Rusty Muck

8 minutes ago, mre29 said:

Couldn't Adell sell WADL to Graham? Or is Detroit already maxed out on duopolies?

Why in the wide wide world of sports would Graham ever want to do business with that unprofessional, value destructive clown? Or anyone else?!?

WADL is going to wind up sold by creditors in a bankruptcy auction to a Godcaster like Daystar or TCT. If they're lucky enough.

2 hours ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

WDIV already kinda cleared the way by dropping ThisTV and putting on CoziTV, probably and possibly as an substitute before September 1. 

This TV is winding down operations anyway, so it's not immediately reflective of anything. And there's zero guarantee that it'll wind up on a WDIV sub because that would imply that Graham is going to try to build a program inventory around it when there are no programs available. Has anyone seen how horrid WMYD's lineup is? Or WKBD's lineup?

2 hours ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

I don't know about any of the Tuscon or Miami stations plans on the CW.

No options exist in either market. Sunbeam isn't going to create a new WSVN subchannel for it nor will WPLG (which is Berkshire Hathaway's only television station). Old Mother Hubbard doesn't have to tell you that the cupboards are bare this time.

2 hours ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

Look, The CW will have an affiliate in Detroit, Miami and Tuscon, no matter the cost.

They won't. Any realistic analysis on the matter will tell you that Nexstar and the CW are incredibly screwed here and, like Nexstar assuredly set to lose WPIX for good thanks to their Mission chicanery, it is solely on themselves for poor past decisions and zero forward thinking.

11 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

Since the deal is dead, Mission won't be involved at all. Adell may cut an LMA with Nexstar. At that point, it will still be the worst station in Detroit, both operationally and programming-wise, but Adell will continue to do the RTC deals.

Why would Nexstar want to do business with that moron? An LMA or TBA would be totally impossible for the same exact reason why the FCC killed off the SSA Nexstar tried to engineer with Mission ... before Kevin Adell acted like a petulant little child, of course.

Let's face facts. The CW is going to wind up with no affiliates in Detroit, Miami and Tucson come September 1, and Miami in particular was because Perry Sook was greedy AND stupid and sold off markets he never should have just to keep triopolies or quadolopies in Little Rock and Youngstown or massive Vs like WJW. He deserves this.

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

All the while the customers are being invisibly gouged with an inferior product and the employees who keep things running are overworked and underpaid.

 

Reinvest in the product and the employees a little more...

They aren't and they won't. And it's why linear television is a dying industry, the so-called "golden goose" was killed off by the likes of Perry Sook, David Smith and Hilton Howell.

12 hours ago, doublejman69 said:

There is no one that’s going to purchase tv stations and “invest” in tv news in 2024 we are long past that point. 

This exactly, and it's why I do disagree, to an extent, with @Weeters on having the elimination of all ownership limits being the solution to the problem. What good will it do when NexstarTegnaSinclairGrayScripps owns every channel when viewership for linear television across-the-board is vanishing and the networks will have already pulled stakes and fled OTA?

What happens then? You'd wind up with another Penn Central, a massive conglomerate that merged in a survival attempt and yet went bankrupt within two years of the consummation in disastrous fashion.

39 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

We're going to see more stations folding!

Is this a bad thing? You might as well get something for the spectrum if compensated accordingly by the FCC, especially if the transmitter land becomes more valuable than the station itself.

5 hours ago, Weeters said:

I'm just gonna put this in the most blunt way possible: I do not expect "the cap" to survive under any political regime for much longer. It is a dinosaur. You can make a convincing case to either "side" as to why it needs to go away. It's been 20 years since Congress last meddled with it, it's just going to take one of the not-Sinclair groups to make a stink about it to the right people. It's a dated method of calculating "reach" in a world where everyone is connected to everything. 

 

I've theorized before that this isn't going to start from a company wanting to buy more stations, but a company trying to sell stations and not finding a buyer. Sinclair begging to raise the cap so they can buy more hits a lot differently than, say, Disney saying they can't sell the O&O group because nobody who wants to buy it can because of the cap.

 

The ownership cap on television stations is the least of Biden's worries. I really don't think the general public cares all that much. 

All the dead malls can merge together and you'd still wind up with a dead mall, just much larger and needing a bailout from the federal government when the entire system comes crashing down.

