DirtyHarry

Back in the 1970s, WTVN TV used to open with the camera showing their cheapo news set, playing James Bond music.

15 hours ago, mre29 said:

I'm honestly surprised Sinclair hasn't started selling stations. That seems like a sure-fire way to recoup some losses.

 

What losses? 

They and their partners put less than a billion down. The banks are stuck with the loss. Unlike you and me, the big boys don't have to pay. I'm sure they got a non-recourse loan.

9 hours ago, JosiahCubed said:

Just sales taxes on top of that if I remember correctly.

Where the cable companies get you here, they'll advertise $79.99 for cable. Then at the end of the bill they check on $22 for OTA TV and another seven bucks for sports. And nothing special when it comes to sports, just regular ESPN, Bally's and Fox channels.

1 hour ago, mrschimpf said:

Just as I feared...YouTube TV is up to $73.

Is that the full price or do they tack on local TV surcharges and taxes at the end?

8 hours ago, Samantha said:

 

I am far from a Standard General defender, but Team Telecom reviewed the deal on the foreign investment/ownership issue and found no national security risks. It's become routine at the FCC for details involving Caribbean foreign capital (and from other countries with which the US has good trade relationship) to receive approval. Some large radio companies had to ask for declaratory rulings on foreign ownership because of actions outside its control (e.g. iHeartMedia when US-based OppenheimerFunds was acquired by Bermuda-organized Invesco in 2019).

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.

11 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I'm getting a Sinclair vibe with the lower thirds.  The font is a little more refined than the "Din" Sinclair uses, and the "LNL" is a dead ringer for the "TND" they use for The National Desk.

 

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.

1 hour ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

I generally agree, but I think radio was heading in that direction whether they had live talent or not. Musical artists, talk show hosts, and anything else that’s on the radio have never been more accessible, so most people (especially my age) aren’t going to consume content via an outdated medium unless we’re driving. Even then, I usually listen to either a podcast or my Spotify playlist. People are already “going somewhere else.”

 

I think NBC’s 10pm proposal is a symptom of a bigger problem. Other than live sports, I can’t remember the last time when there was an original show on one of the major networks that I actually wanted to watch. “Abbott Elementary” and “Ghosts” are pretty good, but most shows are either safe, unfunny comedies (the “Night Court” reboot,) cheesy crime dramas (most of the CBS schedule), or game shows. There’s also outright garbage like “Farmer Wants a Wife,” which is better fit for meme material than something I’d actually want to watch as a full series.

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. 

10 minutes ago, mre29 said:

 

You consider retransmission disputes to be entirely the providers' (read: cable companies, Hulu, Fubo, etc.) fault?

 

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.

7 hours ago, JTT said:

The ratings are already low on these nights.  The networks have tried many different types of programming on these two nights and have not been successful.   Even if the ratings are geared towards older viewers, if the older viewers tune in, and if they can attract other viewers in addition to the older viewers, the total viewers might be more than whatever they're getting now.  Isn't the main goal of the networks is to get as many viewers to watch the programs that they put on the air?  

I understand it is also about making profit off of the programming.   This might be a way to argue that they can attract more viewers with the classic programs that put on the air.

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.

14 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Another OTT dispute.   Hulu has dropped all of Sinclair's ABC stations...

https://cordcuttersnews.com/hulu-drops-sinclair-owned-abc-stations/

 

With the bad relationship between Fubo and Paramount (with certain affiliate groups dropping their CBS stations and Fubo replacing with a network feed), retrans disputes like this could be much more common, especially if station groups get their way like they do with other pay TV providers...

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. 

Yeah, this is not a WHIZ situation where they have a healthy population with OTA. This really is a small market.

That news person isn't all that tiny either. 

9 hours ago, TexasTVNews said:

She can get PO'd all she wants, but the deal will die and that's that.

Very few people have sympathy for the banksters in these deals. I certainly don't. They ruin practically everything they touch.

