dman748

Sinclair's DTC service isn't expected to launch until 2022 https://thestreamable.com/news/sinclair-wont-bring-rebranded-fox-sports-rsns-direct-to-consumer-until-2022 The fact that they're looking into making it available to even those who don't have a way to authenticate their satellite/streaming services to the RSNs is.. a rather interesting proposition here.

Or longer. Something this "easy" (in reality its hard due to logistical-related stuff) for sports leagues to figure out that cable isn't in the team's future has become extremely difficult for them and eventually, they will pay the price for that. Heck it's taken the leagues this long to realize that OTT is the future of TV

I think many sports leagues and teams are eventually going to have to consider moving to OTT. I think that the recent news about MSG possibly taking its RSNs to OTT is a good example of what I see coming to the RSN genre as a whole

I would assume that KFDX doesn't have a backup generator to keep the power at the station going. It's also possible that KFDX might not have a generator either and for a market the size of Wichita Falls, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they didn't have one at all.

Which I've been seeing promos that Live is moving to KOKH at the same time.

Not sure how we missed this but KWTV is launching a 9am newscast (competing against KOCO for news in that timeslot) beginning January 18th: But the changes doesn't stop there and I'll share more details in the 2020 syndication news thread once I find the link to it.

Or Meredith goes piecemeal. Either of the 3 will be the only way how Nexstar gets Atlanta.

Plus Kansas City (WDAF vs KCTV/KSMO). Either way there's a ton of conflicts in the Meredith deal that it only makes sense for Nexstar and Meredith to swap out each other's stations.

I had to reread the FTVLive article the 2nd time and it appears to me that uncle Perry only wants Atlanta and only Atlanta which tells me that he might be willing to depart a market or two in order to get Atlanta without needed to have the entire Meredith chain. I'm not sure Meredith is as willing to depart the broadcasting biz (other than splitting the company up into 2) as what we might have initially thought when the talks that Meredith "might" split started to prop up.

Thanks to Mr. Sloan we have more OKC TV stuff uncovered. First we go to the Station "Where the News Comes First.. 24 Hours a Day.", that's KFOR in 1992. This one is one of the 2 interesting transitional periods that took place at 444 East Britton Road throughout the 1990s and this was one of them. In this instance they have dropped "News Team 4" for "News Channel 4" but kept the same theme song they've used (at that time) since the 1990 callsign change. And yes that is Bob Bruce before he left for what is now known KSAZ in 1992. Next up, KOCO and KWTV (and yes this was during Jon Slater's first stint here in OKC prior to going up the Turner to Tulsa):

Sadly 2020 and Pancreatic Cancer just had to take another precious life away from us. KWTV Chief Photographer Greg Blackwood sadly passed away and Morning Anchor Robin Marsh posted the sad news on Facebook.

The dispute between them and the FSNs are a prime example of that. The difference between OTA stations and Cable channels is that the latter isn't as much of a "must-carry" the OTA stations are and that might explain why the Cox stations were able to get back on Dish in somewhat of a timely manner and why still over a year later the FSNs aren't on Dish.

I do think you're onto something here. I think this could be one of those trends of the 2020s especially in this so called media consolidation frenzy. I think we'll see many more groups fall in line with Fox and streamline the weather and sports departments. I don't think Fox is going to be the only ones doing it, I think we'll start seeing other groups whether it'd be networks or local affiliate groups jump into the fray and do the same thing.

Question, how big is the space at Studio 57? That could determine what the eventual next steps could look like for CBS assuming that CTM moves to Times Square. I have to wonder though how ABC's GMA feels about having a competitor in the same area?

What is up with Sinclair's tactics? Whatever leverage they're trying to use to get back on streammers certainly ain't working. First they lost the Tennis Channel on YTTV and now they're about to lose certain locals on Hulu Live as well. And I should point this out too, the fact that even Sinclair's local stations are starting to be affected now tells me that not everybody wants to integrate RSNs (or even cable channels in general) with local stations.

While I do agree with those points however, here's the problem. Ripley said something to the effect of "still wanting DTC tied to cable/satellite". What Ripley doesn't realize is that it actually defeats the purpose of truly going DTC, a real DTC service in general wouldn't be tied in with the cable/satelitte bundle (e.g. Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock) heck even ESPN+ isn't tied into that pay TV bubble. I think that to me as it's been the case all along since Sinclair bought the RSNs it's been.. missteps after missteps after missteps and it's costing them dearly. It's not Sinclair's past rhetorics on the news side that's costing them, it's the RSNs and their constant missteps is what's hurting them right now.

Sinclair's problems right now are more or less tied to the bad purchase of the Fox RSNs (there are however other factors too but the collapse of the FSNs is the biggest one right now)

Did the deal with the Bucks also ran out to or no? Honestly Sinclair not able to get the Brewers on board (while isn't necessarily the end of the world for Sinclair) is not a good start for them if they want to get all of the teams they have rights to on board. Although to be fair I'm sure Sinclair losing out on all of the streaming services (and others) with no sign of those services bringing them back anytime soon probably left the Brew Crew a bit of a sour taste in their mouth.

At what point do you have to start wondering when the leagues and the teams who's games air on Sinclair-owned RSNs walk away from Sinclair? It feels as if Sinclair has botched this deal from the word go. It took them over a year to put together a plan to rebrand the FSNs, pretty much pissed off all of the streammers (somewhat unreleated, they lost the Tennis Channel on YTTV so there goes what little leverage Sinclair had left to get the RSNs back on YTTV) Honestly this feels like the Astros/Rockets situation on a much bigger level.

The presentation on this partnership was released today. Saw this on the 506 forums and honestly it is to be expected with regards to the emphasis on betting, etc. Graphics and ticker looks interesting too. It'll be interesting to see what the final product looks like. https://sbgi.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Ballys-Sinclair-Inv-Deck_FINAL.pdf Meanwhile Sinclair also announced that the DTC plans will complement the existing pay-tv services and go more of a hybrid approach https://thestreamable.com/news/sinclair-ceo-says-upcoming-direct-to-consumer-offering-will-complement-to-pay-tv-business

That's not going to bode well for Sinclair at the negotiating table when they try to get the soon-to-be former Fox branded RSNs on YTTV.

Meanwhile on the same day Pai announced his departure, Jessica Rosenworcel is being pursued as the top leading candidate to lead as Chairman of the FCC. Given Rosenworcel's past comments about Sinclair's antics with the Trib deal I just.. can't imagine this being good news for Sinclair.

And that he's quietly moved on with the purchase of KBSI/WDKA from Sinclair (and with more deals with them possibly down the line as part of Sinclair's efforts to pay down its debt from the RSN acquisition) so I'm not sure that Kim is even going to make another push to take over Tegna and just focuses on being one of the major shareholders in the company

This was back in April when there were rumors about that. I'm not sure what's happened to them since then but I haven't heard anything new in terms of who's offering Tegna and who isn't unless I've missed something since then.

This is especially true in Severe Weather markets now those who archive severe weather coverage to YouTube would have no way of being able to freely access stations such as WIAT, KFOR, the KSN stations, or WDAF if they were to go behind the paywall. I have no idea what the heck Nexstar is thinking but.. this is just not a very smart move. P.S. all of the stations I just mentioned are in markets that are very Severe Weather savy.