dman748

48 minutes ago, CircleSeven said:

And the process begins.... We don't know what the end result to all of this. Whether they'll get a hefty fine, or lose its licenses, etc., that's too early to tell. But I wouldn't be surprised if this would open up a brand new hearing, since the Media Bureau is now probing this matter. And it's great to start the process now because remember, next year 2020, Sinclair's crown jewels (WBFF & WJLA) are up for license renewals.

 

Here's the full letter from the FCC. With the list of info & documents the Commission is requesting (p.3-4 on the PDF).

 

Some of the info they're asking for from Sinclair:

 

And it goes on to asking Sinclair for any documents that they haven't already submitted, like other agreements, loan guarantee, etc.

 

Sinclair has until July 9 to respond to this inquiry.

That looked like more than 3 questions that CNBC and others were reporting.

But, of course they don't tell you eveything

8 minutes ago, mrschimpf said:

Going by their chicanery involving Glencairn which eventually got legalized later on...this is probably what's going to happen, but also going by 'business as usual', the 'voluntary contribution to the United States treasury' will probably come with a statement where they don't admit to blame about anything. An RKO situation would be a unprecedented, but Ajit actually forcing an apology of blame out of Hunt Valley would be much smaller, but just as shocking (and 45 would probably pressure the FCC to keep the fine at 'a bit of the quarterly statement' levels).

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

3 hours ago, MidwestTV said:

I'm curious to know what a punishment would be if FCC concludes they did?

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

1 hour ago, TheRolyPoly said:

 

But which one is better out of the two? KTVK or KPHO because IMO, its still KTVK.

Tbh I say both and that's because KTVK/KPHO has each of their own goods in their operations as well as their flaws too.

Overall in Phoenix, I'm gonna say it's KSAZ that's become the gold standard as Arizona's News Leader

On 6/11/2019 at 8:51 AM, TexasTVNews said:

I've told you they'll be the bait when Dispatch caved. First, I'm shocked that Tegna is buying 'BNS & 'THR. Second, at least WTOL/Toledo will have a matching network affiliation sister station soon.

There, I fixed it for you. WTOL already has WKYC (the NBC affiliate) as their sister station

16 minutes ago, cg41386 said:

 

I thought that OKC had become fairly competitive in recent years, and that KOCO had risen a bit? And KOTV dominates Tulsa, and I think KVII is dominant in Amarillo but I might be mistaken there. Pretty sure KWCH usually wins all time slots in Wichtia.

 

Edit: As of last year, OKC was pretty competitive: https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/spreading-wildfire-78823

It's what happens when nobody in my area seems to care about how our local stations are doing (if they going up or down, stayed the same). 

Maybe I should create a blog devoted to TV ratings for the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metro areas

FYI: That was from around 2006 or 2007 because it mentions Dr. Phil (which has since moved to KWTV), Christina's Court and Judge Maria Lopez (which was canceled LONG time ago)

If you do have the most recent ratings sweeps for my area feel free to message that to me so I can post it in the appropriate thread devoted to the sweeps. Thank you

Just now, mre29 said:

 

The "NBC4i.com" URL must have really taken off in the Columbus area -- wcmh.com and nbc4columbus.com both redirect to it.

 

 

So I guess there is no clause and WCMH just likes to use that name so much they don't want to change it

On 6/11/2019 at 12:33 PM, DirtyHarry said:

 

Weather in Oklahoma is one thing. Weather in Ohio is completely different. The likelihood you are going to get hurt or killed in a storm in Oklahoma or Iowa is within the realm of reality. In a place like Ohio (except for the Dayton area), you probably have the same odds as getting hit with a bolt of lightning.

 

It's easy to just flip a switch and continue with regular programming on your .2 Channel. The customer is always right.

That's true the customer is usually right but in a case of a life-threatening situation, sorry but the customer is wrong.

Stations HAVE to preempt regular programming for any Tornado Warning for ANY part of their DMA, it's the law. If you don't the FCC could punish you and punish you hard.

15 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

Website updates:

 

WANE

KSNW

WWLP

KXMB

WCMH

WPRI

And WCMH has never gotten rid of the NBCi name YEARS after NBC sold them to Media General, is there some sort of a clause that has carried over to Nexstar that prevents WCMH from changing the name of the website even if they wanted to?

