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This came up in the Discord the other day and isn't even true. Sinclair executives have a base salary close to or equal to that of most of their peers, and even with stock grants are lower than others. Compensation in 2022 (Source: salary.com) Chris Ripley (President and CEO, Sinclair Broadcast Group): $9,632,015 total compensation, $1,379,700 base pay. (David Smith has an identical pay) Perry Sook (Chairman and CEO, Nexstar Broadcasting): $39,318,892 total compensation, $1,995,193 base pay. Hilton H. Howell Jr. (Executive Chairman and CEO, Gray Television): $7,922,375 total compensation, $1,350,000 base pay. Adam P. Symson (President and CEO, E.W. Scripps): $15,043,797 total compensation, $1,200,000 base pay. David T. Lougee (President and CEO, Tegna Inc.): $7,271,601 total compensation, $975,000 base pay. Any of these 5 could take a symbolic salary of $1 and live solely off their stock grants (which makes up the majority of the difference between base pay and total compensation) and all it would net the company is a little wiggle room for a handful of station's CapEx budget. The FCC is not going to revoke anyone's licenses because they canceled local news and replaced it with a regional newscast. That's insane. It would be a political nuclear bomb that would likely end up gutting the FCC of those and other powers. How long have New Jersey politicians been complaining about WWOR's news coming from New York City? Literally nothing has happened there and it's been going on for almost 15 years.

So, I stumbled across this article in The Desk, from the same day the cease-and-desist was sent to Scripps, in which Adell explains his side of the story on WADL sale/CW affiliation dispute:

Exactly this...FCC and other federal agencies aren't going to take action on any company based on corporate shell games and shifting affiliations around, along with their E/I issues that in the grand scheme didn't affect anyone that much. If Sinclair is going to get caught, it's going to be for something we won't even notice until it's revealed like one of their station holding companies getting sloppy with accounting, an advertising contract gone wrong, or tax-related issues.

The filing cites other issues including past FCC violations (fines for violations of children's programming and non-disclosure of paid programming), evasions of local and national ownership caps (including through sidecar companies), the lack of diversity among Sinclair's Board of Directors, executives, and local station GMs, efforts to undermine union organizing among local employees, editorial bias, anti-competitive employment practices (restrictive non-compete clauses, nondisclosure agreements, and liquidated damage litigation against “employees who have pursued other career opportunities and as a way to limit criticism of its business practices”), contradictions of being unable to continue local news investment despite high executive compensation and profits that could be used to invest in the stations, the Bally Sports bankruptcy, the recent announcement of Univision’s removal from KUNS in favor of The CW, retrans disputes, and “moral terpitude” issues (the aforementioned prostitution arrest of Smith). None of this rises to the level of license revocation, either.

Until these groups finally realize that they need to get a local resident to file a detailed and proper complaint, they're going nowhere. There must be a local person behind it that's just an average viewer (not the ones long checked off to the spam box who think a woman meteorologist wearing pants is somehow a violation of community norms), not a whistleblower engineer who knows too much. This is why radio license appeals usually go nowhere, because the average listener finds the obvious voicetracking and 14 minute ad breaks to be tolerable as background noise, and even the worst produced syndicated radio show with obnoxious bias still 'sounds' better and is tightly edited to the millisecond better than any local afternoon show was circa 1992. The other thing is that local news still makes up a minority of the broadcast day. The old days where a license could be pulled because of things viewers easily noticed, like network programming being pulled for offending the GM's morals or their racial views are gone; they air the shows without any changes because they lose their affiliation if they don't and can't refuse shows outside breaking news. The network also controls the technical quality, so you're not seeing licenses revoked for poor on-air quality or using a Peacock stream for the on-air feed. The burden is extremely high to revoke a license and must involve all 168 hours a week of programming, not just news.

KRON 1985 3D Promo KRON Newswatch 4 1977

This Tulsa setup is clearly a test by a very desperate Sinclair. If they’re willing to torpedo a newsroom in a market that size, the sky’s the limit for them. They’ve obviously done the math and know that, even with lower ratings, they’ll come out ahead due to the cost savings from shedding all those salaries. I could totally see them doing something similar in Austin, for example, where KEYE has been in the cellar forever, moving production an hour south on I-35 to the WOAI/KABB studios in San Antonio.

Ion and the CW airing live sports. Whodathunkit? What's next, candlepin bowling on MyNet?

“Adell told B+C he did not have an affiliation agreement with The CW, but agreed to air the network as an “accommodation” as he awaited the FCC’s signoff on the sale.” Someone just needs to get this boy away now. If he is “accommodating” them, like he says, he has a contract with them. How is Scripps and WMYD breaking anything? The CW/Nexstar had to go to them, not the other way around.

I suppose he explained this so people would see his point of view. In reality, he just looks like more of a moron than ever. Especially since he flat out admitted that he wanted nothing to do with The CW in the first place, and only let WADL affiliate with it because he was planning to sell. Then why the hell is he whining about WMYD taking the affiliation he specifically said he didn't want in the first place????? EDIT 11/27/2023: And he's got Jesse Jackson and the families of the original African-American investors to back him. Somehow.

