Rusty Muck

5 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

What was to be gained by blowing up WGNAmerica?

WGN America had a near-national reach but was run as a low-rent ION with expensive, lengthy syndicated contracts of mostly copuganda shows and a second-tier Tim Allen sitcom (as their inability to rid themselves of Blue Bloods clearly shows). It was incompatible with the rest of the Nexstar portfolio and needed to be blown up.

NewsNation is also turning a pretty good profit.

2 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Have we known Nexstar to make smart decisions: i.e. NewsNation? No.

Except there is zero to be gained by blowing up their lone radio station. Simple as that.

On 1/22/2024 at 10:03 PM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Let me guess, WGN 720 will be rebranded and called something like WANN for We Are [News Nation] or something equally useless.

A call sign change (which won't happen to begin with) won't change the fact they're stuck with a standalone AM they can't sell, with demos older than dirt.

Absolutely no sane person, no person with a shred of mental competence, would willingly allow themselves to be made a target like David Smith has. This is worse than your typical delusions of grandeur that the likes of Elon Musk have.

This has a good chance of not just killing the Sun outright, but coupled with the $500M in legal fees from Diamond's bankruptcy case, could damn well be the death penalty for hundreds of television newsrooms across the country, if not a financial death penalty for David Smith and Sinclair as a whole.

I'm going to say it. Something is very, very wrong with David Smith and his mental state.

2 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

So are you saying that if Fox News was subscription streaming only it would equate?

I'm saying that Fox News is using a business model that is totally broken and incompatible with a newspaper's business model. If the Sun were to lose a decent amount of subscribers and/or advertising, they'd be fucked. This is entirely out of David Smith's own money and is not a part of Sinclair proper, if he were to drain money from Sinclair to keep the Sun alive... well, aide from being borderline embezzlement, that would basically be dropping a nuclear bomb on the budget for those stations.

4 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Retransmission fees are subscriptions.

Subscriptions in a bundled environment where you have to take all the channels regardless if you want them or not. Which is 100% not what the newspaper industry is. If you don't want to subscribe to a newspaper, you can cancel at ease.

41 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Hardly anything since Fox News gets away with literally everything.

Bad comparison. Fox News is subsidized by retransmission fees. A newspaper is wholly reliant on subscriptions and advertising revenue, and most right-wingers are distrustful of newspapers to begin with.

6 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Sounds anti-journalism to me.

He's flying too close to the sun and will collapse under his own hubris. Just watch.

1 minute ago, mrschimpf said:

Just to follow up on my worst fears, he had his first all-hands meeting today, dragged the entire staff, and went on and on about how he wanted the paper to be Fox 45, but in print. And that his favorite token sidecar/subfarm operator Armstrong Williams (who also took a token stake here) is "a good writer".

2 minutes ago, Recovering Producer said:

I believe every Sinclair anchor said it best: This is extremely dangerous to our democracy

Here's the thing: David Smith's inability to understand how a newspaper works will make this a disaster from the start. A newspaper is not insulated by retransmission revenue like his Sinclair stations and cannot withstand any loss of subscribers or advertising. The Sun also has competition from the Banner, which has clearly found footing as a digital enterprise and would benefit if there was an actual "cancel the Sun" campaign.

If David Smith wants to literally blow hundreds of millions of dollars with a good chance of no return on investment, that's bad for him, bad for his other commercial enterprises, and ultimately good for the rest of us.

David Smith wasting over nine figures to buy a newspaper easily, easily trumps the Diamond Sports disaster he committed in 2019.

The three words that will make this vanity project a personal hell for him: "Cancel my subscription".

Nexstar may have been willing to sacrifice their existing CW affiliations in Phoenix and Tucson if it meant signing with WMYD (and re-signing with WSFL?). Scripps controlled each and every aspect of these talks.

On 8/12/2023 at 5:26 AM, CircleWXYZ said:

WKBD is expected to air live newscasts beginning in September.  

This indeed is the case, WKBD will simulcast CBS News Detroit at 7am starting Labor Day. I could see more simulcasts in the weeks to come as the fall season gets underway.

22 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

Also, that means three out of four of the existing indies (KTXA, WBFS, WSBK and WLNY) will be airing it in primetime as well. Not KCAL, for obvious reasons.

Not to be pedantic, but 11pm (after SportsCentral) or 7pm (before the news block) could be considered “prime time”.

