tyrannical bastard

Yep. While Tom McGee was canned each time after his DUIs, Bob Solarski was suspended just long enough to do an apology sweeps piece the following November. Tom McGee's antics involved driving the wrong way the first time and with a flat tire the second. Bob Solarski? He was passed out in his vehicle after ramming into several cars in a parking lot.

And just like that, once Alan Sealls joins WPMI in 2020, the anchors at WPMI will become the most experienced anchor team in the market Mobile. (WEAR over in Pensacola's anchors are the most seasoned...and Bob Solarski is still kicking it 11 years after his "Tom McGee" incident!) It's been a very tumultuous year in the Mobile area.... Bob Grip started the year by stepping down from longtime home WALA. Flash forward to May, and the 50th year of Mel Showers turned into his last as he announced he was stepping down from WKRG. After Mel's "final" newscast (he filled in a few more times), then Alan slipped away when his contract negotiations broke down. Makes me wonder if this has been in the works for quite some time. Right before Alan's bombshell, WPMI and WJTC disappeared from AT&T along with the Sinclair sidecars. A month later, so did WKRG and WFNA along with the rest of Nexstar. Nexstar returned earlier in the fall and it was only a week or two ago that WPMI and WJTC returned. The day after, the "teaser" promos began airing (a coincidence?) Back to WPMI...they have been "short" ever since Kelly Jones left and went over to radio. She was brought over by their now-former GM who both used to work at KCTV in Kansas City. It's gotten even worse with the departures of Jake Dunne, who served as a semi-morning meteorologist (3 days a week & weekends) while Kelly Foster did double duty 2 days a week as anchor and morning met, and as morning/noon anchor when Jake was on the show. Jake left for Wichita and was soon replaced by Kyle Hanson from El Paso. Then Chief met Chris Dunn exited after 4 years "to spend more time with family." Methinks his contract was not renewed and getting Alan on board was kicked into high gear. Kelly Foster has been filling in evenings, and on weekends (or when no one else is available)....WEAR has been filling in with pre-taped forecasts with their weather people, and weather has even been read by the weekend anchors if it's a clear day that just requires the 7-day. So with all of this austerity, could this have all been the reason? Or was Nexstar simply that cheap and needed to pare six figures from their WKRG payroll? (It was rumored that Mel Showers was making that much after that many years...) Viewers were distraught when Alan left WKRG. Will he be able to single-handedly lure viewers over to the forever doormat WPMI? As long as Sinclair doesn't screw this up. 12 years ago, they were reeling (under Clear Channel) when they canned all 3 prime anchors (Kim Mcrea, Drexel Gilbert and Peter Albrecht)...the latter 2 used to work for WKRG, and they do, once again... And an interesting footnote... While Alan was going viral over this..... WPMI was going viral over THIS...

And the earth-shattering major announcement is... Alan Sealls will be WPMI NBC 15's chief meteorologist starting in January. https://mynbc15.com/news/local/alan-sealls-the-gulf-coasts-chief-meteorologist-joins-nbc-15-as-chief-meteorologist Surprised his non-compete was only for six months after leaving WKRG.

Another group of the Sinclair shells are back....the MPS Media stations. https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/att-re-adds-4-local-cw-nbc-affiliates-to-directv-att-tv-now/ That just leaves Second Generation of Iowa (KFXA), Waitt (KMEG), Tennessee Broadcasting (WNAB), Mercury Broadcasting (KMTW) and Roberts Broadcasting (KMTR). Interesting facts: The Waitt company that owns the KMEG license has no ties to the company that once owned it. One of their former stations, WFXL was once owned by the original Waitt who was acquired by Raycom, who divested it to Barrington when they merged with Liberty (since they owned WALB). Mercury Broadcasting was the founder of WJTC in Pensacola. They formed an LMA with Clear Channel who owned WPMI, then a FOX affiliate. They became a legal duopoly in 2000, and BOTH were shelled to Deerfield in 2012 with their sale by Newport Television since Sinclair already owned WEAR and WFGX. Back to Mercury, who Clear Channel recruited when Paramount wanted out of running KSCC (now KMTW) and ran them out of KSAS. The arrangement lasts into this day through Clear Channel, Newport, and now Sinclair.

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: