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Regardless of whether or not a station has a physical presence in the market since the abolition of the "main studio rule", next year could be a major crossroads for networks like ABC. Do they want to sever ties with their local affiliates that could pre-empt their programming, align with another broadcaster who had little ties to a given area just it guarantee 100 percent coverage of their content, or abandon broadcast TV altogether? As seen with CBS in Atlanta, they will take their ball and go home. While NBC and ABC have no inkling to buy more stations for themselves, we could see a shift towards a more Canadian model of strong network stations more tied to their networks and more independents. Once the market gets saturated with independents, the market will start correcting itself, licenses will be returned to the FCC, and if we're lucky, new stations can be created with the now-available licenses. If anything, local news will be done by one or two independents, and the rest will be fed by a network of stations under their control.

Exactly this. All of this is crazy wishcasting. Was there tension between Nexstar/Sinclair and ABC? Of course. Does each party understand the other side's motivations? I think so. If it becomes a repeated thing, then there's definitely the potential for something to change. For now, this is like hearing your parents have a disagreement over something minor and assuming they're filing for divorce. Miami was a rare exception where ABC reached an impassse with a single station operator and took an unexpected path forward with an established operator/brand - who could accommodate ABC with the cost of engineering a HD .2 subchannel and a time brokerage agreement with a LP station to get a .1 for it. But, I do think if ABC/Disney decides to abandon a large ownership group, they'd rather temporarily subsidize the cost of people getting their product direct to consumer in those markets rather than starting fresh on little known stations that have no history at a time where linear TV is in rapid decline.

Weigel is not going to build out a news operation for an ABC St. Louis affiliation for the same reason Sinclair hasn't: There's no demand for another news operation in the market. ABC isn't going to pull the affiliation over not having news, because there's nowhere for it to go. ABC knows this. That's why it hasn't already happened, end of story. The market is dominated by existing news operations. None of those are places for ABC to go. Nexstar is being openly hostile to ABC, Gray has been semi-openly hostile towards the networks in the recent past, and Tegna has been desperately trying to not exist for years now, and will likely become an extension of Nexstar. None of these seem like good options for ABC to even start negotiations with. Look at Miami. They had to settle on a .2 of what is ostensibly an "independently-owned" station with an existing news department. You have to assume they went to Scripps during these negotiations, as they own both WPXM and WSFL in the market. Scripps probably said "no" to the idea of building out another news operation in Miami, because they've done it before, and it's failed every time. At best, ABC would end up as KSDK 5.2 in St. Louis. Weigel does not seem interested in owning network affiliates as their entire business at this point is diginets. This is why the rumors frequently swirl about CBS buying up WDJT. It just makes more sense than what is currently happening. KDNL is probably what most "network affiliates" will look like at some point, anyways. It's no secret that Nexstar and Sinclair are dreaming of a world where they control 100% of the airtime on their stations. As the networks increasingly become commercials for streaming services, I can see a future where the "Big 4" simply bounce around low-powers and diginet trees with a deal that they get to program 2 minutes of ad time an hour. The big owners won't want them, because they don't want to air an all-day long commercial for Disney+/Paramount+/Peacock. CBS in Atlanta, ABC in Miami, and the Kimmel thing, are all symptoms of the early stages of the death of the current affiliate model. Not to mention, business analysts are starting to suggest that ABC (and probably the others) get out of traditional broadcast altogether.

While Sinclair (and Nexstar) have been busy keeping Jimmy Kimmel off the air, they've been back to their old tricks of peddling misinformation. https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/29/sinclair-broadcasting-takes-a-break-from-protecting-local-communities-by-banning-comedians-to-spread-tylenol-disinformation/ It's past time the networks pull their affiliations from Sinclair. That's the only way they'll learn.

I think ABC moving to a dot 2 on either KMOV or KSDK is more likely that Weigel grabbing a bunch of ABC stations. Also, y'all are forgetting Scripps owns a bunch of Ion stations, including St Louis, DC, Dayton, Columbus, and more.

KNLC's sole local presence is literally its transmitter site in House Springs. Historically, they were located on Locust Street in downtown St Louis but Weigel lists its Chicago address for FCC studio address purposes. I doubt Weigel would be much interested in acquiring a studio and investing in a build out of such a facility.

It was better to keep this here...

KOIN has started to air a series of reports looking back at Jeff Gianola's career before he retires around Thanksgiving. This report from days ago looks back at Jeff's 15-year time at KATU. This includes anchoring with Julie Emery, working with Bill O'Reilly for a time, and even doing the weather at one point before switching totally to news in 1986.

My best wishes to longtime WXIX anchor Rob Williams who's been there for 30 years and is a staple of Tri-State television. This morning, he announced that he has prostate cancer. https://www.fox19.com/2025/09/26/rob-williams-shares-cancer-diagnosis-ahead-special-event/?fbclid=IwY2xjawND6FJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHsCVJ3ezFEWeuzFdOSuJAGZJCZVvcPYvNdy9ebj-2u7NygI0jMgpl3bRzVLD_aem_Z5C69FiyeihdKY5iTv-WNA

Well, consider the Tegna merger DOA, especially if Carr has his way with Nexstar.

If anything this whole affair has proven that Nexstar doesn't have the public's interest at heart and that the Tegna merger should be toast.

Sinclair has ended their embargo.