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WABI has a news sharing arrangement with WMTW in Portland; it will be interesting to see if that arrangement survives the Gray takeover. WGME is partnered with WVII. I have to wonder if WVII is now in play. Will Sinclair or Hearst make Rockfleet an offer they can't refuse?

Just a matter of time before Diversified completed its exit from broadcasting; they've been whittling down their portfolio for the past two decades or so. Their Portland-based trade show business is what drives the operation these days. I wonder what becomes of WAGM's local ops. Diversified owned them for a number of years, so this move brings them back into the same corporate fold. I imagine WAGM will become nothing more than a semi-satellite of WABI much like WLBZ's relationship with WCSH. Apart from adopting the corporate website design Gray has done nothing to upgrade WAGM since their takeover; now their lack of investment makes sense.

But will the overall amount of sports coverage (and staffing) remain the same after this change? Sportscasters who might otherwise find themselves downsized as stations cut back on sports coverage should perhaps be reassigned to anchoring newscasts when there is no dedicated sports anchor. That way you wouldn't have national embarrassments like this:

Chairman Pai is a noted fan of broadcasting (quite unlike former Chairman Wheeler) so I assume they're safe for now. And who knows, maybe this underutilized spectrum will be repurposed for FM expansion as many have advocated. That way the EMI interference-laden AM band can finally be retired.

Sarah French of WHDH is headed to WCNC/Charlotte to be their weekday evening co-anchor. The hollowing-out of Channel 7 continues apace. https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/names/2017/02/09/channel-anchor-reporter-sarah-french-leaving-station/91keKA5UwUVaoplLpNAIBN/story.html

I think Perry Sook has a more substantial legal budget than Scott Jones.

What's the deal with the "distressed film" look in WNT promos? They used this effect when teasing their coverage of the serial killer case. Is this a "thing" now?

How about that - Ed Ansin swiping an employee from NBC for a change!

I presume that Sinclair is counting on ATSC 3.0 to get approved and launched in relatively short order, as their stations are pretty maxed out in many markets.

Investigative reporter Cheryl Fiandaca is out at WHDH http://www.newenglandone.com/news/local/boston/cheryl-fiandaca-leaves-boston-s-whdh.html

Likewise, WBAL and WUSA remain Hearst's and Tegna's flagship stations despite having stations in larger Nielsen markets.

Is WBFF still the company's baby, or is that WJLA?

WGME was the flagship station of the Guy Gannett chain, and Sinclair seems to accord the station a degree of respect as a result. They spent generously on a set redesign a few years ago. Portland is also a market that tends to reward stations that retain on-air talent and punish stations that engage in sensationalism. On the latter point, both Gannett/Tegna and Sinclair had to find that out the hard way. Tegna forced a number of prominent on-air staffers at WCSH/WLBZ into "early retirement" and Hearst has outright fired a number of people at WMTW but Sinclair has, comparatively speaking, treated WGME with kid gloves.

The current financial model is also built on a foundation of retrans revenue and duopolies. If a future FCC undercuts that model it could have a devastating impact. As for political, we can expect more diversion of campaign spending from broadcast media to online, but Trump is a unique case in that he was already well-known and had a lot of "earned media" that isn't fully accountable in terms of dollars and cents (though many analysts have attempted to do so) and few candidates are likely to be able to replicate.

And yet Sinclair continues to make all kinds of investments in technology, networks and online ventures. Tegna went through its own bloodletting a while back through early retirements and recently shut down NWCN. Retail is going through its own post-Christmas liquidations and store closures, and the Sears Holdings final implosion could happen at any time. Sinclair was at the brink of bankruptcy a few years ago, but I'm not getting the feeling that they're at that point now. For one thing, the FCC-imposed TV ownership limit tends to prevent even large group owners for getting leveraged to the point of an iHeart Radio, which can't seem to get below $20 billion or so in debt.

Hearst was off the air on Time Warner Cable for almost two weeks back in 2012; by their standards this was a fairly brief standoff.

Litton's CEO is a former Hearst executive, so this is a homecoming of sorts.

It was, which exposes the inherent shortcomings of the pre-recorded CBS newscast.

After two years, Sinclair has pulled the plug on its WGME-produced 6:30PM newscast on Fox affiliate WPFO/Portland, ME. The last broadcast was Friday.

Regardless of other stations' programming choices, CBS had a golden opportunity to own a breaking news story (at least on broadcast TV) but they dropped the ball. The local CBS affiliate covered the story (and had two reporters on duty covering local news stories) at 6:30. Not sure what WHDH did at 6P, but they led their 10PM newscast on WLVI with extended coverage.

Nothing exposes the shortcomings of the pre-recorded CBS Weekend News more than its inability to report on breaking news, such as the death of George Michael. The local ABC affiliate is, of course, airing NBA basketball, and the local NBC station is airing a pre-recorded "news special" featuring "heartwarming stories" in place of its regular newscast. Yes, there are other sources for news, but that's precisely the point. If you're not even trying to compete, why bother?

Sinclair has been straight down the middle in its coverage here in Maine. Lots of anti-Trump stories both before and after the election. If the Trump campaign thought they were going to get a pass by agreeing to sit down with a local Sinclair reporter during Trump's visit to Portland, they thought wrong. Once again a statement by the Trump campaign (Kushner in this case) overstates the case, creating an impression that is not borne out by reality. By all accounts, the Clinton campaign was offered the same deal but turned them down flat. It had no appreciable effect on coverage, as Clinton limited her press availability across the board.

A few weeks ago WCSH/WLBZ led its 11PM weekend newscasts with a multi-part feature on how to prevent house break-ins produced by KGW. A sign of things to come, it would appear.

Our local Sinclair station plays it pretty straight in terms of local coverage and relegates the corporate cram-downs (Behind the Headlines, Full Measure, Circa, The Right Side) mostly to off-peak time periods. One of their chief anchors does on-air editorials under the moniker "The Real Deal," and the content leans center-left. According to FTVLive, Hearst cut the same deal with the Trump campaign, though they aren't receiving the same blowback as Sinclair. Our local Sinclair station airs national content from CBS and CNN, even during their Fox-affiliated station's newscasts (I can't recall the last time I saw Fox content there.) http://www.ftvlive.com/sqsp-test/2016/12/16/trump-campaign-admits-cutting-deals-with-sinclair-and-hearst

I'd like Anthony Mason in the Evening News chair. Anyway, it doesn't make sense for the EN anchor to do double-duty at 60 - it's as if they never learned from the Dan Rather debacle.