9 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

They did nothing to solve the 2 critical issues:

 

1) Apollo is bankrolling both companies and essentially has Cox and Tegna as subsidiaries of the same company. As a result, there are five markets where both companies are in place, and no effort was made to adjust for such. Graham made that clear last year in a petition to deny.

 

2) There is too much foreign money involved, coming from the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos (I believe). As a result, it is illegal on that alone. In addition, they failed to disclose such.

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.

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.

1 hour ago, mrschimpf said:

Yeah, because iCrime, the Bryron Allen SAG Card Court Show Mill and The Balancing Act are the most illustrious programs on broadcast television, Harry. Pleeeeeease! It's a bad deal for everyone.

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.

7 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

That's surprising for the population estimate, since WMDT's signal barely reaches into the Annapolis area and the fringes of DC and Baltimore.

 

Using RabbitEars Longley-Rice readings that factor in terrain and elevation, Muskingum County can easily pick up WHIZ.  Surrounding counties, the going gets more difficult with the hilly terrain, and it's a crapshoot in Columbus unless you live in one of the swaths of red or orange (which would require extreme means of pickup unless atmospheric events make the signal travel further.

 

There's some swaths in Southwestern Franklin County (in orange) that may pick up the station with ease if someone has a directional outdoor antenna.

It comes in well in the Mount Vernon area. I know that first hand. Trouble is, it's hard to get the antenna aimed. It's an either or situation between Columbus and Zanesville. Looks like they have a directional pattern directing the most signal to the northwest of Zanesville.

Interesting. 

It seems like there's a lot of potential to hit mom and pop businesses within their signal contour when you've got that many potential viewers, even if you have a small DMA.

3 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

The WHIZ signal reaches into the surrounding counties around Muskingum (Perry, Licking, Coshocton, Fairfield, Hocking, Morgan and Guernsey).   Muskingum County is the sole county in the Zanesville DMA, but WHIZ is available in some places on cable in surrounding areas alongside WCMH.

If you look at some of the signal maps, it looks like it gets to about the Franklin / Licking County line. I don't know if that's real life or just theoretical. If that's real life, their signal gets out far enough in all directions to cover a decent amount of territory, it just doesn't get to Columbus.

1 hour ago, Myron Falwell said:

Incredibly, Soo is yelling at the FCC to vote on the deal anyway instead of sending this to an ALJ. Because that’s exactly what you should do, said no one ever.

Bullying the FCC chairperson to vote for your deal when she tacitly rejected it in the ALJ order might be THE ultimate galaxy brain move.

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.

5 hours ago, MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie said:

According to Wikipedia, Zanesville is DMA #203

DMA only matters with cable. With cable penetration down to 50%, the OTA number is more relevant, IMO.

3 hours ago, iron_lion said:

looks like a college newscast. what is zanesville's dma ranking? there are youtube channels with better prdocution quality and graphics than some small market stations. 

Well, if you believe this, potentially they have a potential pool of 850,000 viewers. I don't know how far their signal gets out in real life, so I have no way of knowing.

2 hours ago, The Frog said:

Scripps Sports: Phones ‘Already Ringing’ as Regional Sports Nets Implode

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.

1 hour ago, iron_lion said:

looks like a college newscast. what is zanesville's dma ranking? there are youtube channels with better prdocution quality and graphics than some small market stations. 

There are only 33,000 homes or something like that in the Zanesville market. I bet their over the air population is a lot larger though. 

1 hour ago, RGSJenkins said:

Rich Wirdzek is the chief meteorologist at WMDT.

https://www.wmdt.com/bios/rich-wirdzek/

Well there you go. Economies of scale even for a small broadcaster like Marquee, with the added benefit of him having worked in Ohio so he's relatively familiar with the lay of the land.

22 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

The FCC is asking for an ALJ to weigh in on the deal. Lance Venta has the details.

 

It’s utterly dead now despite all of Soo’s huffing and puffing.

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. 

11 hours ago, mre29 said:

 

Tegna's fate could be up in the air for another year? Ouch...

 

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.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Tegna would probably spiral into bankruptcy

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.