dman748

That's just like peoiple would rather watch the World Cup in Spanish than in English, same thing here in this case I guess people don't like KTVT, WFAA, and KXAS so much they'd rather watch Telemundo for news at 4pm

And that is also despite the fact that Gray shuttered and merged KSPR's news department into KYTV's

I think out of the 2 markets that Standard got from Citadel I think they will have a MUCH easier time in Providence than they will in Lincoln

Exactly. KLKN needs serious work too (and hiring a new GM is a start, still got a long way to go though) but I think WLNE out of the 2 that are in the bigger need of work done to the station Going back to KLKN though, I don't think it would matter what Standard does with KLKN because isn't KOLN a 100-lb gorilla in Lincoln? If so then Standard for sure has their work cut out in Lincoln

It looks as if Deb McDermott wants to return KLKN to its roots (which that makes sense considering that McDermott has a history in Lincoln) I'd be very interested to see what McDermott does with WLNE (which that station out of the 2 stations Standard acquired is in need of some serious work)

So Tegna today announced it's 2nd Quarter Earnings and there's some hinting that more M&A could be on the way for Tegna It wouldn't surprise me one bit if Tegna ended up as the next Sinclair (them and Scripps both) as I don't see any indications at all that neither Tegna or Scripps will slow down it's M&A craze anytime soon

I would go out of the limb and say yes. And the thing is Tegna's philosophy would work on stations like KMSB, WPMT and WTIC but as we've seen with WFAA, WWL and especially WXIA it has proven to be costly

That's one half of the sharing agreements in Tucson gone, I wouldn't be surprised if Tegna ultimately terminates the sharing agreements with Gray and acquire KMSB outright. One would think that KMSB would've had a news department by now under Tegna

For a market the size of Lubbock that's actually not too bad. It could always be worse

Have we heard anything out of the FCC or Sinclair since this investigation began? I know they were supposed to turn over evidence to the FCC by the 9th (and here we are on the 25th, they're almost 2 and a half weeks late)

Never say never though. Given Sinclair's behavior it might happen.

I think the cable bundle is starting to burst and what's fueling the fire is the fact that AT&T (the same company that's started the whole carriage fiasco) wants to shift current DirecTV satelitte customers to streaming. So clearly that may be part of the reason why we've seen so many carraige disputes involving AT&T. Looking back, I can clearly see why the Justice Department didn't want to allow the AT&T-Time Warner merger to go through in the first place, it has nothing to do with CNN's politics but rather the kind of stuff that it's playing out now, and it shows.

Aaannndddd.... They have lost their viewers for that stupidity. Why in the name of Frankfurt would you place your own TV station behind the paywall and yet you can get WDAZ/WDAY for FREE, over the air. Sounds to me like either they're desperate for traffic on their website because nobody is visting their site or they're trying to drive whatever is left of their viewership elsewhere in the area. I seriously have a bunch of questions about this.....

It's clear to me that this is where needs to open up an investigation into possible Collusion between Cunningham and Sinclair and actually run it concurrently with the Lack of Candor investigation the FCC is doing on Sinclair itself. It's WAYYYYY overdue for the FCC to start holding Sinclair and their related broadcasting "companies" accountible for their actions

Which in that case it would be Cunningham. Not only that but one would think that holding your own stations off of DirecTV for this long, should ultimately go against your qualifications as far as license renewal is concerned.

Did you send a tip to @TheRolyPoly? If not, I will in a bit

Tbh even though that yes the original Standard Media may have dissolved but it dissolved through absolutely no fault of their own, it was just the greediness from Sinclair that caused the deal to fall apart they way it did

(I hope quoting certain parts of the post doesn't break the quote but if it is let me know) Thing is though they would be doing the same thing had Liberty Media/MLB won the bid for the RSNs, it doesn't help that Disney only got at most half in return after initially acquiring the RSNs from the Murdoch's for over $20 Billion. On top of that these same Dems wouldn't be crying foul over this had Big 3/Ice Cube won the bid but they didn't so.... Here's the link to it, NOTE: it is behind the paywall unfortunately https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2019/06/26/Media/Congress-Sinclair.aspx

Do you see any scenario where the FCC forces Sinclair to honor parts of the Tribune deal (i.e. the Standard Media deal) plus did the RKO General thing went through SCOTUS too? I think we are all in agreement that Sinclair will have to pay at least a hefty fine and will be restricted from acquiring any broadcast licenses for a certain length of time

The problem is that Ajit Pai has distanced himself from President Trump, Pai was the one that brought up the "lack of candor" issues and had Pai not investigated Sinclair's actions (in spite of what President Trump says about Pai) the Dems would be calling for Pai to resign right now. The bottom line is this: Could licenses of the stations owned and/or operated by Sinclair be threatened? Yes, but it probably won't be pulled Will there be some form of divestitures whether it's from Sinclair itself, their shell companies, or both? Absolutely, especially the stations owned by the shell companies. Also the FCC might also order that parts of the original Standard deal be honored (i.e. the Sinclair stations that were part of the original deal) but other than that, the rest of the original deals in that now-cancelled Tribune deal is nullified and it won't be honored by the FCC Beyond that I fully expect a hefty fine and the FCC will probably prohibit Sinclair from making any deals broadcast-related (not related to divesting of the statiuons both the stations part of the Standard deal on the Sinclair side as well as stations owned by companies like Cunningham, and Deerfield which would likely result in some of the stations owned by Sinclair that are tied to the stations owned by the shells being sold as well) for a certain length of time

Just out of curiosity, what was the largest fine the FCC has ever given in their history as an agency?

One of the big rule changes I could see take place (and this may or may not take affect until after the Elections next year nut could also occure beforehand) is the elimination of using sidecars to skirt around FCC rules/regulations (which would likely result in a lot of virtual triopolies and quadropolies being broken up) That's not for certain whether it'll happen or not but, I think that's a very real possibility

That looked like more than 3 questions that CNBC and others were reporting. But, of course they don't tell you eveything

I think the actions of what Sinclair did is enough to justify the FCC saying that the stations they own and/or operate needs to go or else, doesn't matter what President Trump says, because what you said in that part of the sentence is a clear indication to me that just a hefty fine by the FCC is not going to be enough in this case

2 possible options for the FCC to punish Sinclair should this lead to a hearing: `1. Sinclair faces hefty fine and apologizes (goes back to some sort of normalcy) 2. Sinclair would face the possibility of selling off the stations a la RKO General. As I've been saying since the Tribune merger collapsed last year, Sinclair is going away in ways we haven't seen in our life times for most of us on this forum since many of us on here don't remember what the FCC did to RKO General. Keep in mind, selling stations in a forced liquidation doesn't happen very often but in such cases as this and with RKO General it is warranted. For this reason in MY opinion, Option 2 is the most likely option here. Feel free to disagree if you wish but this is what I've been saying for the past year so I'll stick to what I've been saying