2 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It was a short ownership because of their Enquirer ownership and was under a temporary waiver.  It would have been OK under the old Gannett but definitely not under the current TEGNA.  They're in a good place now.

And WZZM was the other swapped station in the deal that sent KOCO as well to Hearst-Argyle.

Which to be honest KOCO would've suffered regardless if it was traded to (then) Hearst-Argyle or not because Oklahoma City is a market where loyalty matters the most and viewers have been loyal to KWTV and KFOR (despite a number of ownership changes with the latter) for decades and for KOCO and KOKH they're basically screwed over (and I'm not even going to go there on KOKH for obvious reasons)

If you want a true competitive market you'd have to either go up the Turner Turnpike to Tulsa, go north or south on I-35 to @Georgie56's territory in Dallas and Wichita respectively or West on I-40 to Amarillo (Fort Smith has been dominated by KFSM for many years so I wouldn't suggest going east on I-40)

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

The second transmitter is probably irrelevant, especially since WICD is pretty much a total satellite of WICS now with no original content other than ids and maybe some ads.

 

The "Code Red" is just worthless fear-mongering, that worsens the relationship between the viewer and the meteorologists.  It puts an undue burden on the meteorologists to hype up a weather event that may not live up to its potential harm, and can make the viewer less-trusting of them when it fizzles out or isn't the "eye candy" that it was hyped up to be.  And in the era of pissed-off viewers venting on stations for cutting into their programming, it only makes it worse when they have to.

 

I'm just waiting for Boris to chime in on this, bonus points if he brings up the "terrorism alerts" that were used during the 9/11 era....

 

Here's the bottom line (see what I did there?)

 

JUST LET THE METEOROLOGISTS DO THEIR JOB!!! 

 

They know the weather (at least the good ones do), and work in the best interest of their viewers to provide usable forecasts and potentially life-saving information.   While it's not technically required, most stations that can put out a forecast will be on-air covering a life-threatening weather event for the affected viewers, or at the very least, have the warning up on the screen through maps, graphics, or at the very least, and EAS alert.

Danke. As much as I love my parents, their generation (Baby Boomers) just don't appreciate the fact that they do wall-to-wall weather coverage to save lives. They want the FCC to revert back to the old rules where you COULDN'T preempt regular programming to broadcast a Tornado Warning (and that's how many people lost their lives)

3 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

If that's the issue, they would likely have to add KXNW to the deal.

There might be other markets in the Tegna deal where the DOJ might have an issue but Fort Smith might very well be the biggest issue, we'll see

13 minutes ago, TexasTVNews said:

Tegna-Nexstar Station Spin-Off Antitrust Call Still AWOL.

https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/tegna-nexstar-station-spin-off-antitrust-call-still-awol

My educated guess on why they haven't given this deal the early release from HSO or whatever is called is because they're probably still investigating Nexstar's plans to retain KNWA, KFTA and KXNW in Fort Smith/Fayetteville

2 minutes ago, Spring Rubber said:

No, they're playing in Houston.

So apparently, somebody in the Control Room was just being lazy today

31 minutes ago, Spring Rubber said:

Has WGN covered this tornado warning at all? Every other station in the market has broken in for wall to wall coverage, but it looks like WGN has committed to stay with Cubs coverage without so much as a double box live report from the weather center as they've done in years past. 

Is the Cubs game in a Rain Delay?

51 minutes ago, TexasTVNews said:

DALLAS — WFAA Marketing wants to hear from you.

We are looking for WFAA fans, and non-fans, to share their opinion about us. We may be contacting you for surveys, opinion sharing and special opportunities.

We will not share your contact information outside of WFAA and TEGNA. 

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/wfaa-wants-your-opinion/287-3352da1e-f608-45c3-b6fc-20b6f880b363

Go for it, bro. As my parents would always tell me, put your applications in everywhere

11 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

The FCC and DOJ are irrelevant here since cable doesn't fall in their jurisdiction?

You're right about the FCC having no jurisdiction over the cable channels but the DOJ however, does (hence why they stepped in on the RSNs when they approved the Disney-Fox merger)

I wouldn't be surprised if the same consumer advocacy groups that opposed the Tribune deal opposes this one as well (even though they'll be hypocrites because they were basically silent when Sinclair reached a deal to acquire a minority stake in YES and announced the launch of Marquee with the Cubs

What's going to be interesting also is how does the DOJ feel about Sinclair even though they are buying cable channels and not TV stations and how much will Byron Allen have an influence on programming on the RSNs over Sinclair.

