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DirtyHarry

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Everything posted by DirtyHarry

  1. DirtyHarry
    Is that the full price or do they tack on local TV surcharges and taxes at the end?
  2. DirtyHarry
    You have a point. It doesn't matter which country or state your business charter is in, it matters where your ownership and management are located. Nevertheless, Apollo still benefits from two sets of stations in certain cities, so I would tell them to pound salt. If they still get the profit from both WSB and WXIA, something still seems wrong about that.
  3. DirtyHarry
    LNL is a stupid acronym and their bug looks stupid. Not impressed with the boring graphics either. It sounds like an insurance company, Lincoln National Life. I said the same thing when Sinclair went to Curves that I'm going to say here. Sinclair has that overly serious sounding music. That's not who they are. The old Stephen Arnold upbeat theme songs fit them much better. Same thing going on here. Gray is a second or third rate broadcaster. Stay in your lane. This is not an insult, it's just who they are. Have something that better fits you and your viewership.
  4. DirtyHarry
    I totally agree that they've got the bigger problem of not having anything anybody wants to watch anymore and not having a clue how to create things people want to watch.
  5. DirtyHarry
    I don't care who's fault it is, I care about the damage to my wallet. I dropped cable when retrain and sports fees got tacked on to the bottom of the bill to the tune of $30. My cable and internet bill was roughly $165 and that was 2 years ago. I got rid of the cable and just do internet now and I'm perfectly happy with it. In fact, at the time, the cable company was encouraging us to do this so that they didn't have to fool around with these wars with the TV providers anymore either.
  6. DirtyHarry
    My argument is that this is just like a retail store. If they're not open when you need them, and you're forced to go somewhere else, sooner or later you get out of the habit of going there. So if Kroger closes at 9:00, but Meijer's is open until midnight, you're going to get into the habit of going to Meijer's and Kroger's fades away for you. Radio tried that. The argument is that they have so few listeners after 7:00 p.m. that it's not worth it to have live talent. You can see how relevant radio is everywhere except for the car anymore.
  7. DirtyHarry
    They killed the golden goose and are now in the process of killing the bronze goose. I'm not paying your stinking retransmission fees. If the online providers start with that garbage, I'm dropping them too, just like I dropped the cable company. And if they figure out a way to make me pay over the air using ATSC 3.0, I can live without TV.
  8. DirtyHarry
    That news person isn't all that tiny either.
  9. DirtyHarry
    Very few people have sympathy for the banksters in these deals. I certainly don't. They ruin practically everything they touch. Yes, there is such a thing as attribution in the law. I believe even the FCC uses attribution when it comes to family members owning media properties. It should be the same thing here. If you've got capital in both companies, you're benefiting from both companies. That should not be allowed. And even if you don't control day to day operations, if you threaten to pull your money out if you don't like something, that's control.
  10. DirtyHarry
    Listen, all of this conversation confuses the issue. The big issue in my mind is that this is all a race to the bottom. Consolidation has ruined broadcast. It is simply not interesting anymore. Listening to the radio is about as interesting is walking into a Sears store (and I'm talking about before they fell apart). Everything is so plain vanilla and corporate. Consolidation has done some good things, creating critical mass for rolling out new technology, but the networks could have assumed that role. As part of your network affiliation, they could have offered all of the technology and tools that these chains are able to assemble in-house. Boring content, elimination of voices, foreign ownership. It would get a big no for me and I'm typically Republican minded when it comes to my worldview.
  11. DirtyHarry
    LOL! Of course it won't push up cable bills. They still advertise cable for $89.99. they just tack on another $30 at the end. They killed the golden goose with their greed.
  12. DirtyHarry
    I'm really surprised that the the order sending it up to the alj judge didn't specifically call out the ownership structure. There is precedent for attributing interests in many areas of the law, especially tax and securities law. If you own 10% of a company, your wife owns 10%, and each of the three kids own 10%, in many contexts the law says you own 50%. I don't care whether Apollo has any say in direct day-to-day management or not, they still have a say by virtue of where they are parking their money and the profit they will be making from the Tegna stations in markets where they double up. They should not allow this deal simply based on that.
  13. DirtyHarry
    People have been warning them forever the cable bills were getting too high. They got too greedy and killed the golden goose. What's that Schwarzenegger line in Running Man? "You came here as Sub-Zero, now you are a zero!" That's cable.
