year using the "Olympic" versions of their station logos. Has that ever happened before?

Cox will acquire WFAA/KMPX, KVUE, and KHOU/KTBU from TEGNA.

The 1990s and 2000s were a very creative era in graphics packaging. Stations has more of a degree of appearence individuality and flatness wasn't as widespread. Post your favorite news graphics packages from the 90s or 2000s! Image or Video: WNBC 1990: WSVN 1993:

Here's the press release regarding the WFXT acquisition and it notes that Standard is creating a whole new media company (separate from Tegna) centered around WFXT

Not when they're operated by private equity vultures who seek to cash out for maximum profits. Soo Kim utterly ruined MediaGeneral and made a killing offloading it to Nexstar. They have to prove they aren't any more than a silent partner in this deal, which I don't think Apollo has the capability to do. I don't trust them for a second even if they eliminated the entirety of their stake in this dumpster fire of a purchase. As @Weeterssaid on the Discord, "If this goes through, the (39%) cap is proven to be entirely pointless". And he's right.

to be fair, there were two WBKBs in Chicago and the first ultimately wound up on channel 2 lmao Graham, Hearst and Hubbard have not participated in this M&A mayhem because they are diversified entities. I do believe that within 1-3 years, all three will be selling their TV chains outright.

WBTS is back to having the NBC peacock cover part of the number 10 in their logo. Side note - when WBTS launched, it was known simply as "NBC Boston", and had a logo very similar to KNTV. Why did they abandon that logo/branding in favor of being called "NBC 10 Boston", especially when there is a very close by NBC 10 in Providence?

Yeah, KNSD is back to the regular 7, and not the notched 7. So I guess the notch was specific to the Olympic logo.

So far it appears the Tegna stations not going to Cox are going to go to Standard General.

Well, let's hope the FCC at least requires divestitures in markets where both Cox and Tegna have stations.

I'm disappointed that AMG lost the bid to get Tegna, but I'm happy that WFAA, KHOU, KVUE, and WLNE will be part of Cox Media Group. IMO, I'm not happy that the rest of the Texas Tegna stations are not going to be part of CMG.

I can absolutely see Hilton Howell hiring Dave Lougee the second Soo throws him overboard.

There aren't conflicts as Cox Media Group and Standard Media Group are not merging into one company. Yes, it is a bit muddy consider that Apollo will be a banker for each (a non-voting, non-controlling part in the case of Standard General which is the private equity firm that owns Standard Media Group). Since technically CMG and SMG are two separate broadcasting companies there's no need to spin anything off at this time. So in Atlanta CMG will continue to own WSB while Standard will own WXIA/WATL. Interestingly enough there are some swaps in this deal. They don't seem to be included to jump over regulatory hurdles so I find them curious. Cox Media Group acquires Tegna's major market stations in Texas Standard Media Group acquires WFXT Boston CMG acquires current SMG stations WLNE Providence, KLKN Lincoln, KBSI Cape Girardeau, and WDKA Paducah And at least one division will be spun off. Premion, Tegna's OTT sales arm, will become a stand-alone company.

When Viacom originally struck the deal to buy Paramount Communications, the planned name was "Paramount Viacom International." Then the bidding war with Barry Diller ensued and somehow the rebrand ended up being scuttled. Sumner was very attached to the name "Viacom." I have to wonder if dropping the name is intended to communicate a clean break from him.

WABC-TV appears to be suffering some technical difficulties. Viewers saw rare color bars and test patterns for the first 5 minutes of the 11pm news. It appears, however, that the newscast started as usual. When the test pattern ended, the newscast was joined in progress during the middle of an A block weather report. During regular weather around 11:20, the forecast segment was interrupted by a station promo that then aired again right after the weathercast finished up and Bill Ritter tossed to a break without any bumper headlines. The first commercials didn’t air until 11:21.

That was my favorite graphics package too. KGO had something similar by (I believe Hothaus) but instead of yellow, it was a white themed elements. KFMB used the same KGO package as well but only for its opening sequence (2005-2013) https://jonberrydesign.com/kabceyewitnessnews

WCAU's last package in 2000 before the NBC standardization. Brilliant package by Hothaus before they seemed to start cranking the same package out to different stations:

I loved KOTV’s 1995-2002 graphics and KTUL’s 1997-1999’s.

Thanks for posting, Dan. I think every single person who has said something in this thread (including myself) would say we really appreciate your work. I don't know of anyone else who had that many concurrent campaigns on the air in the same market. A lot of craft goes into making all that work, and this thread exists because we want to recognize the people that produced it.

Just chiming in on this thread. Actually, I composed and produced music for 5 Seattle market TV stations at the same time which all ran concurrently. KOMO TV KING TV KIRO TV KTZZ TV KCPQ TV None of the stations were aware I had done most all of their competitors. This is the first mention of it. There were other stations added to the list. WTVD, WTNH, KOVR, WIXT, KDFW and a few others. Thank you for the info. posted on this site. Dan Dean Dan Dean Productions

Wow. If that’s true, then all of the Cox stations would gain sister stations. To be honest, I wonder what WPXI would do gaining some more sister stations in NY, OH, and PA.

Looks like NECN has switched to Look S graphics for their weather, judging by their graphic card on top... Btw their bug still clashes with WBTS L3s during simulcasts... However it feels like they're not making any adjustments any time soon, at least resize the bug...

Again going on my point, the only logical buyers will be the networks (excluding Disney/ABC) or dead-end owners: WXIA/WATL to NBC, WSB retained WCNC dumped to a dead-end owner like HC2, NBC affiliates with WCCB and acquires the WCNC newsroom, a far cheaper option. WSOC is kept. KIRO dumped to HC2 or whatever, KING retained, KSTW becomes a CBS O&O WHBQ to Fox, WATN retained Both WTLV and WJXX will be dumped, NBC affiliates with WJXT, WJAX/WFOX retained. ABC could go to an LP since "Disney does not buy"

I think even private equity is tired of OTA stations. Only the networks can buy. On a slightly related note, WSYX will be the market leader in my home market in a matter of weeks if this deal is allowed to go through, unless NBC is able to do something about this.

In Atlanta, I'm sure there are a lot of happy faces at Fox 5.