dman748

Short answer, no. I would prefer if AT&T did but in reality unless it's legal for them to do so then no they can't sue Sinclair

1. If Deerfield is trying their deal into those of Sinclair's that could have significant consequences especially given the prior issues Sinclair had that has already been addressed. 2. AT&T can take Deerfield to court but knowing that Deerfield is not the operator of the stations what good would that do to take a company that has no operational control over their own stations?

For one Deerfield is not willing to negotiate a fair deal to restore their stations on the AT&T services such as U-Verse and DIRECTV. Secondly, Deerfield is essentially holding AT&T hostage by not willing to negotiate with AT&T That's what I consider to be bad faith negotiations and the longer Deerfield holds AT&T hostage the more of a chance that it'll go against the license qualifications when the license renewal time comes so if Deerfield doesn't want to be forced to liquidate it's assets they need to come to the negotiating table (AT&T should as well) and negotiate a fair deal to restore it's stations to AT&T

And all signs point to negotiations being in bad faith which I think we all can agree that this is a bad look for Sinclair itself

The only station where programming wouldn't move to the subchannel would be WPMI and WHAM, the rest of the Deerfield chain could assume their respective affiliations or in the case of WJTC, independent status. Send WPMI to either Gray, Hearst, or Tegna while WHAM could go to either Cox or Tegna. I think it'd be more appropriate to address the future of the Deerfield stations in the Speculatron thread and perhaps in it's own thread.

It's possible that Sinclair set it up with the stations owned by Cunningham, Deerifled and the like to tie in all of the program streams and AT&T apparently doesn't like that idea that maybe DirecTV pre-AT&T did. And that last sentence might prevent stations like WPMI and others from returning to AT&T anytime soon. AT&T isn't going to cave into demands of someone who's ownership is basically in-name only with Sinclair basically running the show on everything else. If you read what @DirtyHarry said on that last sentence that right there might kill Deerfield and their shell partners in the long haul. It may not be neccessarily killing them but wait a few months and it likely will.

If that's the case then why hasn't Sinclair stepped in to resolve this carriage dispute? I mean this Deerfield blackout is getting to be just as stupid as the Northwest Broadcasting blackout albeit it is totally different

If you have a solution for how Sinclair can force Deerfield into coming together with AT&T to get their stations back on the AT&T systems please let us know. So far the only solution I could justify it happening is a sale of the Deerfield stations, there's no chance in hell the Deerfield licenses gets pulled just because of a blackout. Something has to give, you cannot be blacked out of the cable systems forever, ask Northwest how well their 8 month blackout on AT&T went. Yes, it's two totally different situations here but so far it might be after the new year before the Deerfield stations return and that's a very bad look on not just Mumblow, but Sinclair as well.

They could be nice about it and everything but as Sinclair proven time after time they're not gonna do things the nice way

Chances are it'd be the former of the two options you mentioned in this post because I don't see Deerfield selling anything unless they get an offer that they can't resist

So the only thing Sinclair can do is sell the stations owned by Deerfield

Can the FCC step in and tell Sinclair to server any and all ties to Stephen Mumblow and sell the stations owned by Deerfield or no?

Looking back at the purchases that Tegna have made the biggest common denominator I found was that most if not, almost all of the Tegna acquistions so far this year have come in markets that either LIN, Media General were in or where the old Standard Media tried to enter but due to the other stuff that failed to materialize. Something tells me that Soo Kim must've played a role in the acquistions of Dispatch as well as the Graycom and Nexstar/Tribune rejects, how true is that? We don't know but Tegna must've known what was coming

Quite frankly Sinclair and that team up north is likely going to have a much easier time getting distribution for Marquee due to Sinclair tieing in Marquee with YES, the 21 former Fox RSNs and obviously the local stations more so than what the Dodgers are having with SportsNet LA

Depends on how Chris Ripley wants to do with the feeds and subfeeds of the RSNs and judging by what I saw on both Fox Sports Wisconsin and Fox Sports North programming wise that should tell you which direction Sinclair needs and should go with the RSNs, as far as the channel location for Marquee, probably 664, DirecTV better not do the 666 number. Quite frankly it wouldn't surprise me if neither the Pac12 Network, NBC Sports Northwest or SportsNet LA ever see the light of day on DirecTV based on how Dish has been treating the RSNs as of late and as I've addressed in an another thread I think Charlie Ergan has a legitimate case regarding the RSNs

Translation, if anyone on here that lives in the markets of Hartford, Fort Smith and the Quad Cities most likely you're welcoming Tegna with open arms (same thing with Des Moines, Memphis and Huntsville) it's Pennsylvania (WPMT/WNEP) that are a bit up in arms about Tegna.

Looks like the only thing related to weather that was new was the ticker (obviously due to the Severe Weather affecting parts of Texomaland)

Are there any stations in the country that has a Multicultural reporter? Apparently, WISH and Circle City Broadcasting is looking to hire one, it might either be a great thing or it could end up being an epic disaster. https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/240003/wish-looking-to-hire-multicultural-reporter/

So basically they copied off KAIT's Always Tracking. Always Watching. Always On. Slogan

It probably will relatively soon

WNEP plus other ex-Nexstar and Tribune stations would like a word with you.

WHO has never been in a duopoly,

It's more than likely that Terry Hood won't be working for KWTV. She's completely retiring from the Broadcasting business.

That's true but, what I was referring to is Sinclair may want to give all cable/satellite customers access to their teams based on the region (including AT&T customers) although I could see a merger of Subfeeds such as Fox Sports Oklahoma, San Diego, New Orleans, etc. with their parent channels because all the subfeeds provide is their own feeds for their local teams (i.e. Thunder games on Fox Sports Oklahoma, Pelicans on Fox Sports New Orleans)

And that's with any sport for that matter and Sinclair will do anything and everything they want to do including potentially screwing states out of the regional nets games (Tennessee and the Carolinas would be the biggest losers out of this for MLB unless Nashville and Charlotte get their own teams between now and then) by doing as I said yesterday, (it'd be the same thing if the other ideas that other members of this forum have come up with too)