tyrannical bastard

I'm trying to catch up on this situation... Sinclair and Trump are on the same... all talk and no action. I have to wonder did they just chicken out, or did ABC threaten them with legal action for preempting their programming? If anything this should be the final straw for Sinclair, and if they lose the ABC affiliate base, the walls will start crumbling from within.

Aside from a civil war, the best thing Americans can do right now is cancel their subscriptions en masse to these companies that are bowing down. Make it hurt to the point that the oppressors are the ones begging for mercy.

With the demands that Sinclair is levying on Jimmy Kimmel to return to their stations, ABC needs to grow a backbone and pull ALL of their affiliations from Sinclair. They expire in 2026, but technically what they're doing is very likely a breach of contract that should give them the right to act immediately. They should have done it 20 years ago before Sinclair quadrupled in size and acquired leading stations they've driven into the ground. If things continue how they are, the network/affiliation model is on a fast track to extinction. Really the only premiere programming left is live sports and news, everything else worthwhile has migrated to streaming.

In saner times, Perry Sook's decision to drop Kimmel would have sent the full force of ABC to declare him in breach of contract and potentially strip them of their affiliations. But here we are and wannabe media mogul Perry Sook is trying to be David Smith 2.0 by shoving NewsNation down the throats of any viewers of any Nexstar station. Hopefully more people will know Perry Sook's name and Nexstar will pay dearly for it. Hopefully ABC walks, and Tegna pulls out of the merger. It's time to start focusing on the advertisers that choose to do business with Nexstar and either boycott them or encourage them not to do business with Nexstar in the future. Remember when WHDH tried to do the same with Jay Leno's horrible 10p show? WHDH relented, but got the last laugh because the show was a horrible bomb and an even bigger disaster for any other NBC affiliates.

When people start canceling their pay TV and streaming services....THAT will scare the hell out of these companies. Especially the broadcasters who have lived high and mighty off of retransmission fees of a FREE product. Contacting your local TV station is useless, especially when it's a mega broadcaster like Nexstar. Maybe at a one or two off like Manship's WBRZ or KRGV, or KTBS in Shreveport, LA... If enough viewers are pissed off enough, they have the power to tell ABC to take a hike. WAY back in the day, WEWS was able to get a show cancelled. This was with Turn On, a Laugh-in-like show that was literally pulled mid-episode by WEWS. Some stations didn't even air it (in Mountain and Pacific time) and for those who did, it was only the 1 episode. It was terrible enough at the time that even the viewers were calling WEWS in protest of how awful it was. Here's the first episode:

Brendan Carr and all of his cronies are idiots because... ABC AND THE OTHER NETWORKS DO NOT HAVE FCC LICENSES!!! Only the stations themselves are licensed and liable for their operation. And given the sway the networks have over their affiliates, that discretion is very limited. All it takes is an oligarch like Perry Sook to make a fuss and then the network relents...

The only thing worse than Kimmel getting yanked off the air is the all-too-soon reality that the no-talent ass clown Jimmy Fallon will be the last late show standing. At least back in 1993 the USA was in a FAR better place even in the infancy of the Bill Clinton days... Before I end my rant..... (Dirty language ahead) FUCK Perry Sook... FUCK Nexstar. AND FUCK Donald Trump!

WSRE in Pensacola, Florida is leaving PBS next summer. They're run by Pensacola State College, and serve the western portion of the Florida Panhandle, as well as reaching into South Alabama as an alternative to Alabama Public Television. https://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/education/2025/09/17/wsre-end-pbs-affiliation-with-next-summer/86177581007/ APT's reach is weak since WEIQ in Mobile is lower-powered and WDIQ in Dozier only reaches the far inland portions of the DMA. The next closest station is WFSG in Panama City which is a repeater of WFSU in Tallahassee owned by Florida State. Couple this with WEAR's uber-dominance on the Florida side, and nothing but godcasters (WHBR/CTN and WFBD/TCT) and WPAN (informercials and brokered access), it only cements that area as a conservative hell-hole with stations like WSRE and WUWF (NPR station owned by the University of West Florida) cow-towing to the Trump and DeSantis administrations. Now I"m down to Alabama Public Television as well since MPB is ALSO leaving PBS next summer, and WSRE was always my choice of PBS programming that was more local than the stuff being piped down from Montgomery...

Hopefully at the very least, another PBS organization will buy the WPSU transmitter and simulcast their station for Central Pennsylvania. If WQED wasn't in such dire financial straits, they seem like they would be the most likely possibility. Hopefully WVIA or PBS Lehigh Valley makes a move to expand their footprint.

