Allbritton could be selling too.......

[SterlingNorth 33]

According to DCRTV, this was how the meeting today at 'JLA went.

 

Look for the WJLA call letters, which are the initials of company

founder Joe L. Allbritton (who died in December), to go away with new

ownership. The sale will be completed by the end of the year, staff was

told, with business at WJLA and sister NewsChannel 8 continuing "as

usual" until then. Expect Politico to leave the existing Allbritton

facility in the Rosslyn section of Arlington. To new offices in DC?

Also, Allbritton management does say that a purchase by ABC/Disney would

be the "best case scenario," but there is no word about which companies

will submit a bid for WJLA and sister NC8.

[Leavellebrett 85]

I think I heard somewhere that out of all of the Allbritton stations, WHTM somehow has the number #2 ratings out of the entire group, with WJLA #1 ...

 

I know it sounds like I am beating a dead horse here, so just bear with me, but this needs to happen to WHTM. Their scale of professionalism and integrity has been down ever since they dropped the WHTM News Center branding. Everything needs to be made new with WHTM. Image, look, sound, set, building, anchors, reporters, everything. If WHTM wonders why this is happening ... ask Brett Thackara ... ask Dennis Owens, ... ask Al Gonza ... and that's just for starters.

 

No matter what happens, in the HLLY market, WGAL is the source of news in the area. The rest just exist. I wish WHTM luck. They are going to need it.

 

-- Matt

I'd like to see someone like Belo get WHTM. That will bring some credibility back to PA ABC affiliates. I mean we have WPVI, but it's ABC O&O. In Johnstown, WATM doesn't even air a newscast. WTAE is rated #3 in Pittsburgh, but WJET is #1 in Erie. Where was I going? Oh yeah, will Belo just buy WHTM?

[TexasTVNews 1366]

I'd like to see someone like Belo get WHTM. That will bring some credibility back to PA ABC affiliates. I mean we have WPVI, but it's ABC O&O. In Johnstown, WATM doesn't even air a newscast. WTAE is rated #3 in Pittsburgh, but WJET is #1 in Erie. Where was I going? Oh yeah, will Belo just buy WHTM?

I agree to that, but I still want Belo to buy WJLA & NewsChannel 8.

[Leavellebrett 85]

I agree to that, but I still want Belo to buy WJLA & NewsChannel 8.

Oh, not me. WJLA needs to go to Disney/ABC. That way they can actually own the station and set up a string of stations halfway up and down the Boswash.

[effseesee 101]

I think getting lost in all this is what could happen to NewsChannel 8.

 

Unless it is very profitable (I don't know if it is,) I can't imagine any new owner outside of Belo or MAYBE Hearst keeping that afloat...including ABC.

I'm sure the 6 regular viewers of NewsChannel 8 share your concern.

 

According to DCRTV, this was how the meeting today at 'JLA went.

It not likely that Disney/ABC would purchase WJLA, but it's quite possible they will have a say as to which group gets to buy WJLA .

[Rusty Muck 4166]

According to DCRTV, this was how the meeting today at 'JLA went.

Look for the WJLA call letters, which are the initials of company founder Joe L. Allbritton (who died in December), to go away with new ownership. The sale will be completed by the end of the year, staff was told, with business at WJLA and sister NewsChannel 8 continuing "as usual" until then.

Say Disney/ABC buys WJLA. Think they'll arrange a deal with Cumulus to revert the call letters back to WMAL-TV?

 

The question does deserve to be asked because 1) it was the station's original callsign, 2) ABC owned WMAL-AM from 1977 until Disney sold off the radio division in 2007, 3) WMAL remains the market's ABC News Radio affiliate, 4) ABC retained the WABC, KABC, WLS and KGO calls for their O&Os, so there is precedent [or, far more likely, Cumulus has kept the WABC (AM), KABC (AM), WLS (AM) and KGO (AM) calls in arrangement with ABC... and the same might be said with WMAL], and 5) WJLA's calls need to be changed anyway upon the sale.

