doublejman69

The Wausau market allotments are interesting Gray doesn’t need the Eagle River one anymore with WYOW but do they bid on it so WAOW or Wisconsin PBS can’t grab it and then don’t build it out? Can Gray own multiple satellite stations in the same area or move it to the UP of Michigan and simulcast WLUC? Ch. 31 in Whittenburg is the former full power Fox affiliate WFXS, Gray has a CP for a low power station on ch. 31 atop the main tower tv tower in Wausau, would WJFW bid on it to improve the signal where most of the population lives? Gray is going to bid for the Freeport allotment. In any event it’s going to take years before any of these stations sign on.

WKBT’s low power signals in Eau Claire and Tomah, WI that they got from Magnum Media signed on simulcasting WKBT and subs. Now both Eau Claire and La Crosse have local signals of every major network.

Scott Steele? Turn over at WTMJ has been significant since Scripps. It’s going to difficult to track who is leaving on there own/ getting the boot for other reasons and who’s leaving because of no vaccine.

Morgan Murphy is in the process of purchasing Magnum radio's three low-power stations in the La Crosse and Eau Claire area. It would seem likely the LP stations would simulcast WKBT, viewers in the northern half of the market and far east have struggled to pick up WKBT's VHF signal. The station is looking for sales people that would be based in Eau Claire, WKBT sales focus has mostly been La Crosse area and the southern half of the market.

What is WTMJ doing at 4pm, is it a normal newscast? I’m not In the market anymore and unfortunately (or fortunately for some posters here) I don’t have many connections in the market anymore.

It’s the cost of doing business, at some point in the near future streamers like Hulu and Disney+ will have to raise prices if they want to be profitable and also add more content. Disney loses money when people drop cable and sign up for Disney+ and we all know that not everyone that is dropping cable is a Disney+ sub. Disney, discovery, nbc all of those companies are making far more money off of cable customers than from streaming sub.

You’re going to have to add an extra zero to that amount of you want to watch the local team on any MLB streaming service before any RSN would sign up for this.

I think most of you guys are assuming if/when the rsn’s go to DTC, the channels are to charge customers what they charge to the cables and sat providers, 4-10 dollars a month. That’s not going to be the case, it’s going to be 30-40+ dollars easily. The future of tv isn’t going to be traditional cable packages or even fubo or youtube tv. For the streaming tv services that look like regular cable, growth is slowing way down and I wouldn’t be surprised if they top out soon. The future is having a service that has discovery+, Disney+ Hulu and the like all together with live channels that are looking for a mass audience, news channels, live sports, networks/locals. When NESN is number one in prime time over 100 nights a year or almost all the former FSNs/ current Bally’s sports either being number one or two with local mlb teams there will be at least some providers that will always carry the rsn’s and it will be the services that have a mass subscriber base.

Root NW has a TV everywhere stream/app but Comcast doesn't have an agreement to access the stream, only Directv/ATT and a handful of smaller cable subscribers can stream ROOT. When I had Directv they had a similar app as Comcast but there was several channels missing from the streaming portion likely because Directv didn't have streaming rights. Its likely the same thing with Comcast and Root NW.

This is a good point. The new NHL team in Seattle the Kraken just weeks ago announced that there games will be airing on Root Northwest, the only way to stream it is by paying $80/m for ATT streaming service, Comcast customers (the major cable company for most of WA and OR) don’t even have the ability to stream the channel. This is a team that is connected with Amazon and other high tech companies in Seattle and is a market with a significant amount of cable cutters. If there is a team in any sport anymore aware of OTT it is the Kraken. Having the ability to watch non NFL pro teams on OTA is wishful thinking at this point, it’s not happening.

There was talk a year or two ago that the Bucks were looking at creating its own RSN but that didn't happen, Bally was likely the only option. About OTT, Sinclair/Bally already announce they were going OTT. looking at MLB contracts, many go 15 to 20 years out. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-update-the-estimated-local-tv-revenue-for-mlb-teams/ Its the same with the NBA and NHL. With Sinclair going OTT this year its probably safe to assume that the RSNs are in control of any streaming rights. The RSNs pay massive fees to broadcast the games, there is no way any team would break current contracts to stream/broadcast the games themselves, they would be losing out of considerable money. There is no way the Dodgers can earn almost $240 this year going OTT. Its going to be up to ATT, NBC and other RSN owners to decide when they also go to OTT.

