tyrannical bastard

FTVLive is getting reports that layoffs are going down at Sinclair stations....including WGXA and WACH. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2023/3/17/just-in-layoffs-going-down-at-sinclair-stations Earlier, all local newscasts were cancelled on sister station WFXL in Albany, so could this be the end of local news in both of these markets as well? Now that the Bally Sports joint venture has filed for bankruptcy, I wonder how much Sinclair is on the hook for....

I blame Nexstar for the rate hike on YTTV! (Well not really, it's a myriad of factors but likely due to inflation and CBS/Paramount and other companies wanting more money for their precious content.)

Because the cord-cutting and reliance on a dwindling pool of willing subscribers to pay a "regional sports fee" on top of an already inflated bill is the final straw. National networks can pass this off with their broad reach, and their hands in the viewer's pocketbooks are much less apparent than the RSN's have ever been. Bottom line, sports has gotten too expensive. Viewers are tired of paying for it through high pay TV bills. Providers don't want to drive up the cost of their service too much by agreeing what the RSN's want to charge (which is the high price the leagues pass on to the RSNs). And seeing what it really costs, no one wants to pay $25 a month to watch their team on an RSN app. Covid and cord-cutting exacerbated this trend. Sinclair took the bait and paid dearly for it, especially when they lost most of the providers that carried it.

Sinclair's agreements are up either this year or next on beginning on August 31st and going into the same day next year. This could potentially mean a phased shift depending on when the contracts are up. Basically, if an affiliate contract is up then they could potentially move the network in house without penalty, correct? The trend seems to be even if a contract expires, that things continue status quo until either a new agreement is reached or if somebody else inks an agreement after the original one lapses. One of the groups has an agreement until 2026.... I think it's Tegna but I'd have to double-check. I even looked at WUAB's public file... Their current agreement with the CW only goes through August 31st of this year. This was after they were able to get it from WBNX when they defaulted on their agreement. (most likely linked to the foreclosure proceedings surrounding the Ernest Angley ministry)

I'm just glad that OG WGN will be available (in Chicago) when I "visit" ! This move may be a prelude to some of their non-CW stations switching to the CW. Many of their affiliate contracts are up this year, and there could be many opportunities for Nexstar to bring CW to one of their stations where it may not be already....

Well, to bring this thread up to speed, Bally has since breached one of their loan covenants and missed a payment to the Arizona Diamondbacks. They have a grace period of until March 17th to pay the Diamondbacks. Bankruptcy could be coming by then, finally. https://nypost.com/2023/03/12/mlb-to-stream-games-for-free-amid-looming-diamond-sports-bankruptcy-sources/ A side effect of what could be coming? MLB could be offering free streaming to customers of the affected teams.

I'm getting a Sinclair vibe with the lower thirds. The font is a little more refined than the "Din" Sinclair uses, and the "LNL" is a dead ringer for the "TND" they use for The National Desk.

Another OTT dispute. Hulu has dropped all of Sinclair's ABC stations... https://cordcuttersnews.com/hulu-drops-sinclair-owned-abc-stations/ With the bad relationship between Fubo and Paramount (with certain affiliate groups dropping their CBS stations and Fubo replacing with a network feed), retrans disputes like this could be much more common, especially if station groups get their way like they do with other pay TV providers...

With all of the mega-groups and their "locally produced content", I'm surprised no one group or set of groups has tried the "Evening/PM Magazine" approach to create shows around regional or sharable content, suited to a particular market or region, yet marketable as a single brand. Now that the tide has turned on syndication, it seems like the next way for stations to make their mark on both fronts.

I'll bet you 50 bucks the next sports push Nexstar makes for the CW is gambling-related!

If AT&T and Bally disappear, other than NBC Sports, who's left?

Mathis Court....do they only take cases that involve Johnny Mathis? Basically, any of these daytime court shows that come out of Entertainment Studios are very low-budget in appearance, even down to the courtroom "set" that looks like the walls are cheap doors they purchased at Home Depot on the cheap. Case in point, the backdrop for Justice with Judge Mablean...

Too bad Lionel Hutz is no longer with us. He alone would add another 20 years to the Simpsons parodying all of the legal tricks and ads since Phil Hartman's passing.

So Judge Mathis will become another time-filling (insert court type) court with (insert Judge name) host in the Byron Allen media empire? I can''t tell the difference between any of his shows. Probably even use the same "plaintiffs" and "defendants" as well as audiences.