[Leavellebrett 85]

I don't understand why they have to change the call letters. Look at the amount of other stations in the country which have call letters referring to previous owners and they have gone through 5 ownerships since their inception... like WJAC. Johnstown Auto Group. Just in the past 10 years we've had 2 owners, Cox and Sinclair. The calls didn't change to WCOX. What's the difference? There's history in the name. Joe Allbritton died. It can and should be his memorial. The man owned multiple TV stations. How many of us here have ever owned a single TV station?

[channel2 869]

And look at KMGH-TV here in Denver. Scripps doesn't seem to be in any hurry to change its callsign (it refers to their previous owner, McGraw-Hill).

[hathawaynson2 38]

Part of me is shuddering at the amount of debt Sinclair would have to take just to buy WJLA.

pieces and parts of my brain wonder if SInclair should even try to take on an legacy station such as WJLA-TV.

 

 

 

Here's the Washington Post article, which includes Robert Allbritton's memo to the employees yesterday. Should the stations be sold separately, this is obviously ABC's one to lose. I would think Rebecca Campbell and the rest of the folks at ABC Owned Television Stations should be thinking really hard about whether WJLA would be their best option to acquire. I truthfully think this will really stick.

 

Now for the rest of the stations.

 

Someone said Belo. I think Belo has its eyes on the Griffin stations (KWTV/KOTV), should the Griffin family ever want to sell its kingdom. And Belo use to own KOTV back in its heyday.

 

I wouldn't be shocked if Scripps divest KJRH to get KTUL, but isn't KJRH is at least #2, after KOTV? I don't think they will break up WHTM, WSET & WCIV since they all in the east. I don't think Raycom will touch any of the rest of Allbritton stations. All that money Raycom has invested in WBRC and they pour in more hours of news on 6. It would be dumb for them to divest that to get 33/40/58.

 

Cox would've been interested in a Birmingham TV station, if they didn't sell its radio properties there (and the FCC greenlighted that not too long ago to SummitMedia). So I don't think Cox will acquire any of the stations. Maybe KATV, but not the rest of them, not even low rated WHTM.

 

I'll say let the Lighthouse get WBMA/WCFT/WJSU & KATV and let LIN get KTUL, WHTM, WCIV, WSET. LIN already own WJCL in Savannah GA. So WCIV can be their close sister.

 

Sinclair shouldn't get any one of those stations. They already have a duopoly with Cunningham in Birmingham & Charleston, SC. But we know what happen on their last major acquisition.

 

But If they do and they ending up getting bankrupt, the FCC wouldn't have to do any auctions in 2014 to reclaim the spectrum to the wireless companies for wireless broadband use. 130 some-odd stations would go under and immediately be surrendered to the FCC and an immediate resale of the spectrum would happen. *heavy exaggerated sarcasm*

 

Once again, I think ABC should really think hard about the possibilities of WJLA being one of their stations. And I think this is ABC's one to lose!

I don't think SInclair should even touch Allbrittion at all. They already have more stations they can manage in the respective markets. I would love to see Sinclair sell off more underperforming stations and reinvesting money to start in-house news operations in their cities that they have an presence in.

[Rusty Muck 4166]

I don't understand why they have to change the call letters. Look at the amount of other stations in the country which have call letters referring to previous owners and they have gone through 5 ownerships since their inception... like WJAC. Johnstown Auto Group. Just in the past 10 years we've had 2 owners, Cox and Sinclair. The calls didn't change to WCOX. What's the difference? There's history in the name. Joe Allbritton died. It can and should be his memorial. The man owned multiple TV stations. How many of us here have ever owned a single TV station?

But if it was Joe Allbritton's choice to have the station renamed after his death (and sale) then the successive owner has no choice. Remember that he named it WJLA after it was separated from WMAL and WMAL-FM (now WRQX) in the wake of Time, Inc. buying the Washington Star from Allbritton.

 

If there is a right-of-first-refusal for WJLA in ABC's affiliation pact, such a request might be tied in.

