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Yes, WILX did do news for WSYM before the Scripps takeover. I think this is great for WSYM.. They totally got the shaft from Scripps... Especially when they were having WXMI do their weather for awhile. The only good thing that KKTV will get out of it is hopefully a brand change. Some point this year, they changd their branding to KKTV 11 Alert News and Weather... Not sure what is worse, First Alert News or Alert News....

Unless I'm missing something, Colorado Springs is very likely to lose an entire newsroom if this goes through. What a terrible deal.

I'm sure KUSA and KTVD would have to be pried from TEGNA's cold, dead hands. KUSA has been their baby for decades.

I would expect many news staffers at all the soon-to-be Scripps stations to be shown the light straight to the unemployment line as the result of downsizing. It's also a good thing that Coloradans are used to pre-recorded news. I'm sure 11 News and the others will be Scrippscasted as soon as the deal closes.

I mean, KOAA's branding until 2009 used to be 5/30.

Nexstar operated, Cunningham Broadcasting*-owned station WYZZ in Bloomington–Peoria, Illinois absolutely MeritTV on 43.2. * Cunningham Broadcasting could just be considered an offshoot of Sinclair.

I know it’s prime vacation time, but an interesting 11pm team tonight: David, Liz, and Dani.

Scripps won't have all of the Big Three in Colorado Springs/Pueblo. KRDO-TV, the ABC affiliate, is owned by News-Press & Gazette.

Correction: Both networks are also being added to additional Gray stations. Between Scripps and Gray, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs and Tucson are the only markets with new 365BLK and Defy affiliates where both groups overlap.

A loophole in Colorado Springs. Scripps has K30JM-D, a longtime translator of KOAA. Even past branding has branded them as 5/30. Scripps could sell off/shut down KOAA itself and use KKTV to rebroadcast "NBC 5" as a subchannel. The only hitch would have to be converting "30" to a Class A station if it isn't already. Then a duopoly is perfectly legal since "30" is low-powered and not subject to FCC regulations.

How exactly is Nexstar involved in this? Sorry if this has already been asked?

Eva Pilgrim got the job. She obviously left ABC after they reworked GMA3 and started using regular GMA hosts. They've been running promos welcoming him to the team, including one with Jessica Moore. Seemed odd, I haven't seen that sort of welcome on other stations.

So, for those of us who don't read legalese, what assets...er, Assets, does Merit Street have?

Spectrum, at most, will get ad inserts in the ad breaks that they can sell. The "rumor" is they get around $0.14 per sub per month, so at 35 mil homes Herring is snapping $5 mil per month for retrans. They had ~14K viewers in any given minute during a Nielsen test in 2019 but they aren't paying to track them.

Fantastic. Spectrum drops News 12 Connecticut and promotes the NYC-focused Spectrum News NY1 to cable channel 1 despite my town being nearly two hours away from the city, but hey, now we can get far-right lies and a channel geared towards rich people. I love cable TV!

I feel bad for the employees of soon-to-be former Gray stations.

WSYM had its news come from WILX until Scripps acquired WXMI if I recall correctly, so it is like back to square one there. I think the Colorado issue for Gray was that they had zero pathway into Denver. They would have either had to deal with Tegna (who might be looking for assets themselves) or with CBS (which would have been an expensive acquisition or would have required trading crown jewels).

Lansing is a 2 market with Nexstar/Mission CBS/ABC/CW, Gray WILX/WSYM as the only media owners in the Lansing market. Samatha Mesa has left WXMI FOX17 and is now working at WHO13 the Nexstar station in Iowa, Samatha was only with FOX17 for a year & half although I didn't see her until she became the anchor for 6PM newscast when I checked the weather. All the best Samatha I hope that you will return to West Michigan in the near future which isn't going to be Scripps.

Exactly this. The days of needing a 50k sqft purpose-built television facility are over. Do you have a space with high enough ceilings? You have a studio space. A massive high-ceiling, TV friendly newsroom where everyone has a cubicle and a row of edit bays for photogs are leftovers from tape to tape editing and limited live trucks. Should there be workspaces for field crews? Sure. But if your model is community reporters, the last place you want reporters is lingering in the newsroom. (Honestly, most newsroom shots are bleak these days because an empty newsroom is basically a well-lit Dunder Mifflin Paper Company) Do you need all the space for racks of servers that were necessary 15-20 years ago? Nope. The cloud and hubs shrink the technical operation space substantially.