This got by. but Bloomberg reports that Byron Allen now wants to acquire some of Scripps’ stations (read: those in small and, possibly, some mid-sized markets).

The most egregious, in the eyes of the FCC was trying to pass off WGN to a closely-aligned sidecar company (related to one of their major advertisers) in the failed Tribune merger. Way back when RKO General lost all their licenses, they may as well have been a mom and pop company (by the number of stations they were allowed to own at the time) compared to the sheer number of stations Sinclair has been able to own and control under current regulations. And all it took for RKO to have their licenses revoked was some simple corporate misconduct. Reciprocal trade. I can guarantee you not only has that happened at Sinclair, but in such multitude and frequency, to make RKO General's punishment seem like a slap on the wrist compared to what Sinclair should be facing.

It would likely face the same fate as the petitions to revoke Fox Television Stations’ license for WTXF, it’s not gonna happen. In both instances, it would take either company being proven of engaging in something closer to RKO General levels of business misconduct to warrant the revocation of their broadcast licenses. The issues with Sinclair’s newsroom operations aren’t really fraud (as the filing states) as it is corporate incompetence. As noted in the filing, Sinclair’s newsroom cutbacks are mainly the result of its “ill-advised” purchase of Bally Sports, however Sinclair was already dealing with substantial debt predating that purchase, which its post-2011 purchases only contributed to. (Sinclair nearly went bankrupt itself only a few years before its buying spree began.) Side note: The ex-news director who filed the complaint, when citing stations affected by the news cuts (a list that included stations that dropped newscasts but still have an in-house or partially outsourced news operation), left out WPMI from the list; its morning and noon newscasts were canned in favor of the morning edition of The National Desk and a run of Family Feud this Spring. Then there’s one nugget I noticed towards the end: According to the Baltimore Sun, Smith was once arrested in August 1996, for “committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes.” First time I’ve heard about this.

I wouldn't take Rich Lieberman's word for anything. To him, every Bay Area radio and television newsroom is a cesspool of incompetence and failure, backbiting and jealousy, and most news anchors are having illicit affairs. It'd be pretty funny if it weren't so monotonous.

I think CBS News and Stations got the new look done in a hurry compared to ABC O&Os

I know this a pipe dream, but I would love to see Kaity anchoring weekdays again.

Since KCTV is channel 5.... WEWS capitalized on their channel number (5) to launch their 5:00 p.m. show years ago. There are a bunch of "Live AT Five" shows, but being on Channel 5 gives them the opportunity to brand their show as "Live ON Five"

I guess Scripps figured the sports real estate was more valuable than the CW. The irony is that this was a Nexstar station after Meredith dumped it after acquiring KTVK. They figured cap space elsewhere was more valuable than having a station in Phoenix. And even more ironic, KASW signed on because KTVK wanted to stay an independent rather than run the WB programming in primetime.

WNDU NewsCenter 16 at 11:00 (November 26, 1990)

It is on the horizon. This whole page is about ABC standardizing graphics amongst its O&O’s. They are just rolling it out very slowly.

Just want to point out that they are using the NBC Nightly News font that they get access to as an affiliate.

With all of the must-run garbage Sinclair puts out, it lessens their local output to the point where they actually question doing "local" news. But this issue extends to virtually all of the other groups...Gray does their fair share as well with "InvestigateTV" and sharing stories between markets. Same with Nexstar. Scripps is taking the HLN Jukebox to the next level, and other groups are just as guilty with all of their shared franchises. Sinclair and their "National Desk" have come in and out of the public eye just as people have forgotten about the way they've tried to sway politics over the years, from Mark Hyman and his commentaries, to the town halls, endlessly investigating Hunter's laptop and all of the "bad things" Biden has done, Boris Ephstyn, Sharyl "Tinfoil Hat" Attkinson, all while giving credence to a serial liar under numerous indictments and potentially the second president since Grover Cleveland to be elected to a second, non-consecutive term. Ok...rant done. But Sinclair will have their work cut out for them in 2024 if they want a front row seat to this $#!+show.

Typically, KABC is a stable station in many ways, that include making only small changes in its on-air presentation over many years.

One thing that is not on the horizon is any standardization of ABC O&O graphics. CBS, NBC and FOX affiliates all have identical design. (I think local news is the poorer for that, especially CBS's rendering its stations to the "CBS News (insert market name here) " generic quality. WABC, KABC, and WLS, to name the three biggest ABC markets, are their own tooling and bear little resemblance to one another in font and design. KABC and KGO are mostly similar, except for differences in L3 color and a few other details. KABC by the way is working on the same graphics and set that made a debut in October 2015. That is some kind of record maybe.

HC2/Innovate would literally be a better owner of that station than him. Even the haunted spirit of Ernest Angley knows how to navigate an affiliation agreement (and even if he had no role when WBNX lost the CW, it's still a thriving station now).

So you're saying that he's so bad that people and companies we consider to be terrible owners would be better than him?