[NewsMaster 226]

Allbritton wants to sell WJLA/NC8 separate from the other 6 stations. That's a sign to me that ABC is interested. As far as the other 6, it's a grab bag. Sinclair already has stations in 3 of the 6 Allbritton markets (WHP in Harrisburg, WTTO in Birmingham, and WTAT in Charleston, SC). Nexstar has stations in 2 of the 6 (WLYH in Harrisburg and KARK in Little Rock). I think that Nexstar would want WHTM but not KATV (because of possible duopoly partners; WHTM would have to be given to Mission). Sinclair may want 33/40 and maybe even WCIV but not WHTM (again, because of duopoly partners). If Sinclair buys, expect an affiliation shake-up in Birmingham.

[Rusty Muck 4166]

Allbritton wants to sell WJLA/NC8 separate from the other 6 stations. That's a sign to me that ABC is interested. As far as the other 6, it's a grab bag. Sinclair already has stations in 3 of the 6 Allbritton markets (WHP in Harrisburg, WTTO in Birmingham, and WTAT in Charleston, SC). Nexstar has stations in 2 of the 6 (WLYH in Harrisburg and KARK in Little Rock). I think that Nexstar would want WHTM but not KATV (because of possible duopoly partners; WHTM would have to be given to Mission). Sinclair may want 33/40 and maybe even WCIV but not WHTM (again, because of duopoly partners). If Sinclair buys, expect an affiliation shake-up in Birmingham.

Certainly sounds more and more to me like ABC has the right-of-first-refusal clause to purchase WJLA, with NC8 as a throw-in. If that's the case, again, NC8 could wind up in the hands of either Comcast or Hubbard (the latter easily could be rebranded "WTOP TV" and used to further extend WTOP's brand beyond radio and the Internet).

 

Depending on the time period such a clause was enacted, that might explain the blurb in DCRTV yesterday about WJLA's calls likely are to be changed with the sale. If it was written in prior to 2007 (when ABC divested their radio division) the clause might include a provision where, if ABC buys WJLA, the calls are reverted back to WMAL-TV (meaning, ABC holds the rights to use the WMAL calls, and Citadel and Cumulus have been using them on 630/105.9 in a perpetual arrangement with ABC).

 

Should Sinclair buy WJSU/WCFT/WBMA, it would be just a simple channel swap along the lines of the WTVJ/WCIX-WFOR facility swap in 1995... with the CW programming in total moving to 33/40/58 (subsequently assigned to one of their handy JSAS/SSAs, and the ABC programming in total on Sinclair-controlled WTTO.

[swillh2k2 203]

Certainly sounds more and more to me like ABC has the right-of-first-refusal clause to purchase WJLA, with NC8 as a throw-in. If that's the case, again, NC8 could wind up in the hands of either Comcast or Hubbard (the latter easily could be rebranded "WTOP TV" and used to further extend WTOP's brand beyond radio and the Internet).

Comcast buying NC8 wouldn't surprise me--especially given the properties they already have in the area (NBC 4, CSN, Comcast Network). In fact, I think that I'd peg them as the favorite to buy it at this point.

[nickp 296]

The two Washington-area channels, which are housed in Rosslyn along with Politico brought in about half of the Allbritton television group's revenue over the last three years

[WXmanTim 88]

 

If Sinclair buys, expect an affiliation shake-up in Birmingham.

 

 

Should Sinclair buy WJSU/WCFT/WBMA, it would be just a simple channel swap along the lines of the WTVJ/WCIX-WFOR facility swap in 1995... with the CW programming in total moving to 33/40/58 (subsequently assigned to one of their handy JSAS/SSAs, and the ABC programming in total on Sinclair-controlled WTTO.

 

 

 

I fail to understand the logic behind this line of thinking. The Albritton Birmingham cluster has been operating as the full-market ABC affiliate for nearly 20 years on a split signal. It obviously works for them. But in the age of cable/satellite/digital broadcasting does that even matter now? How would jumping to 21 make any bit of difference? To make them "feel" better about branding on one channel number versus two? If they wanted to do that, they could have worked something out to get on, say, channel "9" on all the cable systems and branded that way. Or branded as "ABC Alabama" ala WGCL-Atlanta and left the channel numbers out all together.

 

For reference, here are the FCC service contours for WTTO-TV versus WJSU/WCFT/WBMA. There really is no clear advantage swapping of facilities as you suggested. In fact, I would give the current Albritton set-up a *slight* advantage since the OTA signal off the Tuscaloosa tower reaches further west. In reality, shaking up the affiliation in Birmingham or swapping out the facilities doesn't give them any big advantage.

