GoldenShine_10

Same here, that was surprising. I figured the low hanging fruit would be the ones where CBS was on a separate affiliate (and they are worthless to Paramount). However, I thought the next ones to sell would be the smaller O&O's (i.e., outside the top 10 markets).

In the markets without Gray in Missouri (other than Joplin), the two News Press and Gazette-owned stations are adding it according to the link.

The irony is that it may work - in the other direction...mentioned on Speculatron.

Lafayette is the one market in Louisiana that they are missing.

It might be a boon to get the minor sports, smaller college and high school sports noticed. I wonder how many more of these networks they may launch? And how they would handle states where they are one market short (i.e., Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, West Virginia).

What happens if they need help and they are a small company or lack sister stations anywhere near? That's one potential disadvantage I can see. I know KHOU also did the same to KBMT after Tropical Storm Imelda in 2019, which flooded the Beaumont studios.

It seems the company has changed its name from "Gray Television" to "Gray Media" - is that an official change or just a branding change?

With a wholesale "Weather Impact" brand, I wonder if any Gray holdouts will switch to "First Alert" where a Tegna station held the brand previously and let go of it? I think that could happen with WAVE at least.

Sinclair has NBC affiliates in 17 markets; that is the network they have the fewest stations with (Sinclair has more CBS, ABC and Fox stations). In most of them, the only alternative is a subchannel but I am sure NBC would make it work. (For comparison, Gray is the largest source of NBC affiliates - in 56 markets!)

I know many young and aspiring journalists won't touch Sinclair now. I've heard of stories of people taking jobs with other companies in smaller markets instead even after being offered a bigger market job with Sinclair. Most Sinclair markets rank very low in their markets anyway, often in last place.

Sinclair is in hot water again over political statements from their anchors on their stations, regarding Biden's age, being pushed from corporate.

One other issue is that no one is available to be acquired for them unless they either make an acquisition that blows past the cap (i.e., one of the networks), or at least requires serious application of the UHF discount (i.e., Hearst, Graham) given their focus is on medium to large markets mainly.

I know Sinclair has been basically blacklisted ever since. No one has wanted to do business with them and now they are in a deep financial hole after being "forced" into cable after terrible behavior with the FCC. Even in a free market, any company would be foolish to deal with them.

I know Rand Paul has proposed a bill that removes all caps to the ownership rules. If that ever passed... As far as the Tegna ownership level, I think they are at about 32% with the UHF discount. That means they still have a bit of room to make moves, but there are no good options available that don't blow past the cap since they focus on larger markets - something like acquiring Graham or Hearst. In the Speculatron, I created a thread wondering what could happen if the caps were all eliminated and companies could go to 100%.

I know lists are frowned here, but I'm curious what stations have NOT flipped yet.

Last I checked, we weren't in Speculatron here...

Way too much going on in here that I can't keep up with. That said, I know these are mostly stations losing money now and rated very low in markets.

One option in the late nights is to simulcast local coverage, although that requires getting rights to such.

I know this is not Speculatron though...and we don't know a lot of the details. This may all just fall through as well.

He'd have to sell pretty much every station in markets below the top 60 to fit WPIX.

Transcript from Gray's Q1 2024 call. At this time, any significant M&A looks out of the picture, as they are focusing on paying down the debt and building their core. (Although they have plenty of space with the UHF discount).

Congress would have to change the rules to let Nexstar into more markets. That seems to be a low priority right now.

I wonder if Fox Weather is also looking at possibly acquiring Mike Seidel and others laid off at TWC? They might be seeing that option open up.

Once I have access (I had to make a new account as I lost the previous in the move), I'll make some Speculatron thoughts.

Now that was unexpected news. I think they realize they are boxed out based on their previous behavior. I think the standalone weaker stations (with no news operation) might be possible duopoly bait for someone else in those markets.