THAT RIGHT THERE. So, let's just say this was all without an affiliation agreement. Well then, at any point, Nexstar themselves could have easily pulled the affiliation. But let's say that Nexstar and Adell had gotten into it after the CW began airing WWE and acquiring whatever other events and then Nexstar had pulled the affiliation and gave it to whoever. Adell would STILL be crying nonsense. This is the man that had a major network affiliation in 1994 all but handed to him on a gold (never mind silver) platter but managed to mess that up and sent them to a station no one knew existed and is just now relevant. Adell is what would have happened had Weigel been run by wackos and it's an insult to even mention Weigel in this post.

It’s been discussed extensively here in the past, but I don’t think the branding shift was designed to “move the needle” as much as it was designed to promote the local streaming services. I really wish there were more reliable sources for ratings than that creep Rich Lieberman, but even if he’s right…at least the station hasn’t tanked, I guess. Pittsburgh is always competitive, and the ratings race for the 25-54 demo is extremely close. I’m sure there are other factors as to why KDKA is down at 6pm, though I wouldn’t be familiar with what those are.

An absolutely disgusting move by Sinclair, especially after reassuring their employees that these cuts were "done". I guess they changed their minds after more bad financial news. Basically, if anyone from Sinclair reads this, and your station is poorly ranked, under-invested....GET OUT NOW!!!

FTVLive’s Scott Jones, who once worked at KTUL, had some choice words about the gutting of its news department. The headline of his article on it says it all.

The station that uses Dimensional the best is CBS 5. I don't understand why the other O&O's don't use the full package like CBS 5 does.

If I had to bet Gray wanted more money because now KTVK carries Suns games

Yet, in Tulsa (and OKC), not only can the competition still do well, but there is still a locally-owned independent in each market (KOTV and KWTV, both of which I believe lead their markets). This looks like a Sinclair-specific problem.

One of my managers is a former Sinclair ND. It's all anyone could talk about today. Tulsa is not a small market and KTUL, I think, was in second place.

I think the shows are interchangeable. But it might be better to keep Inside the NFL on Tuesdays while MNF is fresh on fans’ minds.

That source also says that NXT plans to stay on Tuesdays, but is willing to shift if the network says so, which would depend on whether The CW is willing to move Inside the NFL.

The network didn't actually have a deal with the NWA, and they were also talking with the producers of syndie staple Championship Wrestling from Hollywood alongside WWE.

Or in his case, the church wine from The WORD network...

Someone has been nipping in the cooking sherry again.

Oh for crying out loud!!!!

The irony is Katz is literally launching his new venture with copycats of the very networks he helped launch: The365 is basically a rehash of Bounce (interestingly and kind of fittingly, the name harkens McDonald’s old 365Black campaign), and Outlaw is basically Grit. Also, Gray already carries the “original recipe” networks on several of its stations (including in some Scripps markets), so they’re basically swapping two identical networks for the ones Katz is copying.

Intriguing. The CW last aired SmackDown from 2006 to 2008. Ironically, it was later dropped due to previous management not finding it a great fit with its then-strategy of teen dramas (and few sitcoms). If/when NXT is picked up under the current management, WWE programming will return to CW after a long absence, and this time - in line with its growing sports portfolio - it's a perfect fit.

The CW air two seasons of WWE Smackdown in the late 2000s so there is a precedent (i.e.. airing pro wrestling). If NWA/CW can produce a good product, they shouldn't have too much a problem attracting an audience. How big of an audience is unknown.

They've pretty much owned the market since the beginning. Florida State University nabbed the VHF allocation for Tallahassee (as a non-commercial station), while WCTV nabbed the next closest one in Thomasville, Georgia. It wasn't until 1976 when WECA (now WTXL) signed on, and not until 1983 when WTWC did. WALB in Albany still had city-grade coverage in the northern fringes and served Tallahassee as their default NBC affiliate until WTWC. The ratings pretty much have reflected this for years...WCTV owns the market by a large margin with WTXL as a distant second, and WTWC as a perennial non-factor. Even Sinclair opted to still have WCTV produce WTWC's .2 (FOX 49) newscasts and have absolutely nothing for WTWC/NBC.

I gotta say, they’ve been using that logo in stations a whole lot lately, and I don’t think it’s stopping anytime soon. First there was KMCC, then KUPX, then KIVI-DT2 (plus its semi-satellite), and now this?

Let me clarify this, but this is on the MTN .2 subchannels, all of which are independent, it's not the new logo for the CBS main channel or KTVH/KTGF.

The NHL owns the rights to all national game telecasts after they're over, so that shouldn't be a problem.

I mean they won, so I feel that's still better than the Ion Episode Picker 9000 choosing what episodes of Criminal Minds to run that night (and the problem is trying to get both ESPN and TNT's permission for earlier rounds). If it's fine for the NHL Network to do, why not their broadcaster until games start?

KMCC's inaugural prime time slate: endless cycling through of the Knights' Stanley Cup Final games from last season. At the very least, there were other playoff games from that campaign that could've been used.