9 hours ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

How in the Florida was WBBH an 'waste of money' for Hearst? Hearst acquired it and WZVN because Waterman Broadcasting wanted to sell the stations off before Edith Waterman turned 100. 

 

 

It's in a deep red market in a permanently uncompetitive state politically that almost got wiped off the face of the earth by a devastating hurricane. There is no way that it was worth $200 million, or even $100 million. It should have been $75 million, and I'm being awfully generous here.

Yes, it absolutely was a waste of money. Yes, they foolishly overpaid for an asset that can only decline with time.

And I have no problem saying any of this because I don't have this weird romanticized vision of Hearst the fandom inexplicably has.

17 hours ago, mre29 said:

So, were WVTM and WJCL were wastes of money, too? How about (checks notes) WMTW in 2004? I'm pretty sure there were old people in southern Maine back then...

All small market stations and the first two were simple divestitures from larger M&As. Try harder than that if you want to convince me that they should be anything more than a silly MacGuffin in this fandom.

Hearst doesn't buy anything you want them to buy. End of story.

3 hours ago, TVLurker said:

You know I'm waiting on the Nexstar and Sinclair stocks to go down right?

So they can spiral into total oblivion, fire everyone and get bailed out by the federal government because literally no one wants to buy a chain of television stations in 2024?

3 hours ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

Okay, everyone, I'm sorry for the semi-all-caps rant but if Scripps DOES get WPIX, WHO WOULD EVEN GET THE CW?? WPXN IS NOT AN GOOD CHOICE, I don't even think it has even has a programing schedule for the CW if they have that.

There is a very good chance that, because Nexstar is not interested in selling any stations because of simple greed and hubris, WPIX is ordered by the FCC to be sold to a chain hostile to the CW.

Should that happen, the CW will be totally without a flagship station, and Nexstar will have only themselves to blame.

3 hours ago, mer764KCTV5 said:

Like, I'm actually sick of this udder stupidity of this whole situation about WPIX and stuff. It feels like, if Nexstar shuts down WPIX, then it might be good for y'all at this point because Nexstar isn't controlling it. 

Nexstar will not be shutting down WPIX. They will only lose control of it, and Uncle Perry's nepo baby who plays make-believe sportscaster will need to update his resume.

3 minutes ago, channel2 said:

WPIX is a V. They own a ton of Ion stations that take up a lot of cap space for them. Though they might not have to unload too many stations given that all WPIX would do would double WPXN's cap hit.

Scripps took WPPX, KPXM and KKPX off the market after they sold WPIX. Given the very soft national ad market right now, it might be a blessing in disguise to offload those three.

18 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

I wasn't thinking about Scott Jones at all. I was thinking about their stock price, their green-screen sets, their lowball offers, cost-cutting into irrelevance. For example, the Creative Services Director for KMGH/KCDO is now responsible for KOAA and is being paid the same rate as he did when he managed two stations. He's also using the same budget for the one station (before KCDO was purchased). KOAA has seen a ton of reductions, as KMGH picks up the slack without any additional cost overhead.

Scripps is only guilty of doing something the industry will emulate sooner than later. The current mode of newscast production in the industry is wholly unsustainable and due for a nasty reckoning.

22 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

WPIX is only valuable to Nexstar both because of it's affiliation and because of it's footprint for NewsNation. It's a waste of money to anyone else.

Which is why they got caught red-headed blatantly violating the rules in creating an LMA that wasn't needed so they have over 70% national coverage without the UHF Discount sham.

Nexstar will not sell any stations because they refuse to do that, and they will lose control of WPIX outright. Simple as that.

26 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

As I said, Graham isn't reasonable, and honestly, I don't think Scripps or Hearst is either. I was throwing ideas. TBH, Cox wants to milk everything for profit and I think they'd put up the money if they could absolutely destroy the station.

The only reason Scripps has a good likelihood to get WPIX is because they already own WPXN channel 31. They are already in the market, they've owned WPIX before as a caretaker, and they would spend the money to buy it.

And Scripps is the only likely buyer because, again, there are no other options to speak of whatsoever. None.

1 hour ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

The way Scripps stock has tanked ($3/share), I can't see them being a buyer. They are far more in selling condition. Don't be surprised if that happens.

