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Dave Lougee sent an email to employees today saying, among other things, that they were the ones who decided to not pursue it anymore, that the company will keep operating as it has been, and thanked employees for their patience over the past 18 months and for helping the company post record results in 2022. He said he'd share more information tomorrow. Naturally, employees aren't going to see any of those record results or any hundreds of millions they'll get from the termination clause. It also means stations went through months and months of hiring freezes because of "the sale" and an "uncertain economy" for literally nothing.

Ding dong, Soo Kim’s deal is dead. TEGNA just announced late this afternoon the merger is terminated.

Honestly I don’t think Soo Kim/Standard will ever be selected as the winning bidders of a station group again. Just like after the Sinclair-Tribune deal died in a similar fashion, Sinclair has not been able to buy any full power stations since because no one will sell to them. Prospective sellers don’t want to sell their stations to a group that has a poor track record of getting deals done. In the bidding process companies often look at everything especially: -Who offers the most -Who is most likely to get the deal across the finish line

Glad that CBS is reading us as they continue to fix their mistakes we point out.

I smell them having to sell their stations off too, or Apollo having to let go of Cox. He needs to run away and not be seen again in the industry.

From that press release: That $136M Standard General has to pay up won't be enough. I hope Tegna file suit to get every penny owed. Shareholders better file their own suit too.

You guys make too much of this. The FCC has to follow the law as much as Sinclair did. They're not allowed to hold a grudge like people do. If Sinclair proposes a straight-up transaction that doesn't use a bunch of shell companies to get around the cap, they should be able to get a purchase through. In the Tribune purchase, Sinclair was doing all kinds of crazy things and FCC wasn't willing to let them go that far with the law. But as you can see with the latest purchased by Mission, the FCC isn't going to stop people from using sidecars. Assuming it gets approved, of course.

I don't think Sinclair has been in the market to buy anything since they bought the sports networks. That may change now that the sports networks are off their plate. If it's a simple transaction, sellers aren't going to be skeptical of Sinclair. If Sinclair is going to pay the most money, that's who will get it. But I agree that a complicated deal that involves the kinds of legal contortions Sinclair has been famous for, is going to have skeptical sellers.

I just tuned in and checked out WBBM's 5:00pm newscast and noticed that they switched from the WCBS/KCBS version of the CBS 2 logo to WBBM's version in the logo bug.

At the very least, I can see Cox putting WFXT (which they were going to send to SG) up for sale.

CoxApollo should, as well.

I guess now would be a good time to acquire some earplugs.

If I remember from Sinclair-Tribune, Tribune announced the termination of that sale the day after the outside date (and of course filing that lawsuit). All that wasteful time trying to convince the FCC to change their minds and rescind that HDO, what Soo should have done was to go to the [incumbent] Tegna board and beg them not to sue him for all this waste of time. If you don't hear anything today, you'll definitely hear something tomorrow.

It appears Adell was under investigation for missing taxes.

It Appears LIV Golf Is Ashamed of Its TV Ratings on The CW [ After holding six events this year, the breakaway league has stopped publicly reporting its viewership numbers ]

A mouthful of a name but interesting to see. Figueroa was a good guy when he was on the Mets and worked for SNY for a time but left due to some personal struggles. Glad to see he's landed back on his feet.

A nightly 7PM sports show was added this past week, with onetime Met Nelson Figueroa as a co-host: https://pix11.com/sports/ny-sports-nation-nightly/former-new-york-mets-player-nelson-figueroa-joins-pix11-sports/

People who work nights? I know if I was working nights, I'd prefer early morning news over infomercials any day.

WXYZ can get away with that with no station slogan and the alternating designations WXYZ, 7 and Channel 7 used interchangeably in their advertising. They’ve been using those three as their main branding since the 1970’s and maybe longer. CBS has the problem of it being too new and sharing call letters with WWJ 950AM… they already brand themselves starting with WWJ. So this is very unlikely.

Congressional Republicans are asking the FCC IG to investigate the FCC's handling of the deal. I also discovered there's an entire website making the case for why the deal should happen. What I found funny was the part where they say under their leadership there's been an increase of 40,000 hours of local news...which I'm assuming is from the past 20 years under companies that no longer exist. They certainly haven't added that much news to the four stations they currently own.

Makes me wonder if Nexstar or Mission is trying to fill out their presence in the top markets. They would have to play the "mission" card if there was a full-powered station they wanted to get their hands on. Otherwise, they could stumble onto a Class A station, which Nexstar could acquire outright, and if it was part of a channel sharing arrangement with a full-powered station, all the better. If such a station existed in Atlanta, there's your new CW station right there.

That's all Soo Kim had to do was unload the conflicts, but no. He wants to be stubborn like a mule with how he's handling this.

Kevin Adell certainly bided his time and got the result he wanted; he probably gets to keep a couple subchannels for the Word Network and Sonlife/whatever he wants, Nexstar gets a station in the state's prime market (and no more sub-deals for debates for Detroit coverage), and Adell no longer has to deal with the headaches of running a TV station to focus on 910. If WMYD would've taken the CW, they would've by now and LIV wouldn't be in the WDIV subchannel purgatory.

He's just blowing smoke. Again. The FCC isn't going to reopen the door on this. They made their decision. It's going to the judge.

It still does NOTHING to either solve the conflicts in ownership in 5 markets, nor does it settle the issue of foreign money being involved. They could promise 10 years and that wouldn't work.

Donna Deegan, former WTLV anchor, won her mayoral runoff election. She will be the new Jacksonville, Fla., mayor this summer.