tyrannical bastard

If anything, the stations have to give up inventory (either paid or promotional) to show NewsNation ads. For a station that is not clearly number #1, giving up this prime inventory may be something that could possibly make a difference for the positive.

Another longshot possibility....take the NBC affiliation from KSL. I know KSL has fallen in line after years of selectively preempting NBC content, but if they hint at any reservation of paying for NBC, Gray maybe more willing to.... More likely, Gray could set itself up to air Utah Jazz games.

In a way, Drew Carey could be considered one. He's hosted TPIR for far longer than his namesake sitcom from the 90s.

Sinclair is (gasp) selling a station! Sort of.. https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/1/22/buy-this-sinclair-station-for-13-million Probably will be consolidated into its parent station.

Sinclair is dumping their free streaming service STIRR to another company, and has stripped basically all of their content from it. https://cordcuttersnews.com/sinclair-sells-its-free-streaming-service-stirr/ This leaves NewsON as the only OTT service that carries Sinclair stations. I say good riddance. It was a mess of mismatched content and never seemed to work right. It had a lot of potential but like everything, Sinclair squandered it because, well....it's Sinclair.

Nexstar's bulk deal with CBS is also up at the end of this year, and with CBS losing the SEC games, the affiliation in these markets is much less attractive than it was before. I think NBC would be willing to affiliate with Nexstar in certain places and let CBS jump to the Sinclair station. And one of these markets is Mobile.

NBC is probably their weakest link. Despite them owning stronger stations like WJAR, WCYB, WTOV and WJAC, they have weaker stations like WOAI, and self-created abominations like WPMI, WTWC, WEYI, WNWO and WNBW. Despite WNWO and WTWC being the only ones Sinclair owns outright, it's a black eye on the markets these other stations serve. NBC can't be too happy with them these days. Even MSNBC recently eviscerated David Smith's recent purchase (and Sinclair in general) on Alex Wagner's show the other night. While the whole group going away is unlikely, it may be like what happened with WJMN in Marquette. If there's a more willing station to take on NBC and provide a better path, NBC would happily oblige. It happened years back (pre-Sinclair) to WRDC when Outlet plucked the Peacock to their-owned (at the time) WNCN after decades of failure in Raleigh-Durham.

Which network is up next for renewal? I believe NBC is up at the end of this year. LOTS of affiliates that Sinclair has never helped, or helped to drive into the ground, or FURTHER into the ground.

And the tragedy in that is these local newsrooms and network affiliates. Despite being run by Sinclair and pushing out all of their garbage, there are still a lot of talented, competent journalists they employ who know how to cover their communities, and are great at breaking their own stories that often uncover actual corruption.

David Smith is a prime example of someone who has too much money and no idea (or malicious intent on) what to do with it. While the rest of the world is scraping for pennies trying to keep oligarchs like him from ruining anything they touch with all of their money.

Amazon will buy a minority stake in Bally Sports, making Prime Video their primary method of DTC distribution, and Sinclair will pay $495 million to settle their (mis)management services of Diamond Sports Group https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/amazon-diamond-sports-investment-reorganization-sinclair-settlement-1235790585/

He needed something to do after giving the keys to Chris Ripley to blaze his own trail of incompetence and greed.

May have been isolated to Sinclair. WPMI aired a 7pm CT newscast and WTOV aired one at 8 ET, pre-empting the special.

A sad day in Baltimore, since the Sun was a vocal critic of David Smith and his escalation of Sinclair into a national powerhouse of propaganda. Given their current state under Alden, it sadly may actually be an improvement, since the paper is once again under "local" ownership.

I"m curious...how many NBC affiliates (or station owners) opted not to show the pre-game special for the Miami/Kansas City game that's exclusively streaming on Peacock?

It definitely has the FOX O&O vibe, at least with the font. Once this package gets to the other markets (especially Pittsburgh and Charlotte) it will be a major improvement. Both of those packages probably go all the way back to their launch in HD, which seems like an eternity.

Tonight was Alan Sealls' last night at WPMI NBC 15 in Mobile. https://mynbc15.com/weather?video=99b41c27ff6d4c6ba650a81d2687b878

Because after being taxed to death by the NFL and college football (well, sort of through rising TV rates and such) all America needs is another football league after the season is over, right?

Imagine this...a Sinclair station adding a morning newscast, replacing TND! https://triblive.com/aande/movies-tv/tv-talk-morning-local-newscast-launches-on-wpgh-tv-next-week-fox-readies-grimsburg/ (spoiler alert: It's WPGH and it's produced by WPXI. Still, surprised that WPGH is playing along!) Most likely, WPXI wants to keep up with KDKA and WPKD. I'm sure Cox would gladly snatch up WPGH if they could

Gray also reached a deal to air select New Orleans Pelicans games across their stations in Louisiana (KALB, KPLC, WAFB, KNOE, KSLA, WVUE) Mississippi (WLOX, WDAM, WTOK, WLBT) and Alabama (WALA). https://www.fox10tv.com/2023/12/31/fox10-gray-tv-stations-reach-deal-televise-10-this-seasons-pelicans-games/

It's probably been brought up in this thread already, but is there any difference between CNN on cable/satellite and their "Max" feed other than the CNN bug and ticker? Pretty sad that CNN has slipped to this, but it was inevitable to it being nothing more than added value to Max, which I still get for free via my AT&T internet service.

I'd be very, very surprised to see if Gray drops the "Fox" branding from their stations. I don't think Fox would stand for it, and the way that most Fox stations are branded, anything else would be very disorienting to a lot of viewers.

Gray likely saw what happened to Nexstar when they caved in to CBS in their last deal, so they didn't take any chances should NBC have pulled their affiliation from a station or two, or 53. We're probably at the point where existing piecemeal deals are about to be all entire group deals that line up to the point that affiliation switches could be done much easier.

There are actually cases where an existing competitor would serve the market BETTER by picking up another affiliation than letting it be run by another party. Case in point, Mobile & Pensacola. Since WPMI has been gutted by Sinclair, both WEAR and WPMI have suffered. Mobile is having to pad out their newscasts with Pensacola stories, and on the weekends, WEAR produces and simulcasts their weekend shows. Deflating the argument that Mobile and Pensacola are better served by separate stations, even WEAR is watering down their shows to air Mobile stories on a regular basis. Now if WALA is granted the NBC affiliation as a subchannel, Mobile viewers would have a more-local option, plus the option of having a dedicated 6pm newscast since Jeopardy! is on at 6 on WALA's main feed.

Maybe for the New Orleans Pelicans, but Biloxi-Gulfport is also in the middle between the Mobile-Pensacola and New Orleans TV markets. Could also be for the Tampa-Sarasota area as well, but I haven't heard anything about the Tampa Bay Rays deal with Bally being in trouble.