Sinclair...Again

[DirtyHarry 727]

Cincinnati used to have McAlpin's, Shillito's, Mabley and Carew and Pogue's department stores. Now just Dillard's and Macy's. I'm sure a lot of people think it's BS that they are either no longer around or Walmart has replaced them. But times change, technology changes and what people want also changes.

 

The crappy quality of most network television shows that the money is no longer there. it won't be long before we see the dominoes fall unless they come up with a new paradigm in order to become more relevant to the people who use their content.

[Breaking News 829]

Times do change that for sure, but greedy people will always find a way to make money even if it on a shoe-string budget. I get what your saying. The networks NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX will be there, and they also have their foot in the cable pool, the internet, the radio, publishing and more.

 

As for the broadcast owners who have their portfolios not just in broadcasting will probably survive, because their hands in other entities as well. Cox has Cox Cable, etc... If that one broadcasting company just has those stations then they're doomed, but once again if your a company that has it hands in other pots and you have the correct ppl in place to make sure the $$$ coming in your all good.

 

One thing the consumer has is choices and you have more choice now than anytime before and there going to make sure you the consumer have all the options, but you have decide what best for you

[Mrtraveler01 738]

As everyone knows, I'm a big critic of how Our Lord and Savior runs things. And being in perhaps the only market Our Lord and Savior considers an afterthought (St. Louis) probably helped shaped my view of them.

 

 

Here are five things I consider worth thinking about as Sinnclair moves up into bigger journalistic and political leagues with this deal. They are based on two decades of watching Sinnclair operate.

 

1. WBFF (Fox 45), the Sinnclair-owned station in Baltimore. consistently delivers some of the best investigative, enterprise and government watchdog journalism in Baltimore and Maryland.

 

(You can read one of my pieces here about the way one of its investigative teams righteously dogged Baltimore's City Hall last year over contracts for IT services and consulting).

 

That's something you won't hear about from advocacy bloggers and talking heads on the left. They offer a simple-minded, black-and-white critique of Sinnclair as a right-wing ideology machine.

 

But, as a journalist who prides himself on being down the middle, I am here to tell you that the news operation does some very good work.

 

Think of it as a mini-Fox-News. Sean Hannity is right-wing crazy almost every night of the week. But Washington-based correspondents like James Rosen and anchors like Bret Baier are delivering the journalistic goods.

 

The claim that it's a right-wing ideology machine didn't originate out of thin air. There has been instances in the past that Our Lord and Savior has shown a definite bias to the right. For every good investigative journalist they have, they also have some ideologue like Mark Hyman whose insight includes calling the French "cheese-eating surrender monkeys" when they didn't want to be allies with us in the War on Iraq and hosting Town Hall meetings that have a slant toward the right.

 

It's a definite concern when you have examples like these:

 

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aqgo9j99xhd4

 

http://www.salon.com/2004/10/22/sinclair_6/

 

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-06-20/entertainment/bal-wbff-robocalls-rightwing-samesex-ccadvertising-20120618_1_jeff-barnd-robocalls-traditional-marriage

 

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvspy/sinclair-under-fire-for-airing-partisan-special-on-stations-in-battleground-states-on-election-eve_b68439

 

I'll try to stay away from getting too political but unless they clean up their act when it comes to their over-the-top partisan news programs, their reputation isn't going to change.

 

 

3. Don't get carried away with the talk of a national cable channel for Sinnclair.

 

...

 

Sinnclair will have a 24/7 news channel, but it will use it to program portions of the day on many of the smaller broadcast stations it owns and manages.

 

That's just the kind of thing that impresses Wall Street analysts. Instead of paying huge syndication fees, Sinnclair can program the news off its cable news channel in Tulsa, say, from 4 to 7 p.m. weekdays -- with maybe just an hour of local news in the mix. That's economies of scale writ large. Same thing from 5 to 7 a.m. and mid-day.

 

 

I mentioned this earlier but he is saying this without mentioning the failure that was News Central. Economies of scale don't mean jack if it doesn't draw in enough viewers to bring in ad revenue. Plus David Smith has mentioned that he does want to make these separate 24/7 regional cable news channels (a la NWCN, TXCN, NC8, etc.). He's going to have to deal with the likes of TWC and Comcast to get them to put his new channels on their systems and considering the hard ball that TWC is currently playing with CBS and Journal, I don't see why TWC would be any different with Our Lord and Savior. Plus regional cable news was a popular trend in the broadcasting industry...in the 1990's. Even if you do it on the cheap, is it a smart business decision to make as more people are "cutting the cord"?

