Rusty Muck

On 4/28/2025 at 3:23 PM, ABC 7 Denver said:

You think Chris Cuomo is Cheap? Awe. That's quaint.

He was hired as damaged goods on the cheap. There is no way he's being paid what he made at CNN. Come on.

On 5/9/2025 at 8:20 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

With Connoisseur buying AlphaMedia, there's a rumor they may be interested in the Cox radio stations:

https://connoisseurmedia.com/connoisseur-media-to-acquire-alpha-media-creating-leading-nationwide-local-media-company/

 

Cumulus may even be one of their targets.  Is Cumulus that poorly off that a small fish like Connoisseur can gobble them up? 

In fact, it was Connoisseur that sold off stations (all of them?) to Cumulus in the 90's consolidation binge.

 

But back to CoxPollo, a sale like this could make the TV sale a little easier if there are willing parties in the faster circling drain that is the radio industry.  As long as it's not EMF or some god-caster.

I don't see Apollo being anywhere close to that smart, they'd rather take Cox off the market entirely than concede the bloody obvious that no one wants the whole group as-is.

And even Connoisseur's purchase of Alpha is fraught with a lot of problems; Jeff Warshaw is either going to have to shut down a lot of small-market stations (many of which Alpha destroyed entirely) or sell them for a pittance just to make it work.

18 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

You think that would stop those suspected companies? Apollo can sell the group as a complete unit and one of these suspected companies could have quietly negotiated a TBA in the background. Once the Apollo sale is complete, whomever buys the stations, immediately sells the radio stations to the 3rd-party. Apollo has no recourse. 

Let me know when you find this mythical buyer for the radio stations. Radio is even more of a declining asset than television and the only people buying up stations are Godcasters like K-Love or Relevant Radio. Let's be real: Nexstar, Gray, Tegna, Sinclair and Sinclair know they can't find a third party for the radio stations and they aren't going to bother with Cox.

18 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Why do we think NewsNation is still around? Sean Compton is a close friend of Donald Trump's. Nexstar's local stations are being siphoned from resources and Nexstar retrans agreement with cable vendors must include NewsNation, which both Neilsen and Comscore demonstrate has little value, but Nexstar keeps taking valuable assets away from their stations to propup Donald Trump's friend.

NewsNation is cheap and they hire cheap talent. They make good money on retransmission revenue from cable companies and don't have to pay for acquired programming like movies. That's the only reason why it's around.

18 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

So I call bullshit on the idea that this isn't the entire intent of these organizations and we cannot stop it.

I hope you are aware that younger demos and more and more of the 25–54 "money demo" are abandoning linear television for streaming. The audience for local television is getting smaller and grayer and the industry is on an unsustainable course with pushing endless local news to markets that can't support it. Nexstar, Gray, Tegna, Sinclair and Scripps are all destined to be too big to fail.

As for Apollo, they are only guilty of being 10 years too late buying Cox and four years too late trying to sell it.

On 4/19/2025 at 4:35 PM, newsdude said:

Correct. Hearst made a strong bid to buy WJLA when the Albritton family decided to sell back in 2012/2013, but they didn’t want to do a piecemeal sell off. 

Allbritton wanted to sell the company as a whole from day one. Sinclair was the only logical buyer.

7 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

That story would change if the FCC indeeds eliminates the ownership cap.

Good luck with that. None of the suspected companies (Nexstar, Sinclair, Gray, Scripps, etc, &c.) want radio stations and with Apollo wanting to sell the company as a complete unit, there are no available buyers, cap or no cap.

8 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

I'd imagine Nexstar, Gray and Sinclair owning all of the stations in the US.

And the industry dies outright with two or three companies too big to fail that are crippled when the networks abandon OTA for streaming, taking the last of the younger audiences with them.

I’m going to be very blunt and say that, given what Apollo has to offer—a slightly above average group of television stations with an over-performer in WSB-TV and an unappealing laggard in WFXT, coupled with a whole bunch of radio stations—they’ll be lucky to find any buyers to speak of. Who’d want that hodgepodge of stuff?

it would not be surprising to see Apollo take Cox off the market because no one wants it. They waited four years too late to sell and aren’t going to get another novice like INSP that is willing to burn $400M just for the ego boost of owning TV stations. Gray, Scripps and Nexstar don’t need them at all (and they ESPECIALLY do not want the radio stations) and Hearst doesn’t buy stations, period.

13 hours ago, jjj said:

We now have the complete prices paid for the Imagicomm stations.   Imagicomm previously paid $488 million for the stations and has now sold them for $94.9 million.

What in the hell possessed INSP to incinerate $393M like that in less than three years? That's Enron levels of fraud.

Did Marc Rowan (Apollo's CEO) have incriminating evidence against INSP CEO David Cerullo and threatened to release it if INSP didn't blow all that money on KOKI, WHBQ and a bunch of spare parts and scrap? Cause there's no other way to explain why they would engage in such a horrible transaction.