 

(edited to add): As an aside, should Sinclair try to purchase the Albritton cluster, I don't see anything preventing them from operating a duopoly outright in this case. It's not like the 3 stations *compete* against each other or adding WTTO would give them a competitive advantage in setting advertising rates in the market.

[channel2 869]

This would be a triopoly; in addition to WTTO, Sinclair owns WABM there too.

[Rusty Muck 4166]

The two Washington-area channels' date=' which are housed in Rosslyn along with Politico brought in about half of the Allbritton television group's revenue over the last three years [/font']

With Washington DC being the center of government operations, Northern Virginia's increasing affluence, and Virginia threatening to take Ohio's spot as THE swing state in elections, that is hardly a surprise. (It's one of the reasons why CBS Radio set up an all-newser [WNEW 99.1] last year, in spite of not having a DC TV O&O and WTOP having been the market's CBS affiliate since 1930... it's because WTOP is such a market leader and a billing monster, that CBS wanted in on some of the fun.)

 

A purchase price at or close to $1B is not out of the question. Politico will be getting tons of capital on WJLA and NC8 alone.

[compubit 670]

From the Washington Post article this week:

 

"A sale of the stations won't affect Politico, the Web site and newspaper founded by the younger Allbritton in 2007. Politico and a ninth TV station, based in Charleston, S.C. [WCIV], are owned by Perpetual Corp., a company separately controlled by the Allbritton family."

 

Speculation is that the sale of the stations will retire debt and expand Politico.

 

J

[Samantha 2878]

So WCIV may not be sold?

[CircleSeven 1944]

So WCIV may not be sold?

Basically, Perpetual is a different subsidiary, but it its still owned by the Allbritton family. That station (WCIV) will more likely to be sold with the rest of the group (WHTM, WSET and the others).

 

The one I was thinking about if the whole company is going to be sold including WJLA, what's going to happen with Allbritton's weekly political show Inside Washington with Gordon Peterson? That show, which is produced on the same studio they share for their newscasts, is also aired on many of the Public Television stations, including WTTW in Chicago. I wonder if that show will still be produced by Allbritton, or will that be scraped too, if it gets sold.

[Christopher Ward 2]

Will WHTM be sold to Raycom Media?

[channel2 869]

Not likely. It's a bit out of the way, geographically, for them. Most of their stations are concentrated in the southeastern and midwestern U.S.

[montydavis 7]

I personally believe that SINCLAIR will not pursue this venture. There are too many obstacles that will keep them from capturing the entire group (minus WJLA). As stated before, ABC 33/40, WCIV, and WHTM are all in markets in which SINCLAIR already has established operatives (of which they already have duopolies). I believe that (minus WJLA) the group will either have a chance with LIN MEDIA, SCRIPPS (with KTUL as a fly in the ointment), BELO or possibly MEREDITH (if they have the interest or cash-flow). Mind you now that ALLBRITTON has to make this group attractive enough for BELO or even SCRIPPS to pursue. Granted, there maybe others that might want to chime in, but I seriously doubt SINCLAIR or even NEXSTAR would try.

[WXmanTim 88]

This would be a triopoly; in addition to WTTO, Sinclair owns WABM there too.

Thank you, was not aware they owned two stations on Birmingham. However, they could pull a Nashville and spin-off either WTTO or WABM to their shell Deerfield and still technically be within the duop guidelines.

[CircleSeven 1944]

Thank you, was not aware they owned two stations on Birmingham. However, they could pull a Nashville and spin-off either WTTO or WABM to their shell Deerfield and still technically be within the duop guidelines.

One of the stations in Birmingham is already owned by Cunningham Broadcasting. WTTO doesn't have a satellite waiver for WDBB. Therefore, WDBB is owned by Cunningham, and Sinclair operates WDBB. Sinclair has a duopoly of WTTO & MyNetworkTV station WABM. Sinclair should not confuse the folks to try to use the Stealfield card to get WBMA and the giant satellites. So you want them to control a total of 6 stations?