 

Our Lord and Savior takes a half-ass approach to basically...well, everything. Their top rated stations are the ones they only recently acquired. Even their legacy ABC affiliates are near the bottom in the ratings. I don't see this half-assed approach to running a TV station to change anytime soon which is very troubling to stations like WJLA, KOMO, KATU, etc. These are very-competitive markets in which their competitors have much deeper pockets than Our Lord and Savior's competitors in smaller markets had. Our Lord and Savior needs to start opening up their wallet if they want their stations to compete against the O&O' s and the likes of WRC, KING, KGW, etc.

 

The other thing is trying to integrate all of their newly acquired stations to fit the "Our Lord and Savior model". This is going to be a long and difficult process. The way they've been handling moving these new stations to their web platform and phone apps doesn't give me much confidence that Our Lord and Savior can handle how fast they are growing. Businesses that grow as fast as Our Lord and Savior has tend to be very unsustainable and ultimately it will come back to haunt them (most likely in the massive size of debt they are accumulating). I still think Our Lord and Savior is growing at a rate that is too fast for them to handle so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

 

That's my 2 cents as this thread keeps on rolling along.

[DirtyHarry 727]

I think they're really on to something with mobile TV. Radio is a one-dimensional medium, and they don't really have the resources to cover breaking news or weather events anymore like they used to. That job now seems to have gone to local television stations, but again it's still boils down to how many content providers can make a profit in a given market with only so many eyeballs available. remember, They are limited to what they can charge advertisers for.

 

The bad thing about having so many choices is that the market gets sliced in such small segments and it's hard to come up with the amount of quality programming to fill all those channels, not to mention that there is only so much talent available To come up with those programs. Then with the market sliced in so many different pieces it's also hard to financially justify doing things.

 

I obviously don't know what the future holds, but I think the days of 3 local stations doing essentially the same kind of boring news are numbered.

[T.L. Hughes 890]

I think the reason why we SBG gets bashed a lot is because they choose to circumvent the FCC's rules. The problem is, SBG has become complacent that the FCC won't do anything to curb outsourcing agreements or even place hard ownership caps. Complacency is not a good thing. The Smiths shouldn't rule out any potential action by the FCC. The reality is, it's largely the FCC's fault that SBG, Nexstar and others have proliferated JSAs/SSAs/LMAs. When they discovered SBG's involement in Glencairn (Cunningham), they only gave the company a five-figure fine. They also did not close the loophole that sllowed outsourcing agreements once they began allowing formal duopolies and failing station waivers. The problem is the JSA/LMA/SSA serves no real purpose now that you can legally own two stations, and if a station is floundering financially, you can buy it under a failing station waiver if you can prove it is in danger of shutting down without creating a duopoly through one.

 

Broadcasters also believe that outsourcing agreements also keep stations that might otherwise go dark from doing so; truthfully though, some stations involved in outsourcing agreements are not financial ne'er-do-wells and can survive without being under one. I kind of disagree about the who cares about Big Four affiliates without news departments, the voices rule is easily interpretable as counting potential voices (i.e., not just individual owners but any station that could be or is editorially independent with regards to news/information content), that can include even non-major network stations as well (like those that aren't like WGN, WJXT, KUSI or KRON). It makes more sense to have as many different perspectives on the same news story as possible than to have just one.

 

That is largely the reason for the griping here about SBG and others, its OK to acquire a non-Big Four station that has a news department and merge it with a Big Four station than to have two Big Four stations merge into one duopoly and remove or prevent a voice in the market. Also running more stations in a single market than the FCC legally allows seems like overkill, just run one or two stations but don't throw any more into the mix. Frankly, I hope the FCC can rectify what they caused by making the outsourcing agreement a thing of the past, but I'm not crossing any fingers or thinking it's a lost cause.