Unless NP&G is for sale itself - and Gray now has a clean acquisition of that. But it does take Gray out of Idaho and out of Colorado. They probably also felt there were no good acquisitions in the region to complement their stations, such as Cowles in the Northwest not being for sale. KATC is a no-brainer, since I am sure for years they have wanted to get into Lafayette, and Scripps is isolated there.

Scripps isn't selling anything. This setup was deliberately engineered so KOAA can merge directly into KKTV, which recently got new studios. When it gets approved, Scripps will have the Big Three affiliations in Colorado Springs with KRXM as the only tangible competition. Likewise, when Gray buys Allen as a whole, the husk known as KADN/KLAF can easily merge into KATC.

Scripps will have to sell either KKTV or KOAA. Scripps will also have KKCO/KJCT. Gray gets a duop in Lansing with WILX and WSYM, meaning a news duo is reunited. Gray finally completes the Louisiana cycle with KATC.

How much money are these companies going to throw at Carr and Trusty to pay them off is the real question. Paramount Global threw away $16M so they could merge into Skydance, after all, and Gray, Nexstar and Sinclair know how to butter up the right people so they can get their way. It's a battle of the shameless.

WDVM/WDCW news director has been named news director for WPIX.

Fun fact. when CBS O&O’s started rolling out the “CBScityname” websites in the 2010s they couldn’t register cbsatlanta.com since it belonged to WGCL…as such WUPA ended up with the domain CBSAtlanta.net, which still redirects to their current website

Off topic... TIL: Breezeline is the American division of the Canadian conglomerate Cogeco that was formerly known as Atlantic Broadband.

liking the "miami" in the abc font.

1.) Okay, so while yes, Byron Allen's stupidity did cause issues, I do not ever think that... ■ Allen completely destroyed the reputation and value of the stations, especially given the fact some of the stations that Allen owns could be considered legacy stations in their own way, nor... ■ It means that broadcast groups like Nexstar could just... buy them at a discounted price equivalent to a price of a chocolate bar at a convenience store, do absolutely nothing to even help the stations, potentially do massive layoffs, and then call the whole buyout just an ordinary day. How is that even fair for the employees? (And potentially get in trouble with the whole duopolies thing. See WPIX and Mission Broadcasting, for example.) 2.) Also, There's only reason why the FCC (Not just even Perry Sook, I included the FCC AND the Broadcasting business in general, but anyway...) is allowing this to happen because they just do not care, and also just for money... Like, have they ever cared for the viewers, at all? No. People should know this. That's why the FCC is making really dumb and dangerous decisions recently. And also why iHeartMedia, Audacy and Cumulus owns the amount of radio stations that it owns right now. 3.) Also, honestly, at least it was Nexstar that bought the Tribune stations, Sinclair would've destroyed the stations reputation at all costs. But yea, the O&O thing makes no sense. **Also, this is why people don't trust the media nowadays.

Meteorologist Bayne Froney, previously of WLEX-TV in Lexington, KY, joined Fox Weather a few weeks ago. Her first on-air appearance was as a field reporter on June 24th; however, based on her socials, it looks like she was in the studio both days last weekend alongside Michael Estime and Jane Minar.

TBN also did themselves no favors by cashing out many of their stations in the spectrum auction, and subsequently selling the licenses to other parties, much like WDLI in Canton living on as a re-packed station on Ion's (Inyo's) WVPX. These TBN stations (and other full-power god-casters) exploited the must-carry obligation to get them on cable while the others opted for retransmission consent. Donations went down over time and the spectrum was a way to make some quick cash.

Merit Street is complaining that TBN didn't help it get on cable enough.

Yes

Interesting update on Janice. She was just on last week. I like WABC’s use of the networks talent lately. Rhiannon Ally filling in for Shirleen this morning.

I would argue maybe bringing "Vatican Media" to the States via Roku and other streaming means and double down on content, even make actual newscasts from the reports from Vatican News? But does the cost justify it when the church is already in a tough financial spot, probably not.

For what it's worth most of this goes back to the Crouch family feud, in which Matthew and his wife Laurie (and by extension, their sons Caylan and Cody) prevailed over Paul Jr. and his children for succession rights. P.J. and his son Brandon created JCTV, renamed JUCE after P.J. and his offspring were banished from TBN. Smile (of a Child) and the Church Channel were Jan Crouch's creations. As soon as she died, Matt and Laurie changed course on both. TBN stayed away from wading into political waters when Paul Sr. and Jan were running the show. Of course, that all changed when Matt and Laurie gained full control once both his parents were gone. I see that as part natural evolution, and part Matt and Laurie seeking greater influence in those circles.

