Yankees4life

14 hours ago, detroiter313 said:

I highly agree, he may never work at another broadcast network or cable channel ever again.

As he shouldn't be. Everything he touches turn to crap

On 1/31/2022 at 1:04 PM, CarolinaWxGuy said:

 

Looks like KSAN's Chief Meteorologist is joining WHNT replacing Alex Puckett who went to WIAT.

A couple of transfers to another sector within the company from Nexstar there

Hopefully, this is here to stay this time

On 1/28/2022 at 11:03 PM, nbc9houston said:

 

McKinnon's KUSI does not show up on YTTV or Hulu either.  Nevertheless, KUSI is available to watch on the San Diego feed of LocalBTV.

 

LocalBTV has yet to appear in Jacksonville, Boston and Indianapolis.

Don't forget Miami (except WPB). 

1 hour ago, Weeters said:

The TVNewsTalk.net On Your Side I-Team Investigators have been working night and day, on a mission to "figure out what the hell is going on" with this transaction, and can report the following:

 

According to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs online filing system, the registered agent for Bridge News, LLC is also attached to the following relevant business registrations:

Cypress NewsNet LLC (Registered 12/16/21)

FTB Operations LLC (Mentioned in FCC paperwork, registered 1/13/22)

NewsNet Operations LLC (Registered 1/13/22)

 

Presumably, these are subsidiaries of Bridge News LLC.

 

Additionally, Eric Wotila registered/modified the following companies as well:

Lakeline News Operations LLC (Formerly NewsNet LLC, changed 1/19/22)

Lakeline News Inc (Registered 12/29/21)

 

The FCC Paperwork

The FCC paperwork has a number of attachments, including an Asset Purchase Agreement, and a Time Brokerage agreement.

 

The Asset Purchase agreement, entered into on 1/13/22, is between Freelancer Television Broadcasting, Inc and Eric Wotila personally. The buyer of the assets is "FTB Operations, LLC" which is the new company registered above. The purchase price is $20,000 and "assumed liabilities".

 

The Time Brokerage Agreement, entered into on 1/13/22, is some legalese to allow FTB Operations (which now owns all the IP/contracts/etc) to program the OTA stations that are still technically licensed to Freelancer Television Broadcasting, Inc until the FCC approves the sale. There is an exception in the agreement for two hours on Sunday mornings, likely for EI programming. As part of the agreement, FTB Operations pays Freelancer $250 a month plus "reasonable and prudent station expenses associated with the fulfillment of Licensee's obligation to transmit Broker's programs."

 

Summary

So, basically, the entire NewsNet Empire is now in the control of Manoj Bhargava/Bridge News LLC via MBX Wyoming Inc, with Eric only owning 10% of Bridge News.

 

The Speculation

Mr. Bhargava is Gray Television's #3 institutional shareholder, through his company MBX Capital LLC (Not to be confused with a similar company MBX Capital Inc which seems to specialize in healthcare investments), owning 5.3% of their publicly traded shares. This transaction was made in July 2021, at the cost of around $100 million dollars. It is unclear what the intentions are with this acquisition of NewsNet. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Wow....what a waste of money. God knows how he's getting that money back with Newsnet and some lowpowered small market stations.

15 hours ago, TheRob said:

Don't send one-man-band reporters out to do live shots at night on the side of the road-- ever. I don't care if the director was slow in cutting the shot or if the anchor can't see the on-air monitor or if the reporter didn't have a vest. You can't send reporters alone for nighttime live shots, especially on the side of the road.

Yeah...that was stupid. I hope the idiot who thought of that got cut. Absolutely stupid and dangerous. Glad she's still alive

Didn't see that coming

I guess Lily splashed the cash on CBS...

56 minutes ago, Georgie56 said:

NYPost reports that Apollo is closing in on a deal to acquire TEGNA.

Boy oh boy. That's gonna be interesting. Don't want to see them take over Tegna. They certainly haven't done a good job running the channels they currently have either. So them scooping up Tegna is not something I want to look forward to

1 hour ago, phillynewslover said:

They're still using the Raycom graphics as of 4p.