[hathawaynson2 39]

 

I think the reason why we SBG gets bashed a lot is because they choose to circumvent the FCC's rules. The problem is, SBG has become complacent that the FCC won't do anything to curb outsourcing agreements or even place hard ownership caps. Complacency is not a good thing. The Smiths shouldn't rule out any potential action by the FCC. The reality is, it's largely the FCC's fault that SBG, Nexstar and others have proliferated JSAs/SSAs/LMAs. When they discovered SBG's involement in Glencairn (Cunningham), they only gave the company a five-figure fine. They also did not close the loophole that sllowed outsourcing agreements once they began allowing formal duopolies and failing station waivers. The problem is the JSA/LMA/SSA serves no real purpose now that you can legally own two stations, and if a station is floundering financially, you can buy it under a failing station waiver if you can prove it is in danger of shutting down without creating a duopoly through one.

 

Broadcasters also believe that outsourcing agreements also keep stations that might otherwise go dark from doing so; truthfully though, some stations involved in outsourcing agreements are not financial ne'er-do-wells and can survive without being under one. I kind of disagree about the who cares about Big Four affiliates without news departments, the voices rule is easily interpretable as counting potential voices (i.e., not just individual owners but any station that could be or is editorially independent with regards to news/information content), that can include even non-major network stations as well (like those that aren't like WGN, WJXT, KUSI or KRON). It makes more sense to have as many different perspectives on the same news story as possible than to have just one.

 

That is largely the reason for the griping here about SBG and others, its OK to acquire a non-Big Four station that has a news department and merge it with a Big Four station than to have two Big Four stations merge into one duopoly and remove or prevent a voice in the market. Also running more stations in a single market than the FCC legally allows seems like overkill, just run one or two stations but don't throw any more into the mix. Frankly, I hope the FCC can rectify what they caused by making the outsourcing agreement a thing of the past, but I'm not crossing any fingers or thinking it's a lost cause.

 

Somebody who is making physical and mental sense on what I was thinking about! I have to agree with you on SBG and Nexstar circumventing on JSA/SSA/LMA's and outsourcing agreements to get around the FCC rules on TV ownership because they have done it in Little Rock (Nexstar) and Mobile/Pensacola (Sinclair/Deerfield) Now, I personally think that the Smiths are living the domestic life by using Cunningham because those two are like an family regardless on who owns stock on Cunningham Broadcasting Group. Anyways, the real bashing of SBG is taking an total benifactor because they own and or operate stations through Shell corporations and owning that station outright.

[DirtyHarry 727]

I think the reason why we SBG gets bashed a lot is because they choose to circumvent the FCC's rules. The problem is, SBG has become complacent that the FCC won't do anything

 

 

Hogwash. S!nnclair has been doing these deals for 20 Years. They are not secret ... The FCC gets copies of the JSA/SSA/LMA agreements when they apply to have the license transferred. If the FCC wanted to stop them they've had plenty of time to do so.

[sanewsguy 511]

 

I think the reason why we SBG gets bashed a lot is because they choose to circumvent the FCC's rules. The problem is, SBG has become complacent that the FCC won't do anything to curb outsourcing agreements or even place hard ownership caps.

 

I agree that this is hogwash. They are following the law and if that means using shells to obtain ownership in markets, they are still following the law. SBG hasn't broken any laws. Now, if they broke the law, then it would be different.

 

 

Hanna-Barbera Land you don't see it as world domination...There was a time where the FCC said one owner per market and there was a limit on how many stations you can own... When the $$$ get funny at (SBG) expect layoffs, but nothing good comes from The Smith Bros...

 

To me (SBG) is a lackluster company that see the bottom line, and if your going to invest in all your stations you should place the correct people in management to on-air talent and the whole nine.

 

Yeah, says the person with a SBG station's logo as his avatar.

 

And also, yes, the FCC was hard on ownership at one point but that is irrelevant in today's world. Actually, I never liked that law to begin with...

[Mrtraveler01 738]

And also, yes, the FCC was hard on ownership at one point

Please do regale us of tales of these days of yore.

[Mrtraveler01 738]

Found a video clip of the new close for KOMO under "Sin Clair Media of Seattle". Sounds kind of empty and hollow without the Fisher music tones at the end.

 

 

For those not sure what I'm talking about, here is the last close with the Fisher Communications ID.

 

[tyrannical bastard 3951]

Now here's a question.....

 

One of the "hitpoints" that's getting a lot of coverage on Our Lord and Savior stations is the proposed cell phone tax to fund high speed internet connections in schools. WPMI did a "reality check" and claimed that the proposed tax would be $5 A MONTH.....as opposed to it being widely reported as being only $5 A YEAR.