That's wishful thinking given the ridiculous and unrealistic anti-Scripps sentiment that exists in this fandom, propped up by two-bit hack blogger Scott Jones and his obvious prejudice against the company. And you might be surprised to find out that even if they wanted to sell, there's no buyers available because the mass consolidation of the past decade literally wiped out whatever list of buyers existed.

1 hour ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

WPIX would make sense for Hearst since they don't own a station in their HQ market.

Absolutely not. Hearst doesn't buy stations unless they are wastes of money like WBBH in freaking Fort Myers, Florida, a totally inconsequential market of old people.

1 hour ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

Graham would be weird. They don't own many stations and their only non-big 3 station is JXT which is news heavy and is a duopoly with WCWJ.

Graham hasn't entered any new market since buying WSLS a decade ago as part of Media General's disappearing act.

What is it with this fandom that just keeps wishcasting for Hearst or Graham to buy stations like this when they never do and never will?

54 minutes ago, AmericanErrorist said:

The article says that Adell believes that he can still land The CW on the station (over a WDIV subchannel or The CW Plus) and is willing to cut an LMA directly with Nexstar.

Why does Matthew Keys even give Kevin Adell the time of day? This moron did just as much to torpedo this deal as the FCC did, he'll be lucky not to lose WADL in bankruptcy to a Godcaster.

35 minutes ago, channel2 said:

 

WAAY was a Raycom/Calkins overlap. Nexstar had to sell WFFT and WTHI as overlaps from the Media General buyout. I'm not sure why they dumped KQTV and forewent KIMT and WLFI but I guess every little bit of cap room helped.

It looks like they just lumped KQTV into the Media General divestiture package because, let's face it, it IS St. Joseph, Missouri. That small a market wouldn't give that much cap relief even though it would be... what... five or six WJMNs?

1 hour ago, mre29 said:

If WPIX ends up with Hearst or Graham, I will laugh.

Imagine Scripps repurchasing WPIX, divesting WPXN to an unrelated third-party, and relaunching WPIX as a sports-heavy indie.

5 hours ago, TVLurker said:

What is the problem with Nexstar unloading stations. If I owned it, I would do it.

Because Perry Sook is a greedy, stupid idiot who has long promulgated the lie of himself being this suave, savvy businessman. Obviously he won't sell any stations because of a loss of clout with retransmission revenue against the telecoms. Plus he's been used to past FCCs that didn't give a flying crap over how many rules he violated or loopholes he exploited, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

Nexstar has only willingly sold two stations in the company’s history: KBTV and WJMN. That tells you all you need to know.

I expect him and Nexstar to completely fumble and bumble this and WPIX winds up being forced to be sold to a company hostile to Nexstar and the CW, and he can kiss the network's flagship goodbye.

8 minutes ago, mrschimpf said:

If they have to CW+ cable-only those markets it'll be devastating, and you know cable/streaming companies would want a big cut to take a market-only channel like that in 2024.

Not only that, it would undermine every single one of their current Z-level sports deals. Why would NASCAR want to be with a network that no longer has two top 20 affiliates? Or the ACC? Or the PAC-2?

And just imagine the hell that will come when Mission is forced to sell WPIX to a company hostile to the CW, like Scripps or Tegna.

On 5/16/2024 at 2:55 PM, MD TV said:

At upfronts, they said they're looking for more sports rights, including events on Sundays when there's no LIV:

 

https://deadline.com/2024/05/sports-rights-the-cw-nexstar-espn-1235918874/

They really should be begging on bended knee to find any affiliate in Detroit, Tucson and Miami, because there's no options available in either of those markets and they can't buy their way out of this crisis they placed on themselves, nor do they have Gray or Sinclair ready to bail out their sorry butts this time.

But I guess Uncle Perry wants to play pretend media mogul because something something "plan".

On 5/20/2024 at 12:45 PM, channel2 said:

 

Or they could shop them around instead of automatically putting them into the black box that is streaming?

The problem is young people watch shows on streaming. Young Sheldon actually had changing demos when reruns went to Netflix.

From the New York Times:

The show also struck a chord with viewers under the age of 34, according to Nielsen. Mr. Molaro, the show’s co-creator, said the Netflix bump became apparent to him when the crew was shooting a scene recently near a church in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles. “Young Sheldon” had filmed in that location dozens of times without incident. But this time, roughly five months after the show began streaming on Netflix, it was a vastly different situation.

