tyrannical bastard

It seems like around the time he was last seen on WKRG. Could have very well have been Mel Showers' last newscast as a main anchor and may have been working without a contract just to see Mel off during the book.... It was a week or two later that Alan announced he had left WKRG after failing to reach a new contract and that they were very "far apart" in negotiations. Alan has been saying on his weather Facebook page that he WILL be back on a Mobile television station very soon....and with Chris Dunn leaving WPMI opens up a slot since Allen Strum (WEAR) and Jason Smith (WALA) seem to be staying put....

I'm thinking the latter.....they've been teasing in promos with a guy wearing a "barrels of buttery sunshine" button. With Alan Sealls leaving WKRG.... With Chris Dunn leaving WPMI.... I'm willing to bet WPMI just scored their greatest hire ever.....

10.4 could likely be Justice. It's owned by Tegna, even though it's on the low-powered reincarnation of GTN after they sold WSFJ to Trinity.

Hmmmm....

Armstrong Williams points the finger at Duane Lammers, the agent most of these groups hired to negotiate on their behalf. https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/howard-stirks-holdings-at-t-strike-retrans-deal A deal was only made after Howard Stirk used another negotiator and was able to work out a deal. Deerfield and Gocom Media of Illinois likely did the same. As for Waitt / Second Generation and Roberts, they're probably still in limbo under Lammers.

Well, looks like the rumors are true in Mobile... (The button on the right is pretty much a dead giveaway)

It's a good fixer upper for Nexstar since FOX put so little into launching it. But given Seattle, it wouldn't surprise me to see FOX re-enter the market years later by purchasing....wait for it.....WCCB and reverse the move they made 6 years ago.....

I'm getting reports that Mobile's WPMI and WJTC have been restored to DirecTV, so the impasse between Deerfield (and the other shells) & AT&T could be coming to a close..... UPDATE: Official confirmation from WPMI: https://mynbc15.com/news/local/att-and-directv-customers-nbc-15-is-back WHAM: https://13wham.com/news/local/directv-deerfield-media-reach-agreement-for-rochester-tv-market No word on KMTR and KMEG appears to still be off, as well, since they are separately owned but still run by Sinclair.

Looks like they still have the old ticker....I know when WLOX switched, they immediately switched to the new Gray-style ticker.

While they're making strides with the on air product and execution, The back office strikes again, and taketh away the company credit cards....

Doubtful. They went from a station that ranked near the top of WB/CW affiliations to an independent station that has been increasingly overshadowed by a ministry rife with allegations of abuse and growing financial problems. I say it a thousand times, but the endGame for WBNX (see what I did there?) will likely come as a merger with Tegna or Scripps, or a group like Marquee that will leverage all of their subchannels and add even more....

Many of "Cleveland's Own" have jumped on the gravy train of endorsements ever since they left the anchor desk....Tim Taylor, Wilma Smith, Connie Dieken, Jim Mueller and many others.... Some have been around so long they were allowed to endorse things alongside their news duties. Don Webster shilled for a bunch of things (since he was a weatherman and hosted Upbeat in the 60s) and even Dick Goddard did some car commercials in the Canton area in the 90s that only aired on WOAC-TV when they were a Canton independent station.... In Don & Dick's case, weather people weren't considered "news talent" back in the day, and got away with stuff like that, and so did many others across the country....

The growth of Nexstar has been more beneficial since it takes some good practices from the companies it acquires. To a lesser extent, the same can be said with Gray buying Raycom. Then there's Sinclair, running things their way. I'm sure if they succeded with the Tribune buy, Boris and the Terrorism Alert Desk would have been running in a week....

Money must have been the issue. Up until last year, WBNX was a "must carry" station and changed to "retransmission consent". Gray could have simply offered more money and with the financial troubles at the Angley Empire, they obliged and sold the affiliation to Gray & WUAB for some well-needed cash.

Looks like Nexstar's happiness with WGN is sort of carrying over to WGN America. I saw a WGN America promo on a legacy Nexstar station, so it looks like they've inherited that practice from Tribune...

More fun facts about WBNX..... Looked in their FCC file, and their CW contract was supposed to go through 2021. WUAB's agreement with them goes through 2023. Also, the entity that owns WBNX (Winston Broadcasting), a for-profit entity is 100% owned by Grace Cathedral, Inc, a non-profit entity. And Dagmar Midcap (formerly of WGCL CBS 46 Atlanta) started her career here in the 90s. I think she tagged this promo too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga15wlTr1O8

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.