 

I'm hoping this was just an isolated gaffe on WPMI's behalf, but have other stations owned by "the almighty" made the same mistake?

[Leavellebrett 85]

My Little Pony...? Really?

[tyrannical bastard 3951]

Looking through the posted jobs at "The Almighty's" (can I say Sinclair again?) job page, KDNL looks to have a plan for replacing their KSDK-produced program. They're hiring an executive producer and a part-time host for an "upcoming news and information program" to begin no later than January 2014.

 

I'm not getting my hopes up for anything much....it's probably a low-budget way of doing what KSDK has been doing for them already.

[CircleSeven 1955]

 

And that station he's talking about is WRLH, Young's WRIC (and a PBS station) in Richmond, which all three share that same antenna facility. They operating in lower power because of failure and its now the fix is delayed because of SPX's (Dielectric's parent company) folding announcement. Of course this comes after FCC has placed a moratorium (or a freeze) on 301 TV station modification application filings, pending the outcome of those upcoming spectrum auctions, which set to begin in June 2014. That really took a big hit on Dielectric's business. They were working hard when stations had viewer difficulty after the DTV transition four years ago. That's when their business boomed.

 

Wow! Massa David got pissed off when Dielectric told him, they can't fix it because we're going out of business. He was like forget this, Dielectric is on many of my properties, I'm going to have to buy this. And once he bought it immediately, he was firm when he said "...go fix my antenna"!!!. Hahahaha!! LOL.

 

Follow-Up time in Richmond. The Times-Dispatch states that their broken antenna in Chesterfield County, which occured back in March, could be fixed as early as October. The antenna is used by Young's ABC station, WRIC, SBG's Fox station, WRLH and PBS station WCVW. We all remember back in June, when the manufacturers of Dielectric stated that they couldn't fix their antenna and that manufacturer was going out of business. So SBG went on and bought they dying antenna manufacturer. This will be good news for OTA viewers who had difficulty receiving WRIC, WRLH & WCVW since then.

[Samantha 2895]

Continuing with the technical theme, 19 companies submitted 10 proposals for the physical component of the ATSC 3.0 digital transmission standard. The DVB standards group and others made submissions, but the most notable proposal is from Sinclair and Austin-based Coherent Logix, which makes programmable embedded systems. Other groups include Samsung-Sony, a group including LG, research institutes from Canada and South Korea and a Chinese proposal.

[hathawaynson2 39]

 

Looking through the posted jobs at "The Almighty's" (can I say Sinclair again?) job page, KDNL looks to have a plan for replacing their KSDK-produced program. They're hiring an executive producer and a part-time host for an "upcoming news and information program" to begin no later than January 2014.

 

I'm not getting my hopes up for anything much....it's probably a low-budget way of doing what KSDK has been doing for them already.

 

I'm going to say this outright and realize that they have to air the Newscasts under their affiliation clause and not have it pre-recorded from an NBC affiliate and I am happy that SInclair is investing in a news and information program for KDNL for them to retain ABC.

[Rusty Muck 4374]

I'm going to say this outright and realize that they have to air the Newscasts under their affiliation clause and not have it pre-recorded from an NBC affiliate and I am happy that SInclair is investing in a news and information program for KDNL for them to retain ABC.

 

I'm also curious if KSDK may be compelled to end their news agreement with KDNL so as to help win favor with the FCC in clearing the Belo/Gannett merger. Even as the KMOV shell spinoff still raises concern with me.

 

If that was the case, KDNL may have no other option but to restart something loosely resembling a news op.

[Mrtraveler01 738]

 

I'm going to say this outright and realize that they have to air the Newscasts under their affiliation clause and not have it pre-recorded from an NBC affiliate and I am happy that SInclair is investing in a news and information program for KDNL for them to retain ABC.

 

I'm shocked they're not going the lazy route and just piping in news from WSYX (where KDNL's control room is). Kidding...sorta.

 

I had a feeling that KSDK's dissolution of their news agreement forced Sin Clair and KDNL to start looking at starting up a local news program of some sort. I think this confirms what we all thought when we thought that KDNL's affiliation agreement with ABC requires that it air a newscast in some form.

 

But I would be shocked if it's anything more than a KDNL-produced version of StlNow.