21 hours ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

Or maybe they’ll just pull news from the 10pm hour entirely and pump in some rerun.

Or reair the 8pm hour at 10pm.

On 6/13/2023 at 4:07 PM, nycnewsjunkie said:

I’m not sure about that; the intro cut of music has the NS2000 signature tacked on at the end. It sounds as if it’s an old cut that’s never been used by anyone before.

 

EDIT: Here’s the video

They have a dynamic open with the date, time and temp inserted in? Can't say I've seen that before! 

42 minutes ago, CubsFan79 said:

Sinclair lost CBS affiliation to KVEO TV and eventually KGBT. It remains to be seen if Sinclair sells some of its TV stations.

The KGBT-KVEO swap and sale happened as a settlement from Tribune’s breach of contract lawsuit against Sinclair after their failed merger, Nexstar was the beneficiary.

There’s a very good chance that Tegna stands pat. Standard General was the only party really driving a sale (yes, Byron tried to crash the party but the odds were stacked up against him).

The L taken by Standard General is such that they may have to sell off their measly four stations to Tegna.

4 hours ago, rv65 said:

https://timesofsandiego.com/business/2023/05/11/kusi-tv-to-stay-separate-news-station-from-fox5-san-diego-staffers-are-told/

 

KUSI to remain separate from KSWB but a few layoffs to be expected. 

I’ll believe THAT when I see it. The story is largely sourced from a staffer present at a meeting in which the McKimmons didn’t even say a word.

This feels like spin to hide a massive bloodletting at KUSI and merger at the KSWB building. Nexstar’s purely a bottom line company and there’s no reason for them to maintain two distinct news departments like this. At the same time, they can’t have everyone at KUSI quit in protest over the actual plans.

17 minutes ago, mre29 said:

I honestly thought Nexstar had pretty much hit the cap and wouldn't be able to buying anything in a market bigger than, say, DMA 150.

KSWB is already a U so the “Discount” sham is equally applied to KUSI, so Nexstar is not really affected cap-wise here.

3 hours ago, tvtime07 said:

A few thoughts came into my mind... would Nexstar go with the KCAL route and just rebrand everything KUSI News? Nexstar paid $35 million for it and I just don't see it going away…

It IS very possible that Nexstar paid the McKinnons $35 million to take out a competitor to KSWB.

As @Samanthapointed out to me, this outright eliminates KSWB's main competitor, there are no newscasts on KUSI that don't overlap with KSWB. Because of that, the chances KUSI maintains any sort of separate operations is very, very small; in the case of Indianapolis, WTTV and WXIN have to have separate news ops because of the nature of their affiliations.

Of note, KFMB-DT2's contract with the CW (reupped in 2021) runs through September 2026. So either Nexstar said what they said under the impression Tegna is planning to opt-out of their CW contracts, or they are forcing the issue for Tegna. Otherwise I cannot understand why Nexstar just turned KFMB-DT2 into a lame-duck CW affiliate for three years.

13 hours ago, Nelson R. said:

Doesn’t sound like it’s a given that CBS will put the affiliation on WUPA. Braves, Hawks and the rumored new NHL team on WUPA?

CBS and Gray (WPCH) will no doubt be bidding aggressively for all of those teams. Plus there’s nothing stopping CBS from moving an indie WUPA to a .2 (and buy WTBS-LD to put it on a ceremonial 6.1) if they do choose to take the network affiliation in-house.

The possibilities of in-market realignments are endless tbh. If Gray winds up securing one or two teams, then they become a sports heavyweight and may want to make WANF (for lack of a better description) the WHDH for the South. CBS gets an O&O and possibly a sports-leaning indie that’ll be having Paramount’s content library opened up.

This could be really fun to watch unfold.

43 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

I mean them being SOLD to Cox Media Group.

CBS would want something in return for selling a station in a top 10 market. The only thing Cox can offer is KIRO (which at least pairs up with KSTW).

57 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

KIRO and WSB could always use a duopoly partner.

CBS getting WSB in an asset swap would be the most insane thing ever and I can totally see it happening.

2 hours ago, channel2 said:

Doesn't Paramount need money bad? Wouldn't selling off KSTW or WTOG for cash help with that?

They’d probably be penalized tax-wise for selling them and in the case of KSTW, there’s no one to sell it to. Ditto with WUPA.