  14. DirtyHarry
    I'm surprised they are not asking the judge to scrutinize the intertwined ownership structure, not to mention that much of it is foreign-based. I'd throw that into the case as well. But they are correct about them gaming the system and trading stations so that they can gouge cable customers even more. It's also potentially bad for the cable companies because the higher these retran fees go, the more people cut the cord. More specifically, it's bad for content providers. My cable company was actually encouraging us to drop TV and just buy internet for them, but they got taken over and there is a new regime with different ideas now.
  15. DirtyHarry
    Another year to go to trial. I'm telling you what's going on. Tegna is what used to be Gannett. Tegna employees have a lot of friends in Washington and they are whispering in a lot of ears right now. The government will take care of its friends and I think it's a good thing in this particular case. As bad as you guys say Tegna is, I can think of far worse. I see no evidence that Tegna is an operation that is financially not sound. They seem to be profitable, just not to the level that the banksters demand. There is a risk of being in limbo, however. Management has its hands tied and is not undertaking new initiatives. Probably also hard to attract new management knowing that the new owner might be booting them out the door.
  16. DirtyHarry
    Given all the diginets out there who somehow seemed to make money and stay alive with crappy programming, you would think that somebody could make money with Pac-12 sports. Scripps has TV stations in the home markets of each remaining Pac-12 school, plus LA, San Diego and Las Vegas. That's a pretty good start for some kind of an over-the-air network. Home markets are where you will get the most viewership, and then just stick it on a diginet for the rest of the country. Just like the old days when sports teams had to assemble their own networks. Like I said, it's not crazy. Another thought: They own Bounce, the black oriented channel. Pac-12 programming might fit on there as well.
  17. DirtyHarry
    It's not as crazy as it sounds. Look at all the stations Scripps owns within or near the PAC-12 footprint:
  18. DirtyHarry
    There are only four FCC commissioners right now, two Republican and two Democrat. I'm not sure whether they have to vote on this or not, but if they do, this thing will be deadlocked forever. Let the bankster twist in the wind.
  19. DirtyHarry
    And remember, greed when it came to retran fees is what accelerated the decline. I think when I cut the cord, retran fees were about $22, and then there was a sports surcharge taking it up to $30 on top of the regular bill. That's when I said, "No thanks."
  20. DirtyHarry
    I just read something about the Bally's sports networks and their looming bankruptcy. Disney paid $20 billion for them, Sinclair paid $10 billion and now they are worth $3 billion. Well, Sinclair really paid $1.4 billion, the banks get stuck with the rest. Cable penetration went from 91% down to the 50%'s. At the end of the day, nobody wants to pay for this stuff anymore. People just ignored the cost because it was buried in the bundle. I think sports needs to go back to Free TV. It would lift the value of all these worthless independent stations by returning some good programming back to them.
  21. DirtyHarry
    Complaining about the involvement of the Saudis, a long time ally of the United States, seems to be a little hollow to me. Something else is going on here. We gladly take their oil and their money to buy F-16s, but we're going to reject their golf? Right. I think a lot of things going on at the same time, but don't discount collusion with the PGA. That's a big no-no if they didn't follow all the legalities and could cost everybody a lot of money.
  22. DirtyHarry
    It's still a good looking set so I can't complain too much about them keeping it. I can't believe it's been 11 years.
  23. DirtyHarry
    55kw is hardly better than an LPTV. They should have stayed on VHF.
  24. DirtyHarry
    Normal branding and those colors are Pittsburgh you have to admit. When all of your pro teams basically have the same color scheme, why not? I believe WTTE/WSYX uses Ohio State scarlet and gray in the FOX-28 logo. And doesn't WPGH FOX-53 have black and yellow in their logo?
  25. DirtyHarry
    My point is that calling CW a network, is like calling some minor league ball player a pro. Technically, I guess they are, but you know what I mean. I don't know why you wouldn't advertise it though. If you have CW shows on, you should display the logo so that people know what your product is. That's even more true with CBS, given the heritage of CBS News and all and given that these guys are trying to be a news-oriented channel. The website is your storefront. It seems like this is the kind of information you would want to have instantly visible rather than just having a generic page like that.
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