Rusty Muck

If WSVN had to choose between Fox and the CW, what would they pick? There's a reason why WHDH never took the CW when they lost NBC as a Family Feud x 2 strip at 8pm clearly rates better than the CW ever has, even when they put out high-quality direct-to-Netflix fare.

That's going to be because the CW primetime lineup is a giant blackhole of cheap, forgettable programming and Canadian imports, not out of anything on WSVN's part. It's the Ollie's Bargain Outlet of broadcast networks.

It's not even a question! Nexstar was acting out of utter desperation and paid through the nose in the process with those CBS renewals. Paramount held all the cards and if they walked away, then Nexstar would kiss NASCAR's junior circuit and WWE NXT goodbye because the affiliate map would be missing two top 20 markets! To whom? It's no longer a buyer's market for TV stations and dumps like WUPA, KSTW and WTOG are unsalable. Paramount and that Ellison kid is stuck with them. And Paramount Global got a hefty payday from a desperate Nexstar. It's a big slice of humble pie from Perry Sook and the other morons at Nexstar corporate that thought they could play pretend media moguls when in reality they couldn't back up their bravado.

It always never fails to see certain people in this fandom bleat the age old cry that mOaR lOcAl nEwS is what the marketplace needs. Sure, let's divvy up a shrinking pie of TV viewers even further while overstretching existing personnel to do more work for less pay and merely rehashing the same content with the same McStation graphics and same unimaginative cuts from another generic Stephen Arnold music package. YAWN. Here's a news flash: if either big three network pulls out of programming the 10pm hour, that's nothing but a devastingly dire outlook for the entire industry. It means that local television is in trouble and in an unsustainable path to insolvency unless you implement the Scrippscast model (or even the Rogers CityNews model) across-the-board or utilize AI to do everything for less. But then again, it's not the first time the TV fandom has been so utterly detached from reality.

WSVN is a station atypical of the norm, in every way possible. That's all that needs to be said. That they are a solid #2 among English-language outlets in Miami—in spite of the lack of any synergy opportunities or not being in any larger chain—speaks to how well they read the market and shaped it in a way to also be heavily atypical of the norm. You don't have to be a cheerleader of the station to realize that.

Not a surprise at all. That 2 was an appendage that needed to go and the new logo—with the Chicago flag stars—is more Chicago-y than any other Chicago station.

Skydance is run by an idiot who has lots of money thanks to his more successful dad. What more needs to be said. Partnering with Jeff Zucker on anything negates whatever else they've done.

If not non-existence, it'll wind up as non-viable outside of poor, rural areas. And that's what makes this purchase so foolish and stupid: Skydance is going to find out the hard way that they bought a company centered around cable channels that are hurtling to obsolescence and are stuck with them. But if Larry Ellison wants his Oracle fortune to be squandered like this, then who am I to judge.

The only one I can think of is Megan Ellison, and she has a vanity film studio (Annapurna) that I doubt has ever made a profit and probably wouldn't have existed otherwise. What has Skydance realistically done besides buy Paramount?

It'd still be incredibly messy as content libraries span both Paramount and CBS. Good luck splitting those up (again) and finding out which company gets what. KKR would only take CBS if they could find a buyer, and even they would know better than that. Then again, they fucked up royally selling Storer Broadcasting to junk bond denizen George Gillett 35 years ago. Otherwise, Larry Ellison's trust fund kid is screwed.

CBS is unsalable because no buyers exist. So Larry Ellison's trust fund kid is stuck with it for the long term.

Larry Ellison's trust fund kid is going to wind up as the Tony Khan of the media landscape. But that's what the Penske family media apparatus wants, so good luck with that.

Because the mass consolidation of the past decade eliminated the available pool of buyers for the network and owned-stations. Think about it, Nexstar is going to lose WPIX because they refuse to sell anything and Sinclair can't sell their small-market stations which have been on the block for months.

Why did the Ford Motor Company not buy up horse-and-buggy dealerships of their choosing in 1924? The answer should be fairly obvious. Because MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and Teen Nick are unsalable assets no one in their right mind would want to buy. Simple as that. To be very blunt, Larry Ellison's money can not save this dumpster fire of a company, no matter how much his trust fund kid wants to play pretend media mogul.

Does that really matter? NFL games are still NFL games and WFXT will carry several Patriots games anyway.

Apollo Global Management's eviceration of Cox Media is probably delayed because no buyers exist for that station.

This fandom is so out of touch with real life if you're judging a news set to be a dud because it doesn't have all the bells and whistles and zooming graphics like the Fucking WSVN Newsplex. It's always, always, always fucking style over substance.

Totally different circumstances and didn't occur under the spectre of a presidential election.

With the logo that looked like it was made in PowerPoint? Cox never wanted to be in Boston in the first place, mismanaged the station to the point WHDH clobbers them routinely, and Apollo has disinvested in it even further. It's a lost cause.

MSNBC going after them would be enough to make Sinclair mass disaffiliate from NBC as retaliation. Which is exactly what a small-minded idiot like David Smith would do. Again, read the Times article above.

And MSNBC hosts are all over it. https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/right-wing-propaganda-infiltrates-local-news-stations-as-2024-election-ramps-up-212854853779 https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/watch/misleading-attacks-on-biden-s-age-appear-in-local-newscasts-owned-by-sinclair-broadcast-group-212869701903 https://x.com/atrupar/status/1800883346337395062 https://x.com/atrupar/status/1800892152437932335 This is a big fucking deal and could potentially place NBC in hot water with Sinclair among their existing affiliates, something that they were trying to avoid: Either MSNBC is damming the torpedoes at the risk of Sinclair mass disaffiliating with NBC, or NBC has concluded that they no longer need the Sinclair stations and can simply move the affiliations to Peacock.

Rand Paul can propose all he wants but there's a good chance it doesn't see the light of day, particularly should the Senate remain in 50-50 Democrat hands. I don't think people appreciate just how much Sinclair permanently poisoned the well against further media consolidation among the left with their "dangerous to our democracy" stunt. This about-face by the FCC did not happen overnight.

Per Deadline, with some cozy revisionist history on the failed Standard General (and Apollo Global Management) takeover of Tegna to boot. I find it hard to have sympathy for groups like Nexstar, Sinclair and Tegna that bought stations for the sake of buying them with zero strategy or consideration. Just because you took advantage of companies that didn't want to exist anymore like Belo, McGraw Hill, Allbritton, LIN and Tribune didn't make the future any brighter. The problem facing local television is the same crisis facing newspapers and commercial radio and public radio, and no amount of deregulation the likes of Dave Lougee and Perry Sook are openly coveting right now won't be able to paper over it. All you'll get are larger dinosaurs with bigger, more oppressive debt loads.

And it still hasn't been announced. Supposedly Shari Redstone is still thinking it over, after all, she has the final say. That she hasn't indicated anything yet is enough to make one curious.

He'd have to actually be convicted of a felony or lie outright to the FCC and get nailed for it. Then the FCC would start a long process to strip him of the license. That's pretty much it.