tyrannical bastard

YouTube TV has the affected stations with the exception of WJTC (ind/Mobile), KNSN (MyN/Reno), and KMEG(CBS/Sioux City)

It could be a myriad of factors. But money may be the holdup. Being a smaller company, they don't have the clout of larger broadcasters like Sinclair. (Even though they physically run the stations, programming is indeed separate aside from newscasts and shows produced by the SSA partner). Deerfield has to pay Sinclair to run the station, and they probably have to cough up money to the networks for programming costs. Now if they get a portion of the station's sales that Sinclair sells, that should provide a stream in which to operate from. Now if sales are down and programming is too expensive, Deerfield may have no choice but to ask for more money to carry the station. AT&T is driving a hard bargain and isn't budging with their price. Bottom line, this imbalance could upset the apple cart and make the arrangement unprofitable and could be insolvency waiting to happen....

CBS left the market years ago when they sold their Columbus stations to Wilks, who subsequently sold their Columbus stations to Urban One, setting off a flurry of format changes and swaps. Radio One got 95.5 and 107.1 while Salem got 98.9 (whose format moved to 95.5). It would be interesting if Entercom enters the market since they absorbed CBS Radio. The Columbus radio market makes my head hurt with all of the move-ins and format swaps over the years. I doubt the new owners (if they are sold) flip WBNS back to music, especially with the FM-talk fad being here to stay. (But if they do, maybe 107.9 can pick up the sports format, as they have done with ALL of WBNS' formats in recent years....) Dare I say it...EMF doesn't have a station in Columbus.....yet...

Essentially what Deerfield has been doing, as explained in this GIF..... AT&T....Hey Deerfield, your contract is up... Deerfield:

Well...the deal may be in jeopardy thanks to a certain private equity company buying another TV/Newspaper/Radio group, and said group is providing the financing. The old TV / Newspaper cross ownership ban may be back in play thanks to the legal challenge last year.... In the places where Cox and Gatehouse/Gannett have holdings.... https://nypost.com/2019/10/18/fcc-scrutiny-puts-gannett-new-media-merger-in-jeopardy/

Whatever the outcome is between the Sinclair shells and AT&T, it's probably going to bite them come license renewal time...even though it's a pay TV issue. If they have indeed been dealing with bad faith, that could be bad news...

The simple solution may be for Sinclair to walk away from the Deerfield stations they provide services for, and shoehorn their programming onto their owned stations. In Mobile/Pensacola's case, as long as Sinclair can wrangle away the NBC affiliation from WPMI, it could live on as a subchannel of WEAR or WFGX. Same goes for WJTC, which is an independent station that is mostly second runs and the usual low-budget daytime TV drivel.. This way, Sinclair is back to having a "legal" duopoly, since WFGX is far outside of the top 4. Deerfield can make WPMI (and WJTC) repositories of all of the subchannels that could be displaced in such a move. Half the Deerfield issue may lie in their botched partnership with Duane "Doppler Dead Zone" Lammers, and his alleged misappropriation of retrans data in an attempt to negotiate with AT&T on Deerfield's behalf.

Programming legally has to be "controlled" by the licensee. The only exception are in house programs like newscasts (or others run by the SSA partner), and such programming cannot exceed 15 percent of the weekly schedule of a station that is being managed while under common ownership of other owned stations in the market. WPMI (and likely others) had to dump newscasts as a result of it, so they canned their 4:30 am show. These Deerfield arrangements (especially WPMI and WJTC) got in at a time when they were not under scrutiny, and it was under the same divestiture that saw their former sister stations KLRT and KASN absorbed into Nexstar's KARK and KARZ. Subsequent deals would see Sinclair getting creative with their existing spectrum and selling off stations outright to their buddies like Armstrong Williams to comply with the rules. Now under the JSA/SSA, at one time, Sinclair exercised some influence in negotiations, but subsequently got their hands slapped over it, and was forced to let the licensees do it themselves. It's a vicious cycle since virtually ALL of these licensees have ties to Sinclair. Mumblow was a lender to Sinclair. Armstrong Williams did political commentary work for Sinclair. And what came about from the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger was that Steven Fader, a major advertiser of Sinclair's would have been handed WGN on a silver platter at a bargain basement price in order to appease the FCC. Now since the licensees legally can't deal with Sinclair, they are essentially dead in the water unless they actually know how to run a tv station. If they are holding out for money, eventually it's going to catch up with them and they'll be forced somehow to end this charade.

