dman748

Bloomberg is reporting that TEGNA is in advanced talks to sell it's broadcast group to Standard/Apollo for $24 per share

Details (which are limited considering the paywall):

• Apollo is backing this bid and will recieve perferred shares in Tegna's stock but will not get voting rights
• The deal coulld be announced the next few weeks

Kelly Ogle is transitioning to a new role at News 9.

His last newscast will be tomorrow night and then after that he'll be doing occaisional "Special Reports"

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Should this deal happen and the divestitures be required, this is where Byron Allen could benefit....getting stations like WXIA/WATL, WCNC and WFOX/WJAX.

 

What percentile of ownership is enough to trigger common ownership?   

 

While Sarkes Tarzan (with Gray involvement) can have KTVN in Reno alongside Gray's KOLO, WOAI in San Antonio had to be divested to a shell company (High Plains Television) because of then-owner Newport (Providence Equity's) investment in Univision, who had a top 4 station in the market.

 

I don't think the deal is going to be clean at all and there will have to be divestitures even if the stakes are fractional.

I would say anything above 15 to 20% would be enough to trigger common ownership considering that WOAI (along with KGET in Bakersfield) were sold to High Plains.

There's a lot of unknowns to this thing.

In fact we don't even know what the ownership structure of this entity is going to be like.

And even though the report did say that Apollo would keep the Cox stations separate I'm just not sure that the FCC would be convinced that they would even allow Apollo to keep the Cox stations in markets they would overlap in (Jacksonville is going to get the most attention out of the markets the two companies would overlap in).

There's also another factor to it, the ownership structure (percentagewise) we don't even know how much Standard is going to own the combined company and how much Apollo would own in it as well.

Still plenty of questions that with due time, will get answered.

3 hours ago, Newsjunkie24 said:

 

This isn't the first time he's been suspended. He was suspended quite a few years ago as well, and he might have had another account suspended as well. I assume it's copyright related, although I don't know who filed the strikes.

My guess it's probably ABC but I'm not 100% sure who filed the strikes against him

Does anyone know what happened to btm0815ma's YouTube channel? I noticed that his videos of the CBS, ABC, NBC and PBS newscasts had disappeared.

I actually think this Sinclair DTC app is going to flop.

For one thing there's an MLB Lockout going on and the second thing, there the AVOD and SVOD field is already saturated with so many streaming services that people can choose from, there's so many of them that I think it would get lost in the crowd of so many streaming apps and my best guess of how much the Sinclair DTC app would be around $30.

Yeah not very many people (even the hardcore sports fans) would fall for that.

From Discord (h/t @TheRolyPoly)

Not even a full month into Gray ownership and WGCL is in a few months time about to drop The 700 Club in favor of 9am News.

https://www.ajc.com/life/radiotvtalk-blog/cbs46-will-drop-the-700-club-adding-9-am-newscast-plus-new-news-director-kim-saxon/B46YZ7RLFVHDLALOPGAREIB6QA/

Hilton Howell said he wanted to bring stability to WGCL and not even a full month into local ownership for WGCL/WPCH, Gray is already making impactful moves to their new flagship.

7 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It should.  Google is well within their ability to black out the network content on these stations. There are plenty of shows that are blacked out because of the lack of "digital rights" to carry them.  A notable example a few weeks ago was when CBS's airing of Rudolph was unavailable.

 

Even James Spann of ABC 33/40 chimed in.  Keep in mind the viewers have even more reason to be incensed since this is Alabama and that team is at it....AGAIN, for like the 40th time.

 

Spann does have a point, the old TV model is broken yes, but it can be fixed. What that looks like is anyone's guess because no one has come up with anything to fix the TV business model because most if not, all the companies are going to squeeze every ounce of the retrans fees they can until they can no longer do that, and we might be years away from getting to that point.

47 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

This includes ABC affiliates too, not just the O&O stations.

 

 

Wouldn't that put Google at risk of being sued by groups like Hearst, Tegna, Gray and Scripps for breach of contract on the ABC affiliates? Because they do have deals with those groups which did cover the ABC affiliates.

On 12/13/2021 at 11:53 PM, CircleSeven said:

New Retrans scuffle. Its Disney and YouTube TV.

 

The mouse is reminding its viewers that it could lose its networks (including ABC & ESPN) before midnight Friday, if a deal is not reached.

 

I read an article in The Montley Fool it's more of an opinion piece than anything else but, the key takeaway I got from it is that a lot of the OTT services they're also competing with platforms like Peacock, Disney/ESPN+, Discovery+, etc and as the content gets carried over to those platforms the streamers seem to think that if people can find say, HGTV's "Home Town" on Discovery+ and it's on the live stream, what's the point in having a Live TV service when I can just go to Discovery+ and get it from there.

I think we're reaching a point where I see two things happening as we head into 2022 and beyond.