You cant change what you dont acknowledge.

She platformed Phil and Mehmet Oz! Good luck trying to figure out who has been worse or more damaging in the long run.

*) I'm doing it in terms of irony and oxymoron. +) let's hope; it'll be a Merry Christmas miracle.

Looks like TBN is cutting ties with this clown and the waste of bandwidth that is Merit Street. I'm sure that some third-rate media platform will save (don't call him Dr.) Phil McGraw's vanity project, otherwise it could be on its last legs. If he loses the TBN distribution, I give Merit Street before New Year's until its forced to shut down operations, again unless some desperate platform needing content takes mercy on this shitshow of a channel.

A little birdie told me uncle Warren said no to a sale - if he sold it would have tax implications given how he acquired wplg. I still think Fox will buy 10, and that the ABC deal was a hedge by wsvn management since Their fox affiliation expires 2026 so...

It is true that Allen got a little too stupid but its safe to say that calling stations damaged goods isn't exactly what people want to hear/see. So, basically, have them (Nexstar or Gray) have a majority of the potential revenue in One particular area or state by making Allen sell ALL of the AMG stations to them... Then, basically run them as ... [Checks notes.] ...Semi-satellites of existing stations? Deregulation aside, how would they let this happen? And would that actually be fair for the viewers? Also, doesn't the FCC (Not now, of course) make sure that not only the top 4 stations in a certain area can't be co-owned, but also trying to (semi) clamp down on ... for example, a NBC affiliate on 9.1 having a ABC-affiliated subchannel on 9.2? Also, didn't Nexstar stop bulk-buying stations after 2019 with Tribune? Same thing with Gray Media with the Raycom Media and the Meredith Corporation stations in 2019, and 2021 respectively? If they were in the buying mood, they would've bought a lot more stations in 2024–2025.

Byron doesn’t seem to last very long at any place he works. Just sayin.

It was a live news event. I'm sure Carr will not investigate airing what trump says, considering he is his puppet.

Well, the Archdiocese of Boston owns CatholicTV, so in a sense, the Vatican has access to that.

The funny thing is that EWTN and the Vatican have a terrible relationship because of a lot of things, including EWTN's hate of Vatican II. If Rome could start its own American operation with EWTN's carriage, they would dump them in a heartbeat. And sadly, 'Christian television' has become just a euphemism for 'right-wing' content; the local religious station in Milwaukee airs a lot of wingnut shows and full podcasts now, including the Worldview Report, which actually gets an audience as an 'alternative' to the local newscasts at 10 p.m. and The National Desk.

I think Dr. Phil is realizing how hard it is to run such a network like this. His flagship program is on pause, the evening news is on pause, and 40 employees laid off again. Merit TV seems to be in such financial trouble. Not to mention the backlash against airing all those ICE raids. https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/tarrant-county/dr-phil-primetime-summer-hiatus-layoffs/287-d79bc36e-f954-4325-885a-668e5457892b

And I don't think Sinclair can buy anyway because of the troubles Sinclair had with the FCC regarding the Tribune deal. Speaking of wish, I wish Tribune was still around.

I can tell you this, it won't be clean for Gray if they even wanted to buy more stations. The only markets Gray doesn't have a presence in with Allen stations are Chico-Redding, Terre Haute, Lafayette (both in Indiana and Louisiana, Gray's last market where it doesn't own a station in that state), Tupelo/Columbus, Eugene, and Medford.

It's a little too late for Byron Allen to recoup what he spent for those stations. Even if the FCC totally deregulates TV broadcasting, Allen's stations are about as appealing to purchase as a rusted-out Ford Pinto. Plus, Allen Media gutted its stations to absolute bare minimums, and in some cases, the company doesn't even own the physical property. Anyone who's crazy enough to buy an Allen Media station will have to effectively un-Allen the stations by undoing the damages caused by hubbing master control, weather, etc. Kind of like what Gray had to do when it bought the Meredith stations and had to undo Meredith's dumb decisions.

I can only see Hearst buying WKOW and the Wisconsin stations to bolster WISN plus WAAY to bolster WVTM. The rest would be difficult for Hearst to imagine buying. I don't see them going back to Hawaii (for KITV).