8 minutes ago, SS8609 said:

 

Not to mention Ice Cube also wanted to inject politics and culture into the channels. Which worked out so well for ESPN given the Jemele Hill controversy. No way in hell was Fox going to sell to someone that wasn't going to make the networks laser focused on sports.

 

Only questions remaining will come at least beginning tomorrow when the final deal is announced, whether or not the networks keep their master control in Houston (even though that city's teams now play on AT&T SportsNet's channel there) or move outright to Chicago, and whether or not the channels take on a regional identity (more on that in the Speculatron) or a blanket Stadium brand.

I'll go ahead and rename my existing speculatron thread on the former Fox RSNs. Please feel free to post in there

 

 

 

 

3

17 minutes ago, Eyewitness News-man said:

Wow (if confirmed).

I didn't think Sinclair would have it in them to buy all these regionals, but then again they have the money to be gobble up all those stations, and did have the balls to start a short-lived kids cartoon block, so that's that I guess.

Maybe they can rebrand them as "Marquee" or "Stadium (insert city here)" to expand either brand throughout regionals (again if confirmed).

We'll see.

Also, you'd have programming via Stadium and potentially the Tennis Channel that could air on the RSNs we should hear more about it today if not, by next week but this saga of the whole Fox RSN sale process is about to be totally done with (it would be up to Delhrim to decide he'll allow Sinclair to run the RSNs alongside the TV stations or not)

1 minute ago, channel2 said:

Sinclair is gonna have to take on a shitload of debt in order to pull this off...

Hence why they've likely teamed up with Apollo (so far). They are aware of the debt they'll be taking on (as is Liberty Media) the only bidder that isn't aware of the debt load is Ice Cube because they want to add on more debt if they were successful with their bid

1 hour ago, hmaxhanson said:

I agree with that. They do a good job with coverage of high school football, many of their Thursday Night Lights and Friday Night Rivals games air on Stadium.

And with quite a few of the Fox RSNs such as Southwest that emphasizes High School Sports coverage, I think Sinclair might actually do a decent job with running the RSNs. Disagree if you wish but they're the only company that I can name off that's in the running for this thing that can actually do a decent job at running the RSNs

17 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I'm sure eventually,  IF Sinclair prevails, they will keep the FOX names on the channels as long as they have to, and likely change them to something else like Stadium or ASN.... Sinclair Sports perhaps?

 

This could be the beginning of a major shift, now that FOX is out of the game, and New Fox doesn't want any part of it.  But the regulatory headwinds against them and their penny pinching...er...inbred content will keep them on the sidelines.  They could have out-muscled the networks they affiliated with, but that ship sailed away when they blew it with the Tribune deal....

I think Stadium SportsNet would work or how about bringing back the Prime Network branding (or SportsChannel for that matter). I think the DOJ shouldn't have an issue with Sinclair running the RSNs in places where they also operate TV stations (especially given that Fox operated the RSNs alongside their O&Os) but given DOJ's behavior since Delhrim took over you never know what the DOJ might rule

1 minute ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

So are they bring back... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Sports_Network

 

I don't think they'll bring back ASN if anything Sinclair might convert the networks to "Stadium Sports Net" or something like that, and besides isn't there a clause that says that the RSNs have to keep the Fox name, etc. for a certain amount of time like there is in Mexico and Brazil?

29 minutes ago, LoadStar said:

Fox Business reports that at the close of the auction, at least for now, Sinclair appears to be the top bidder for the Fox Regional Sports Channels:

https://www.foxbusiness.com/media/sinclair-broadcasting-nears-10-billion-deal-for-21st-century-foxs-regional-sports-networks

 

Is it fair to say that Sinclair's strength is in Sports or are they just weak in all areas? 

1 minute ago, TheRolyPoly said:

 

Possibly yes because it was under her control and that she was abusing money, though it was a personal thing with her family and not the station itself, but still...

 

Because she got into trouble, KFMB would've been in trouble because of her. If this wasn't going to be a violation, then this could've caused KFMB to be sold anyways.

Basically, KFMB would've still been sold off it'd just been delayed. So I'm sure she was glad to have sold KFMB off when she did because that could've been a mess at the FCC