“There were hundreds of kids at the fence screaming for Wallace Shawn,” he said, referring to the 80-year-old cast member. “We were like, ‘What is happening?’”

So yeah, linear television is in a very bad state right now, and the last thing the affiliates need is for the networks to give up on them, because they have no Plan B. And contrary to the sentiments of a few people in this fandom, MOAR NEWS is not, I repeat NOT, an acceptable Plan B.

43 minutes ago, The Frog said:

 

There are some potential scheduling conflicts with Xfinity races.

 

 

Who gets bumped to NewsNation? 

Bold of you for assuming that Nexstar thought any of this through to begin with when they wanted to be the leader of forgettable Z-level sports. But "all part of the plan," I guess.

1 minute ago, dzonershow said:

Then why u prioritized Coastal and INSP as your own "magic wand" idea.

Shut up. I'm not magic wanding anything. You have no idea what in the hell you're talking about.

3 minutes ago, dzonershow said:

This isn't "magic wand thinking" this is about speculation.

This is not a speculation thread.

4 minutes ago, dzonershow said:

I'm a free market type of guy not a rookie to demand more M&A. Let the free market decide and i'm not fooling around to level the playing field.

You are clueless and have no idea how things work.

5 minutes ago, dzonershow said:

Again INSP and Coastal will not buying bigger markets, I doubt Disney or Hearst or even Graham will expand in my opinion.

They will buy these stations and you will be disappointed when reality slaps you across the face.

I will only ask this once. Do not quote me and try to prolong this as your time here may be severly limited.

7 minutes ago, dzonershow said:

Wait until Disney merges their streaming apps, it wont be long until Disney wants to add ABC News into their own apps. Everyone else is adding live news into streaming.

Totally irrelevant to the topic field.

7 minutes ago, dzonershow said:

I'm taking Disney's side if they want to look at KATU, KOMO, KDNL, KTUL, KATV, WXLV, WJLA etc.

Disney won't be looking at these stations. Stop this magic wand wishcasting right now.

7 minutes ago, dzonershow said:

Again why cheer the ones that u want to buy the large market stations, Why let INSP want Sinclair's big markets, NewsNet isn't worth it if your Coastal/Alaska.

I'm not "cheering" anything, I'm just not engaging in magic wand thinking and foolishly spouting off "Hearst! Graham! ABC!" when the facts state otherwise. They aren't buying a bunch of laggards, or anything else, for that matter.

You are really getting on my nerves and I would strongly suggest refraining from making more posts like these.

59 minutes ago, VHSgoodiesWA said:

Since Portland is on the chopping block (KATU), is that a market that Disney could be interested in buying out? Or is Portland too small for an ABC O&O given that KOMO Seattle isn't one either?

Disney is, and has always been, wholly uninterested in buying any TV stations. It'll never happen.

INSP and Coastal/Vision are the likeliest candidates for KATU. Who else wants it?

1 hour ago, dzonershow said:

They focusing of the FAST channel business using CBS News 24/7 (then CBSN and CBS News Streaming Network). It kinda confuses me that they drop CBS2 and KCAL9 brands in the LA market uniting as KCAL News and CBS News Los Angeles sans channel numbers (CBS Los Angeles was shown on the linear channel 2 feed while CBS News Los Angeles appears of the latter namesake streaming feed). CBS4 in Denver drop the number 4 in their branding when it became CBS Colorado and their news brand both linear and streaming as CBS News Colorado. WWJ opted to use the CBS News Detroit name than CBS62 since they're focusing on their streaming products.

Please don't post walls of text irrelevant to the topic thread for the sake of posting walls of text. It's honestly deeply aggravating. This is a thread about Sinclair Broadcast Group, not an invitation to spout off verbal diarrhea about whatever the CBS stations are doing. Who freaking cares?

Like Scott Fybush said in reply to you in RadioDiscussions: "Going forward, the discussion on this site needs to more than just 'lists of things.'"

8 minutes ago, dzonershow said:

This is about public good in broadcasting which is "real world" than your comments.

With all do respect, the only purpose of commerical broadcasting is to make money. "Public good" is secondary, if it is even a factor.