 

There are also rumors in the St. Louis media world that Larry Conners has another job offer here in St. Louis but is unable to do it right now because of his non-competition clause with his former employer KMOV. I know this is border-line speculation but I wonder if the job offer he has is from KDNL?

 

http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/columns/joe-holleman/larry-conners-bid-for-new-tv-job-stalled-by-judge/article_e512b432-3a24-582d-a44c-16bed87e089e.html

[DirtyHarry 727]

You have to hand it to Sinclair. They wasted no time in applying to move WWHO from 20 miles south of Columbus over to the Channel 6 Tower. Both 6 and 53 also have or will have vertical ERP's. Columbus has 5 - 1000 kw signals, all non-directional. I wonder why none of the previous owners did this?

[GoldenShine9 1513]

 

Looking through the posted jobs at "The Almighty's" (can I say Sinclair again?) job page, KDNL looks to have a plan for replacing their KSDK-produced program. They're hiring an executive producer and a part-time host for an "upcoming news and information program" to begin no later than January 2014.

 

I'm not getting my hopes up for anything much....it's probably a low-budget way of doing what KSDK has been doing for them already.

 

 

 

I'm also curious if KSDK may be compelled to end their news agreement with KDNL so as to help win favor with the FCC in clearing the Belo/Gannett merger. Even as the KMOV shell spinoff still raises concern with me.

 

If that was the case, KDNL may have no other option but to restart something loosely resembling a news op.

 

Wasn't the Gannett-Belo deal done after the agreement was ripped up? Plus we aren't sure if Gannett will be allowed to keep both KMOV and KSDK, there may easily be a forced divestiture/trade clause in the final deal.

 

It may be a combination of both the Gannett-Belo deal plus the internal assumption that Sinclair was going to acquire the Local TV LLC stations and put KDNL with KTVI.

[Mrtraveler01 738]

 

Wasn't the Gannett-Belo deal done after the agreement was ripped up? Plus we aren't sure if Gannett will be allowed to keep both KMOV and KSDK, there may easily be a forced divestiture/trade clause in the final deal.

 

It may be a combination of both the Gannett-Belo deal plus the internal assumption that Sinclair was going to acquire the Local TV LLC stations and put KDNL with KTVI.

 

The two events occurred in the same week a few days apart from one another. But I think you're right, it was a combination of the Belo-Gannett deal as well as Sinclair assuming it was going to get KTVI via Local TV.

 

Now it looks like Sinclair is scrambling to get some sort of newscast on KDNL on 1/1/2014 so it can still honor its affiliation agreement.

[GoldenShine9 1513]

http://mobile.broadcastingcable.com/blog/Station_to_Station/33947-Could_Reno_Conversations_Lead_to_Next_Sinclair_Deal_.php

 

B&C seems to think another deal or two is forthcoming - Sinclair looks to be talking to gain KRNV Reno and an unspecified station (not KSNV) in Las Vegas.

[swillh2k2 203]

http://mobile.broadcastingcable.com/blog/Station_to_Station/33947-Could_Reno_Conversations_Lead_to_Next_Sinclair_Deal_.php

 

B&C seems to think another deal or two is forthcoming - Sinclair looks to be talking to gain KRNV Reno and an unspecified station (not KSNV) in Las Vegas.

KLAS or KVVU perhaps?

[GoldenShine9 1513]

 

KLAS or KVVU perhaps?

 

KLAS would make sense as Landmark owns it and wants to sell it but doesn't believe it would get full market value given the depressed market in Las Vegas (albeit improving slowly), and that is what the article suggests is most likely.

 

Sinclair has a duopoly of netlets in the market, but no Big 4 stations and no newscasts. One of KVCW or KVMY would need to be sold or shelled.

[Mrtraveler01 738]

KLAS would make sense as Landmark owns it and wants to sell it but doesn't believe it would get full market value given the depressed market in Las Vegas (albeit improving slowly), and that is what the article suggests is most likely.

 

Sinclair has a duopoly of netlets in the market, but no Big 4 stations and no newscasts. One of KVCW or KVMY would need to be sold or shelled.

I'd hate to see Sinclair buy KLAS but its a good opportunity for them. I still want to know where all of this money is coming from.

 

Plus if they get a hold of KRNV, that will certainly be the end of the KTVU simulcasts on KRXI.