What you saw today is the final product; anchorless and weather from Grand Rapids with just a few mmj's based in Lansing. It's probably unfair to judge the newscasts on the first day, but if I'm WILX I would bring back the 7-9am and 10pm on a subchannel. I believe Scripps has suspended adding a news op in Miami.

No, at least in the short term. Dish/Sling has dropped all RSN's, not just Sinclairs. It's likely that the other OTT providers will get agreements right before the NBA and NHL season starts whenever that is, at the moment Sinclair has no leverage, providers can holdout as long as they can without sports live sports going on. Earlier this year it was announced that Sinclair has agreements for multiple years with at least 85% of the MVPD's that carry the RSN's. In non pandemic years at least some of Sinclair RSN"s has profit margins of over 20% (in the broadcasting world that consider very good), it's the price tag for the channels that turned many companies away the first time they were for sale, very few traditional broadcasters can raise that kind of money for what the RSNs are worth.

The stations only really target the areas were there based. WICS does well in Springfield, WAND in the central part in the market and WCIA in the eastern. The Springfield market plays much smaller than its ranking. 77? Eat News is right; it's going be very difficult Crain to find another Meteorologist job especially in that market. No GM/ND would want to take the risk of him bashing their station onair.

The FCC forcing Sinclair to sell stations/lose licenses would seem out the question. What is far more likely is that Sinclair would get something that would amount to a slap on the wrist and some rule changes that would affect everyone. But any hearings will make good theater.

What happens when you go to a double box is that you pissing off the people that want to watch the game with a bunch of "weather junk" and you make the people that need the weather info mad because all the maps are to small to read, so no one is happy. There were 4 other tv stations giving out the same weather information, sometimes the right programming strategy is not to break into programming and just run weather ticker on the bottom of the screen.

When WLS first broke in was for a TOR warning in Livingston County which is not in the Chicago DMA, I don't believe any Chicago market counties had Tornado warnings that night. Some Chicago stations likely have a small number of viewers in Livingston County so that's probably why some stations broke into programming while others did not. I'm surprised WLS went into full coverage. I would guess most viewers would be watching the local stations, but the markets to the west and south of Chicago are very small so the severe weather coverage likely isn't all that great.

As of the first of the year Scripps grounded WTMJ’s news chopper. That makes WISN the last remaining station in Milwaukee with a chopper. #chopper4withpowerzoom

That would be correct.

WWL/Tegna didn't have much of a choice on keeping local news 7-9am. Even before the changes WWL was losing viewers in the morning.

Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy among others have been blocking legitimate reporters on twitter that have question CNN's reporting about this story. Everyone talks about Fox News having mainly older viewers (even though MSNBC and Fox average age of viewers is the same at 61). Fox News tops MSNBC and CNN in every major demo 18-34, 18-49, 25-54 etc.

The CW audience aren't really big news or sports viewers and The CW is probably happy that its programs are seen at its mandatory time in market number 3.

I was told at the time that there was such a huge bidding war to acquire Wheel and Jeopardy and WDJT over paid so much that advertising doesn't even come close to the cost for the syndication rights even with WDJT being in 1st place from 6-7pm since getting those shows. It's very likely TMJ was/is turning a profit in the 630 half hour when they have done local news even though its been 3rd or 4th.(in the fall/winter Packers programming makes a lot of money for TMJ). Anyways its a moot point now, Scripps doesn't spend money on outside syndication. I believe just WTMJ and WGBA so far.

Look for more long time veterans to "retire" its been happening the last year or so. Scripps is struggling, the last thing on their minds are graphics.

That is disappointing, Janet is a very good News Director. Weeters is right, one reason she came to WTMJ when it was owned by Journal was because she was given free rein on the News Department. Over time Scripps corporate has taken over more control, and in turn ratings have gone lower. Several rounds of budget cuts haven't helped either.