My first point is that I really don't think YouTube TV or FuboTV is going to be around for too much longer (as in maybe 2-3 years)

My Second point is until Streaming can fix the lag, the crashes and gets more into the rural areas I do think the linear model is here to stay probably with different sources of revenue with retransmission consent stuff but I do tend to think that the disputes is giving the linear model for the most part an additional lifespan of at least 5 years, maybe a bit longer than that.

All I will say is it's looking like a bad year or two ahead for both linear and streaming and it will take changes that some don't like/want before any progress can be made

Chris Ripley now says that he has enough teams to launch a sucessful DTC service and that he believes news on those renewals that will include DTC rights will come shortly

Honest opinion, I'm not convinced that Ripley is going to get everything he wants in any DTC deal with the leagues. What I think will happen is that Sinclair will get a deal done but with compromises, essentially the way I'm picturing a deal would look like would be something to the effect of that Sinclair does get DTC rights with the NBA, NHL, MLB and probably MLS too but as part of it, they give NBA/NHL/MLB/MLS a smaller stake in the DTC service and the rights to those teams to broadcast the games (both linear and DTC) get turned over to the leagues.

And Dish did reach a long term deal with Sinclair today but the deal did not include Bally Sports

John Ourand was asked today on Twitter about the progress of negotiations to get Bally Sports back on Dish and his response provides a bleak future for them 

Has Zaslav made any comments about Turner Sports as well as AT&T SportsNet?

On 4/2/2021 at 6:39 PM, dman748 said:

There's just so much that I need to analyze on that article it'll be a long one so please bear with me on this one:

That is likely where I see the Bally Sports Extra channels ultimately being used for eventually. Keep the traditional broadcast on the main and then those that want to watch the game from a sports betting perspective can watch it on the Extra channel.

I'm a huge fan of this idea, this is a very good way of attracting new younger fans. Both the sports betting aspect of it and this Hockey University concept is a good way of doing that.

I believe this is the approach that I'm sure Sinclair is doing right now even with the SportsCenter-esque show that @Georgie56has been mentioning so much of. I think Sinclair really wants to try to finish what Fox tried to start in the late 90s and (ultimately) make it work when it does launch its OTT/DTC service

 

Also I have a feeling Georgie is correct on 2 key fronts:

I have a feeling Sinclair really wants to carve out its own niche in a way. I don't see so much of Sinclair trying to compete with ESPN as much as I see Sinclair carving out its own niche in an area of this SportsCenter-style show. One of the advantages Sinclair has is (in addition to the RSNs and Stadium) is the local stations. Sinclair can tap into the local stations for major sports stories as well and in a way that's a huge advantage over SportsCenter right there because you don't see SportsCenter doing anything like that at all not even with its ABC O&Os. They might use the O&Os for like during player/coach interview segments and certain other things but that's pretty much it.

This is pretty much consistent with what Bally Sports North is doing by putting some T-Wolves games on WUCW, In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see certain shows actually replace syndicated programming down the road.

Again. There's your big hint right there that one of the many shows Sinclair is in the process of developing is a SportsCenter-style show.

 

I think to summarize up all of the points is, I hope Sinclair is learning from the mistakes Fox made. But I'm sure Sinclair also understands they can't be running the same type of programs Fox had been running in the later years which I believe is one of the many reasons why the streammers and Dish has been balking at the RSNs. The RSNs charge way too much for programming that (outside of live sports and the pre/post shows) are garbage..That might be what gets the RSNs back on at least the streammers eventually. Dish on the other hand might be a lost cause though.

 

It'll be an interesting 12 months for Sinclair.

On 4/1/2021 at 10:30 AM, Georgie56 said:

Watching the Bally Sports opening day special (which is being seen on all BSNs), and I think they could be testing the waters for a news and highlights show in the future. 

Called it.

Sinclair said today in their Q3 earnings call they are launching a 90-minute sports news show called "The Rally" launching at the beginning of next year, and it'll be available on the RSNs (so I assume this will include YES and Marquee). In addition, it'll also be available on Stadium and STIRR

9 minutes ago, T.L. Hughes said:

Of course, the reason why Disney couldn’t buy them in the first place is because acquiring the RSNs as part of the 20CF purchase would have given Disney too much market share in sports broadcasting… what with ESPN being the largest cable sports network, and its namesake subsidiary owning eight sister channels in the U.S. alone, a pay-per-view unit, two streaming platforms (ESPN3, then within the now-defunct WatchESPN app, and the then-fledgling ESPN+), two radio networks (plus a Sirius/XM channel), and holding control of ABC’s sports division.