I'll say it once, I'll say it again. Once the affiliation contracts are up with the CW with other groups, I think Nexstar is ready to take things in house where they can. Even if it means starting up their own subchannel. It seems a foregone conclusion where there is a spare (or MNTV) Nexstar station where a CBS O&O has the CW.

Judge Mathis will live on in canned lawyer commercials. He used to do ones for Morris Bart. Even Judge Joe Brown is part of an agency's rotation of celebrity endorsement of local law firms alongside William Shatner, Eric Pierpoint, and the late Robert Vaughn. The same agency often uses "you mean business" and has a dramatization of a legal situation that ends in "Who are the lawyers on this case" (insert law firm here) (surprised reaction) "Let's settle this one"

It says something about the state of broadcast syndication when first-run shows go away, they're replaced by their repeats.

With Dr. Phil, The People's Court and Judge Mathis ending this season, that pretty much blows out WALA's remaining daytime schedule. They do news from 4:30-9am, Studio 10 from 9-11am and an hourlong Midday newscast at 11am. Judge Mathis runs twice at noon and 1pm, People's Court runs at 2, and Dr. Phil runs at 3. Followed by news from 4-6pm as well as a 9pm and half-hour 10pm show. Aside from Wheel/Jeopardy, FOX primetime, and some off-net sitcoms after 10:30, that's all that's left outside of local programming. Many other stations could be in the same boat and could possibly KVVU-ize their news output.

Not to mention before Sharyl Attkinson and Lara Logan went off the deep end.....

My lord...the CBS Evening News has been a dumpster fire ever since Scott Pelley "stepped down" from the anchor desk....and an underground mine fire burning out of control since Jeff Glor was given the boot. It makes Katie Couric's days look like quality television...and even how Dan Rather tanked the show in the 80s and 90s still look respectable.

If these groups (and potentially others) follow suit, I think Nexstar is prepared to subchannel CW in markets where they only have a single station. And if they can't secure another affiliate? Put it on cable (like the WB 100+) and tie it into the retransmission rights of NewsNation, because starting up another cable channel in this day and age is a great idea, right?

And WFXL's newscasts have mostly originated out of WGXA in Macon, save for some local reporters in Albany.

Nothing but a way to have total control of "Fox 28" under Sinclair. Columbus does not have and never had enough stations to permit a legal duopoly (or even an LMA) which is what WTTE is/was. Sinclair traded up to WSYX when they purchased River City Broadcasting, and since WTTE had to be divested, instead of selling it to another party, they sold it to CEO David Smith's mother (as Glencairn) and after she passed, her trust controls Cunningham Broadcasting. Then when LIN divested WWHO, they sold it to Stephen Mumblow, who let Sinclair run his station as well.

There is one roundabout tie to channel 33 in the 33/40 gaggle of frequencies. WSES (the former WCFT "33") on actual channel 36 and virtual channel 33 is one of the ATSC 3.0 stations serving Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, and it carries the 17.2 feed of 58.1 in 3.0. So.....yeah. Then again, for damaged goods like WWJ, best to simulcast a streaming service called "CBS Detroit" as opposed to starting a news department on CBS 62. Maybe the 62 carries a little extra baggage because of the movie UHF? But moreso by the desperate moves to keep CBS in Detroit at the time, even preparing to pipe in adjacent affiliates and resulting in ABC buying stations in Toledo and Flint at the time because of the fear of losing WXYZ (which never happened) If you think about it, the fear of WXYZ going CBS really set the ball rolling for a lot of the secondary affiliation switches because of the Fox/New World deal. That forced Scripps to go all in with ABC, which caused Westinghouse to go all in with CBS, which caused the swap in Philadelphia, and so on....

WWHO is the 3.0 station for the Columbus market. All they would have to do to keep the other subchannels status quo is switch 53.1 to something else. Since 3.0 is such a coordinated effort between broadcasters (especially Sinclair & Nexstar), there has to be a level of cooperation and sharing. Nexstar taking away the CW from others may be a problem, but they still would have to "make nice" with Sinclair because of all of the hosting and sharing of channels. I"m surprised the FCC hasn't chimed in on how a station like WWHO could be exempt from ownership limits since it is a host station and that their originating program streams are effectively digital subchannels on other stations in the market.