At least for the Huntsville area, they are still served by WJAB 90.9 with 100,000 watts owned by Alabama A&M University. Elsewhere in the state, there's also Alabama Public Radio, which is NOT related to Alabama Public Television, but run by the University of Alabama. The main station is in Tuscaloosa, with satellite stations in Muscle Shoals, Mobile, and Selma. Mobile's station is WHIL-FM and was once owned and operated by Spring Hill College, but was sold to APR in 2012 which made it a satellite in the network. In addition, there is WBHM in Birmingham, Troy University's WTSU (and WRWA in Dothan), Jacksonville State's WLJS, and Alabama State University's WVAS in Montgomery, in addition to NPR member stations in neighboring states. MPB stations penetrate into Alabama as well, but those will lose NPR next year along with PBS for their TV stations.

WPMI and WJTC have until December 2027 to choose to exercise an agreement to be acquired by Sinclair per their FCC filing. It was executed in 2012. As the clock is ticking on these agreements, expect Sinclair to cash in on them while they can. This one's a 15 year option.

Well, Sinclair has apparently found new ways to Sinclair. Operate under the radar so they don't have to deal with the FCC. Based on traditional FCC rules (which are basically a moot point in this climate), wouldn't a newsroom outsourcing qualify as a JSA/SSA and need to be disclosed? Then again, WLNE has always been a cursed doormat, especially in it's post-Freedom days when they were under receivership through Global Broadcasting.

Can't wait until they try their luck with WPMI....AND WJTC. That would make FOUR stations in the same market...that Sinclair would own outright if they decided to pursue full ownership. Sinclair did gain that option when Deerfield bought them from Newport in 2012.

Another Deerfield purchase, this time, Sinclair wants to buy Rochester's WHAM... https://tvnewscheck.com/business/article/sinclair-buying-wham-rochester-from-deerfield-media/

WCMH is reporting on the upcoming cuts to WOUB in Athens, Ohio. https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/athens/heartbreaking-ohio-university-student-media-facing-1-75-million-in-budget-cuts/ WCMH is owned by Nexstar, and Athens, Ohio is in the fringes of the Columbus DMA with WSAZ, WQCW and WCHS available there as well. Perry Sook is a 1980 graduate of Ohio University. He and his wife donated to build the "Perry and Sandy Sook Academic Center" on campus at the north end of their football stadium. Meanwhile, Nexstar is buying Tegna and could very well do the same to WBNS... So is Nexstar trying to win some brownie points in Athens by reporting on WOUB's troubles when they're about to do far worse in Columbus?

This station sounds like the Temu version of Allen Media...or Bayou City Broadcasting to be exact (since DuJuan McCoy sold Bayou City to Allen Media) Sad that it was once LIN's flagship. But it goes to show you that every now and then, a too-big company is better than a crappy station owner who is wiling to let good employees walk just to screw them over if they go against them.

Who knows... Maybe our FCC will actually show a backbone like Ajit Pai did by forcing the Sinclair-Tribune merger into an administrative law judge review. Whoever saw that coming? If there's any hope, maybe Chris Ruddy will convince Brendan Carr that all this consolidation is bad and sentence all of this forthcoming consolidation to the same fate... We can only hope...

There's probably enough separation in the licensing and ownership to satisfy the FCC. Anything beyond that is fair game for the Mcbride's to take over the non-license assets and run it like one of their own. But then again, the DOJ could chime in if it becomes an issue of market share.

It's like a reverse Youngstown, except this time it's the family-owned group that's owns the market. At least in Youngstown, WFMJ holds its own and does quite well against WKBN, WYTV and WYFX. And the two markets are quite opposite. Youngstown has been withering away for decades while SWFL is booming with anyone willing to move there.

Too bad the McBrides' sold the Browns decades ago to Art Modell. I don't know what was worse, that, or their so-called "monopoly" in SWFL.

As if the market wasn't decimated enough with Hearst having WBBH and WZVN under one roof... If there was a market Nexstar could trade into, this could be a possibility "IF" there's any regulatory issues that beleaguer these deals....

Since CW55 is now up and running, the old WBNX.com site is still active....and hasn't been updated since Winston turned over the keys to Nexstar. Wonder if Nexstar is ever going to take it down and redirect to Fox8.com with a sub-page? And the new CW page is up...https://fox8.com/cw55/ But WBNX.com is still alive and well as of this edit...do we need to raise ol' Ernest from the heavens to slay this demon?

I've noticed that Nexstar has been filling in the "streams" on their OTT apps with NewsNation programming...

So Joel "If it bleeds it leads" Cheatwood is part of this mess? Must have been after he was brainwashed by Fox News and Glenn Beck.

Regarding my prior post, WJW is now producing an 11:00 p.m. newscast that airs on WBNX, which is now the CW station of Cleveland as of September 1st. https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/regional/2025/08/29/cw-to-return-to-channel-55-starting-sept-1/85864283007/ An interesting move for sure... How come WJW has never acted on this for years?