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Doesn't Gray have Raycom Sports, though?

WLFL Fox 22 Ten O'Clock News (March 30, 1998; starts at 25:16) WLFL Fox 22 Ten O'Clock News (January 13, 1995; starts at 1:27) WLNS NewsCenter 6 at 5:30 (Lansing Live!) and at Six (December 21, 1995) KCST (now KNSD) NewsCenter 39 Tonight (July 1985)

The smartest thing Apollo could do right now is split the TV and radio stations into two separate companies. They'd have a better chance of selling both if they did that.

Let's level set here for a minute. First, NBCU must proceed with business as usual until the day SpinCo becomes a separate business. So, to that end, they proceed as normal in public while numerous plans and backup plans are crafted behind the scenes. For example, their NBA deal most likely included contingencies for how they would proceed if the USA network no longer existed. Remember, this is an 11-year contract, and cable has been contracting for a while, so it is highly unlikely this contract would have been signed without the ability to adjust programming platforms. It is probably happening sooner than anticipated, but cable will look much different 11 years from now, so both sides needed to carve out protection clauses in that contract. In addition, I don't think the NBA is hyper-focused on cable. It has been reported that the NBA was particularly attracted to the NBC broadcast network and its ability to create a "Basketball Night in America" franchise. The broadcast component was why, in the NBA's view, Turner could never truly match NBC's offer since Turner didn't have a broadcast network. The rights are with NBC Sports, not individual channels. And since NBC Sports stays with NBCU, the rights remain with NBCU. There is flexibility on the platforms airing content. Take the Olympics, for example. Ten years ago, NBCU put the Olympics on MSNBC to boost ratings for its struggling news channel. They aired the Olympics in the morning because Imus and their MorningLine programs were also-rans in the ratings department. Enter Morning Joe, and they decided it was more important not to interrupt regular MSNBC programming. So the Olympics moved to a different channel, and they didn't have to wait for a rights renewal to make that change. Having said that, NBC doesn't have carte blanche to do whatever it wants without input from the sports owner. The broadcaster has some latitude as long as any changes provide the sport with equal or greater exposure. For example, NBC couldn't take NBA games off the broadcast network and move them all to Bravo without consulting with the NBA. In that hypothetical case, the NBA probably has some veto authority. More information will be forthcoming regarding how this spin-off impacts NBC Sports. Perhaps SpinCo will sublicense content from NBC Sports, or perhaps NBC Sports will buy time on a SpinCo channel to air their content. Or maybe NBC decides to keep everything for themselves. Given how scripted content is going and the money they are spending on sports rights, they could put everything on the broadcast network and Peacock. Sports used to be exclusive to broadcast, so they might go back to the future regarding how they air sports.

They finally determined what the channel was.

I just checked WPRI and it looks like they're doing their streams live again too but I also noticed this... this could be the first of many popping up from Nexstar (FINALLY). WPRI, btw, is the first Southern New England television station to launch their own smart TV app. I'll be downloading this on my Roku, ASAP. https://www.wpri.com/wpri-12-smart-tv-app/

Griffin also has their food business keeping them afloat.

When the audience is a fraction of what it was a decade ago, there's no good way to spin them. Put out a press release that says "we won at 6pm with a 5 share!" means you're tacitly admitting at least 80% of people watching TV in that time slot are not watching local news over linear TV. The sales model has shifted away from selling on past show ratings to actual ad impressions which means specific newscast ratings are less relevant to the financial picture for a station and ownership group. In 2012, a manager at a station meeting said "flat is the new up" - I assume by 2025 it's now "not bleeding out viewers is the new flat"

Because ratings are even more irrelevant than ad revenue. It's all about the retransmission payments they are getting from Pay TV providers lining their pockets.

Good luck with that. None of the suspected companies (Nexstar, Sinclair, Gray, Scripps, etc, &c.) want radio stations and with Apollo wanting to sell the company as a complete unit, there are no available buyers, cap or no cap. And the industry dies outright with two or three companies too big to fail that are crippled when the networks abandon OTA for streaming, taking the last of the younger audiences with them.

TEGNA is taking a page out of the Scripps playbook now. In Spokane on KREM 2, the weeknight 11pm broadcast is now a replay of the 10pm they produce for their sister station. The main channel doesn’t even air live news at 11. No disclaimer on the TV that it isn’t live, but the app lags a few seconds behind the on-air feed and they match up word for word. Interestingly enough, the app has a “previously recorded” tag but keeps the 10pm time/temp bug. The on-air rebroadcast has the right bug. Seriously cheap as this is a mid-60s market. Is this happening elsewhere in TEGNA-land?

Well, Sinciair not only wants the FCC to abolish the current ownership rules, but end ATSC 1.0 as we know it.... https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/sinclair-urges-fcc-to-abolish-station-ownership-rules-sunset-atsc-1-0 I sort-of agree that 3.0 is a superior standard. But if only Sinclair is behind it and other broadcasters are using it as a way to restrict viewership (through encoding and datacasting), then it sort of defeats the purpose of broadcasting as we know it. Streaming has proven to be a method where they hold the control. It's there one day and could be gone the next. If broadcasters have the same control, then consumers lose out as well.

Today is the last day for TEGNA's creative services and marketing departments. All are being laid off in favor of centralized creative services. I saw an example of the new TEGNA creative services AI-driven TV ads...and wow, it's not good. I'm sure it's cheap, and that's what matters to the bottom line, but wow it's bad.