Yep. Just checked. Almost there tho

35 minutes ago, MisterBill said:

 

“As a result, News 12 devoted more than 200 hours, including significant amounts of executive management time, to the process of securing coverage for McDonough’s sudden and unexpected absence,” and paid “premium compensation” to cover his on-air shifts, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages."

 

Oh, boo hoo hoo. Station execs actually had to do some work?

Some of these big companies don't understand that people can quit and don't have to put up with their nonsense. This is why we have a "Great Resignation" in the first place. Who the hell wants to get screwed in the ass so much? He asked for a schedule changed. They refused and he walked. Easy as that. I hope this gets laughed out in court and they get to pay his legal fees...

Yeah...that open is WPVI esque. Might as well just get the Action News theme instead of this weird production music

10 hours ago, DMA said:

Newsnet's NYC affiliate WJLP has dropped Newsnet, after (mercifully) being bought by Weigel. Prior owners PMCM (notorious for using an FCC loophole to move the station from Nevada to New Jersey) had crammed the RF with like 12 barely watchable subchannels, including right wing ones like Newsmax2 and Newsnet. Can't say I'll miss having access to Newsnet, especially now that Newsy provides a much higher quality OTA service in the DMA. 

Huge blow to Newsnet as they lose the Top Market there and will have to scramble to find a new affiliate 

On 1/11/2022 at 6:23 PM, NowBergen said:

There are several articles today that Altice merged all the NY News 12s, is moving away from hyper local and the cuts are a year earlier than the settlement they made with Dolan.   It does not seem they are making a change at News 12 New Jersey (so far).  What I read in NewsBlues indicates more may be leaving.

I'm sure PinePowerLI will be pleased with this

I have no clue what this show is. I was hoping for a Final Score type format show coming in but this sounds meh

55 minutes ago, dman748 said:

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.

Yeah...I can't see it succeeding just because of that price tag. That's too expensive for one or two channels at most. (Thank God my team is well out of market so I could just watch on the league packages...)

Yeah...good luck with that. Tough to compete against the big 4 and their content there. I'll remain skeptical of this deal if it goes through 

1 hour ago, pinghawi said:

WJHG has upgraded to the Hexagon/Beehive look! This is one of the forecast graphics I found from their website: wjhg.com/weather! 

Not only new graphics but new music as well as they switch out Inergy for The Rock. Much needed upgrade really...

On 12/9/2021 at 6:39 PM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Canvas.

 

 

Good choice for a music package right there. I would've gone for Beyond tho but Canvas is good...

Truly end of an era there....

Wow...

I like it. Thank God they kept Enforcer here

8 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

DISH could lose the Morgan Murphy stations at 6:00 p.m. CDT on October 13.

It just keeps pouring on

2 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

WOW! This could be Weigel's biggest acquisition yet (in terms of price)......

 

They're acquiring PMCM's WJLP for $62.5M!

 

The deal also includes NYC LP outlet WNWT-LD.

 

So PMCM has now sold both of its TV stations. WDPN was sold to Marantha Broadcasting (owners of WFMZ) in 2015 for $25M.

 

I don't get it but I guess Weigal wants a NY station. I hope they solve the signal issues with that station (even if it means co-channeling)

12 hours ago, CLETVFan said:

FTVLive is reporting some big changes involving the Saturday night 11pm newscast on WKYC.  It's changing from news to a show with a more comedic angle.

That's a "y tho" from me. Once again WKYC drops the ball and it's pretty clear to see why they're struggling to compete with others with gimmicks like this. Tegna has murdered this station....

11 hours ago, PelicanGuy said:

Kudos to Somerville for standing up...but this is Fox TV Stations, not Cox.

Yeah...he can't go against the machine there unfortunately (even if he's right which he is)

I can't believe it took this long for Cleveland to have a Telemundo affiliate but here it is. Gonna be interesting to see how they'll handle it...