Sinclair could be nice about it, where they could be willing to sell a working station with staff, but it seems much more likely they could be difficult, choosing to lay off their employees and liquidate the equipment, and hopefully let the affected employees re-apply with the new owner. Such a situation would be notable as it would be a public case on how they conduct themselves as a company.

No, Deerfield holds the option to sell. The only way is if they are stripped of their license, or someone is able to buy them out of it. Chances are, Sinclair would walk away with their people and facility (pretty much ALL of the employees except for the ones employeed by the licensee directly, not to mention the facility, equipment and other "non-license assets") so it's a lose-lose situation where the new owner would essentially have to rebuild from scratch with a new staff and facility.

Unfortunately, it's likely the other way around. The licensee contracts with the SSA partner to do their bidding (sales, operations, newscasts, etc..), and the licensee is ultimately responsible for the successful operation and majority of programming of the station.

Doubtful. If this goes on much longer, I'd question Stephen Mumblow (and the others) ability to hold a broadcast license. It's like they don't care and there's nothing Sinclair can do about it.

Touche.... Since Starz is a premium service, it's already available by itself and likely costs the same no matter how you get it. My old Xfinity package had the StarzEncore channels and HBO, so I might be a little peeved if this would have happened on my watch....

Oh pretty please...... I don't normally root for hostile takeovers, but SOMETHING needs to be done with Tegna and quickly!! https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2019/10/16/breaking-tegna-looking-at-possible-hostile-takeover-attempt They've ruined far too many of their stations to the point where ANYTHING would be an improvement!

I would imagine WDAM will be switching soon....could they be getting the WLOX look? They simulcast WLOX (ABC)'s 4pm show on their ABC subchannel.

He won. https://www.nola.com/news/article_634f8746-eac7-11e9-b8e9-434e80f09c48.html Seems ironic that he's now involved in politics, especially when he had to distance himself from the "other" Scott Walker who was governor of Wisconsin at the time.

The WCOV/WSFA arrangement only lasted a year or two. WAKA has handled it since 2011 and WSFA's 9pm show has aired on their subchannel and on WDFX in Dothan while Raycom owned them. Bahakel is another holdout in this consolidated media landscape. Either one could be a target for Nexstar, and that would give them EVERY market in Alabama, since Gray is not in Mobile. Interestingly enough, WHOA/WNCF was briefly owned by Media General. Had that stuck, Nexstar could have already been in the market.

This is a watershed moment for the city of Montgomery given the city's past history in the Civil War and Civil Rights movement. Now that Woods is out of it, he can go back to focusing on running his TV station. Between Gray's dominance and Bahakel running everything else, his ownership is sorely needed.

Update...the runoff was yesterday, and Woods lost in a 2 to 1 landslide to Montgomery County Probate Judge Steven Reed, making him Montgomery's first African-American mayor.

Pretty much the benefit of newspaper ads (the percent off coupon) that was a staple of department store ads is online or mobile. TV wise, these ads went from local, to regional, and national. Stores like Belk and other smaller chains just went to the local TV station when they were having a "moonlight madness sale" and they were locally produced ads. Even Sears and JCPenney marketed down to the local level like this, alongside their national ad campaigns. As the stores began merging, so did their advertising, and it became more image-like instead of the one-offs for an event or two.... Nowadays, it's on the high regional level. Macy's is all national ads (even in places that don't have them)

Being a repository of subchannels is probably the best hope for that station, especially if they can orient it to adjacent markets. If (and likely when) WBNX ends up in a similar situation, Marquee would be a good owner especially if they can get it on the cheap. They already have 5 subchannels and could easily add more if they do away with the main feed.

WRLH is probably bound under contract of their affiliation to air a newscast...so they will take what they can get from WWBT. If not, Fox goes bye-bye and Sinclair is SOL in Richmond. It makes it more awkward since Sinclair has been denied THREE TIMES from getting WTVR. First from the required divestiture when Lincoln merged with Raycom, then the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger, and because of that, being blacklisted from acquiring the Tribune leftovers in the Nexstar merger, letting WTVR go to Scripps

There may be hope after all, especially for the former Dispatch stations, and any other station they drove (further) into the ground.....

I do see the similarites between it and the old Raycom look, in terms of the supers. Given WOIO's lack of success and Gray's habit of changing the looks frequently (once a new look comes online), it's only a matter of time before they get one too. Maybe in a year or two...

Gray is treating their much larger stations to better packages, while the smaller ones seem to be getting the "leftovers"...i.e. more dated and recycled graphic packages. I like WBTV's new look....it's clean, simple, and serves as a nice evolution from the prior Raycom look.