On 4/9/2025 at 11:11 AM, GoldenShine_10 said:

 

I'm surprised they are buying the others too, since they would essentially be a local owner in Greenville.

Outside of KPVI (which is itself in a small market) those stations are super small and borderline afterthoughts. Does WICZ/WSYT have any local output to speak of?

The funny thing is I bet INSP didn't get anything close to a return on their investment a few years ago.

On 3/28/2025 at 2:33 PM, Georgie56 said:

WPLG has announced their post-ABC news schedule:

 

Weekdays:

• 4:30-11am
• noon-1pm
• 3-7pm
• 9-11:30pm

Weekends:

• 5-11am
• 5-7pm
• 9-9:30pm
• 11-11:30pm

There will also be half-hour sports shows Saturdays at 9:30pm and 11:30pm and a 9:30pm show on Sundays in addition to the existing 11:30pm Sports Sunday.

I cannot think of anything more value destructive. Just because Ed Ansin got away with it twice doesn't mean it can work when the product is diluted this much. In a billingual market, no less.

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised to see Warren Buffett take the L after a year or two and unload WPLG to Mission so Nexstar can have a CW O&O for Miami. He's had some bad business moves re: media (buying the Media General newspaper chain, helping Scripps buy Ion) but this might be the biggest oopsie.

50 minutes ago, MediaZone4K said:

Going to have to respectfully disagree with this one. This is definitely a case of station branding over lead ins.

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.

12 minutes ago, MediaZone4K said:

Only to not win in the ratings.

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.

5 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

The question is, who is more desperate... Nexstar or Paramount Global?

 

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!

5 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It'll be interesting to see if this has any effect on any future sales of the non-CBS stations....

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.

6 hours ago, T.L. Hughes said:

…and @RustyMuck was so certain that The CW would be locked out of those two markets. Anyway, funny that Paramount/CBS gave up its CW affiliations last year, only to now agree to bring the network back to WKBD and add WBFS (which The CW passed over in favor of WSFL through its charter affiliation deal with Tribune) as an affiliate. This was totally out of left field.

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.

On 7/8/2024 at 10:35 PM, wofchristian said:

In a surprise move, CBS-2 Chicago has rebranded to CBS News Chicago. 

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.

5 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Our favorite destroyer of networks (and possibly our democracy thanks to his former BFF) may be waiting in the wings for Skydance's leftovers....

https://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2024/7/8/skydance-to-buy-paramount

 

As Moe Syszlak once said, "Oh dear god, no!"

Skydance is run by an idiot who has lots of money thanks to his more successful dad. What more needs to be said.

22 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Produce more sequels for Top Gun, Terminator, the Star Trek movie franchise (which would be wholly owned by Ellison now), G.I. Joe, etc.

Partnering with Jeff Zucker on anything negates whatever else they've done.

6 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

I agree that those channels have become useless rerun vats. Not to verge too off-topic, but what is the future of cable television? Non existance? 

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.

51 minutes ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

If "Larry Ellison's Trust Fund Kid" has a name–and he does–he should be referred to by his name here. No need to describe him by a sophomoric moniker.

 

Just sayin'...

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?

8 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

I didn't say that it would be sold Rusty Muck. I think RedBird Capital Partners and/or KKR will take over primary management. Remember, Skydances' controlling interest is David Ellison, but they have several minority partners that could easily assume control of various Paramount Global Assets, though not directly through a sale, but an exchange of cash/equity whereby they assume greater controlling assets for which Ellison has no strategic value. I wouldn't call that a sale, per se.

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.

28 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

I suspect the company, regardless of what Skydance says, will be split. CBS and Paramount will go different directions.

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

3 hours ago, HanSolo said:

It’s easy to take a stand and not sell when no one wants what you’re peddling.

 

Not holding my breath that anything of actual value comes from the deal. Maybe there’s some value in the office equipment they can sell at a yard sale. Because there’s not a lot else to wring cash from.. 

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.

2 hours ago, Megatron81 said:

Jeff Shell isn't going to sell off CBS once the merger is approved and a done deal in a few months from now.

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.

1 hour ago, JTT said:

I'm surprised a large tech company did not want to make an offer like Apple?  A few years ago, rumors were thar Apple wanted to purchase Disney, which owns ABC.

Why did the Ford Motor Company not buy up horse-and-buggy dealerships of their choosing in 1924? The answer should be fairly obvious.

2 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

Jeff Shell, the former NBC exec who will come aboard the post-merger entity as President, has stated that “I personally think the linear business is going to be a strong business for decades to come...”

 

https://deadline.com/2024/07/linear-tv-cbs-broadcast-paramount-jeff-shell-bundle-1236003157/

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.

On 6/21/2024 at 10:32 PM, Georgie56 said:

Not an NFC market.

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

On 6/17/2024 at 6:08 PM, mre29 said:

I'm surprised Cox didn't unload it once the whole Standard-Tegna deal imploded.

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