 

So, the only options for 21st Century Fox were to pull the Fox Sports RSNs off the market and retain ownership of them or sell them to a third party (as they ultimately did). Quite frankly, as much as I still don’t think Murdoch selling 20th Century Fox, and the FX and National Geographic networks made much sense (especially when that library would have been useful to them from a streaming standpoint), I’m not sure why selling the Fox Sports regional networks was a good idea, given that 21CF was clearly better able to support them than Diamond Sports was, given the Murdochs’ deep pockets.

I agree to a point, yeah selling off the other assets was a bad idea and maybe perhaps Murdoch was a bit of a genius with that.

But the RSNs, the Murdochs were absolutely correct pulling out of the RSN business, at first yeah it didn't make sense but given what's happened since, yeah they were right selling the FSNs.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Well, the plan to launch a DTC option may be in jeopardy since many franchises are still not willing to enter into digital rights with "Bally Sports"

https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/sinclair-renews-rsn-deals-may-not-have-streaming-rights-for-a-direct-to-consumer-service/

 

The icing on the cake?

They don't even have the gambling rights!

 

That's right.

BALLY SPORTS network does not have the GAMBLING rights.

 

Maybe a different naming partner would have been a good idea.

 

Someone put this dumpster fire of a company out of its misery. NOW.

Even worse (despite the tweeter forgetting to put in the extra 0's) Sinclair (yes, the whole company) is over $12.5 BILLION in debt 

When they first bought the FSNs I was thinking to myself this could sink Sinclair because it was loaded with debt, very little non-sports programming to show for, even when the providers and streamers dropped them I was still at a maybe. Now that all of this and more from a couple of weeks ago came out about the RSNs this is now enough to even sink the whole company down.

Something tells me that either Sinclair didn't even shift a single amount of money in debt from the company itself to Diamond or they shifted it to Diamond but the remaining debt from the RSNs has blosomed since they last did it.

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

In Mobile/Pensacola:

 

WEAR is in their 10pm newscast without breaks and graphics. Lots of weather segments and national packages (clearly being played from YouTube as you can see the play controls pop up in the beginning)  As soon as the news was over, the station went to the Charge! feed.

 

WPMI is in Sunday Night Football...may just be the network feed from NBC.

 

WFGX and WJTC are both in the Charge! feed.  Normally it's WEAR 3.3.

 

All of the subchannels are up and running, except for Dabl on 44.3.

 

They had a pretty bad local meltdown a few months ago (unrelated) that basically took down the Master Control hub in Pensacola that controls all 4 stations for a few hours.  Just network and studio feeds, with a slate otherwise.

WPMI has been experiencing major technical difficulties here's an example of one of the tweets I came across regarding WPMI 

1 hour ago, TheRob said:

Rumor is SBG stations were hit with another cyber attack this weekend. I don't know if it will affect newscasts.

Word is via the Discord server it has impacted a few of the Sunday morning news here's what some of the Sinclair stations are addressing this 

Radars such as WWMT and WNWO have been down too and when I checked the website I couldn't access the full blown radar only the interactive radar was accessible. 

Looks like they're keeping the Bally Bar on the bottom for now. I'm starting to question whether or not Bally will even debut the different looks for different sports.

Sports Business Journal is reporting that Fanatics is looking to enter the sports media spector, specifically with the Regional Sports Networks

What's really not necessarily mind-boggling is that Sinclair's Diamond Sports unit could be heading towards bankruptcy according to that same SBJ report.

9 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

If NBC really wants to get something out of this, they should allow their paying Peacock customers free access to the channels they're taking away from YTTV.

I"m a YTTV customer, and these are key channels for why I still even pay for TV, so this one sort of hurts.

 

I think Google is going to cave in and eventually offer a Peacock option.

I'm just not sure that NBC will even offer that option to YTTV customers.

However, they might actually do it. You never know

21 hours ago, jero23 said:

YouTube TV and NBC Universal are squabbling now. If it is not resolved by Thursday YouTubeTV is pulling all of their channels from the platform 

Looks like they're pulling more than just the national NBCU channels, they're also threatening to pull local NBC affiliates from the service, per WRAL

And the disagreements from what I've seen seem to be over the Peacock streaming service.

So truth to be told I think this is a sign of the many changes people like Weeters and Myron Falwell envisions will happen to television as a whole in the coming years ahead.

54 minutes ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

Wouldn't be too hard to do, especially if they reverted back to their old ABC 5 branding in the near future.

 

Here's a mock-up I made in under 30 minutes:

Given WATN is doing it, it wouldn't be that shocking to see WOI do the same tbh.

15 hours ago, Nelson R. said:

Yeah, even though WCNC hasn’t aired it in years so it’s irrelevant to Charlotte, this is a slap in the face to Alex. They should be airing Trebek episodes. I guess they are trying to distance themselves from Mike Richards.

I totally understand that Sony is trying to distance itself from Mike but to wipe out Alex's first 75 episodes of S37 just because Richards was there is absolutely inexcusable on the part of Sony.