TEGNA Broadcasting and Digital General Discussion

[Nelson R. 569]

  On 1/19/2022 at 5:45 AM, CubsFan79 said:

Cox owns ABC in Atlanta and Tenga owns NBC also in Atlanta.Conflict maybe there too.

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Same with Charlotte. And in Seattle, Cox owns CBS and Tegna owns NBC.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Nelson R.

[Nelson R. 569]

  On 1/19/2022 at 1:37 PM, TheSpeedKing said:

 

Not happening. The FCC will see this and force Apollo to divest one of them to a seperate, unrelated owner. They'll divest WXIA.

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And WATL

 

  On 1/19/2022 at 1:37 PM, TheSpeedKing said:

 

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[TheSpeedKing 266]

  On 1/19/2022 at 2:25 PM, Nelson R. said:

And WATL

 

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That too. Also, if Tegna is taking over creative services of these stations (they should), then I would hope to see MCTYW back on WPXI. 

[Adam MadMan 285]

  On 1/19/2022 at 6:31 AM, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Nah. Nexstar-style and Sinclair-style sidecars pretty much baked in means that they're untouchable.

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It didn't work for Sinclair, why would it work for Appollo?

Edited January 19, 2022 by Adam MadMan
Accidental double post

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

Should this deal happen and the divestitures be required, this is where Byron Allen could benefit....getting stations like WXIA/WATL, WCNC and WFOX/WJAX.

 

What percentile of ownership is enough to trigger common ownership?   

 

While Sarkes Tarzan (with Gray involvement) can have KTVN in Reno alongside Gray's KOLO, WOAI in San Antonio had to be divested to a shell company (High Plains Television) because of then-owner Newport (Providence Equity's) investment in Univision, who had a top 4 station in the market.

 

I don't think the deal is going to be clean at all and there will have to be divestitures even if the stakes are fractional.

[dman748 1256]

  On 1/19/2022 at 4:50 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

Should this deal happen and the divestitures be required, this is where Byron Allen could benefit....getting stations like WXIA/WATL, WCNC and WFOX/WJAX.

 

What percentile of ownership is enough to trigger common ownership?   

 

While Sarkes Tarzan (with Gray involvement) can have KTVN in Reno alongside Gray's KOLO, WOAI in San Antonio had to be divested to a shell company (High Plains Television) because of then-owner Newport (Providence Equity's) investment in Univision, who had a top 4 station in the market.

 

I don't think the deal is going to be clean at all and there will have to be divestitures even if the stakes are fractional.

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I would say anything above 15 to 20% would be enough to trigger common ownership considering that WOAI (along with KGET in Bakersfield) were sold to High Plains.

Edited January 19, 2022 by dman748

[nathannah 2427]

  On 1/19/2022 at 4:50 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

Should this deal happen and the divestitures be required, this is where Byron Allen could benefit....getting stations like WXIA/WATL, WCNC and WFOX/WJAX.

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I wish I could assume spin-offs here, but knowing how Tegna has played with things in each market in the past, it's possible under Standard that Sinclair-style 'subchannel mergers' will see WATL-DT1 moved to WXIA-DT2 and WJAX-DT1 being DT2'ed onto WFOX, leaving subchannel network farm husks behind, along with the WFAA and KHOU moves onto their sister UHFs being executed to take advantage of the UHF discount (a major Biden disappointment; it needed to be taken care of at 12:01 p.m. 1/20 last year, along with appropriate FCC nominees).

 

They've started to become more common after being tested out on MyNet/CW stations with no provider, regulatory or consumer pushback, Sinclair barely had any notice of their Fox moves from the shell/sidecar stations last year, and I'm afraid it'll become standard (no pun intended) as time goes on.

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

  On 1/19/2022 at 9:21 PM, mrschimpf said:

I wish I could assume spin-offs here, but knowing how Tegna has played with things in each market in the past, it's possible under Standard that Sinclair-style 'subchannel mergers' will see WATL-DT1 moved to WXIA-DT2 and WJAX-DT1 being DT2'ed onto WFOX, leaving subchannel network farm husks behind, along with the WFAA and KHOU moves onto their sister UHFs being executed to take advantage of the UHF discount (a major Biden disappointment; it needed to be taken care of at 12:01 p.m. 1/20 last year, along with appropriate FCC nominees).

 

They've started to become more common after being tested out on MyNet/CW stations with no provider, regulatory or consumer pushback, Sinclair barely had any notice of their Fox moves from the shell/sidecar stations last year, and I'm afraid it'll become standard (no pun intended) as time goes on.

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If Standard/Apollo wants to play the game Sinclair's been up to, then WATL is the perfect duopoly partner to "share" ownership with WSB. The non-license assets of WXIA can live on WATL and what's left of "WXIA" is simply divested to a third party.

 

What I hope is something comes out of this positively for the Jacksonville market.  You have two duopolies controlling all 4 major affiliations while WJXT is all by themselves with the CW on WCWJ.

[ABC 7 Denver 1714]

  On 1/19/2022 at 4:11 PM, Adam MadMan said:

It didn't work for Sinclair, why would it work for Appollo?

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Because technically different management teams. 

[dman748 1256]

Bloomberg is reporting that TEGNA is in advanced talks to sell it's broadcast group to Standard/Apollo for $24 per share

 

Details (which are limited considering the paywall):

 

• Apollo is backing this bid and will recieve perferred shares in Tegna's stock but will not get voting rights
• The deal coulld be announced the next few weeks

 

[JosiahCubed 280]

Wow. If that’s true, then all of the Cox stations would gain sister stations.

 

To be honest, I wonder what WPXI would do gaining some more sister stations in NY, OH, and PA.

[Briella 234]

Thank God it’s not Byron Allen.

[NowBergen 681]

  On 2/4/2022 at 8:57 PM, JosiahCubed said:

Wow. If that’s true, then all of the Cox stations would gain sister stations.

 

To be honest, I wonder what WPXI would do gaining some more sister stations in NY, OH, and PA.

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They would be run as separate companies.  Otherwise it will never get past the FCC.  As it is stated, Apollo will not have any voting rights.  They are acting like a bank.  If and that's a big if, ownership caps go up, then the two companies may merge down in the future. 

[MidwestTV 1232]

  On 2/4/2022 at 10:51 PM, Wildish said:

Thank God it’s not Byron Allen.

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Apollo is unlikely to be much better. I've heard the Cox stations are miserable and ran quite literally as cheap as possible. If Apollo can get rid of you, they will. Tegna employees are the real victims here.

[dman748 1256]

  On 2/5/2022 at 12:07 AM, MidwestTV said:

Apollo is unlikely to be much better. I've heard the Cox stations are miserable and ran quite literally as cheap as possible. If Apollo can get rid of you, they will. Tegna employees are the real victims here.

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While I do agree that Apollo wouldn't be any better however, we still don't know whether or not Tegna's employees will be the "real victims" because other than Apollo not having voting rights there is still way too many unknowns with this deal.

 

And we won't know that until the ink is finally dry.

[MidwestTV 1232]

  On 2/5/2022 at 12:10 AM, dman748 said:

While I do agree that Apollo wouldn't be any better however, we still don't know whether or not Tegna's employees will be the "real victims" because other than Apollo not having voting rights there is still way too many unknowns with this deal.

 

And we won't know that until the ink is finally dry.

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Of course the employees are the victims. They get no say in the matter and will likely end up having to work harder assuming S/A comes in and slashes as many people as possible. Unless Standard/Apollo gives raises across the board and pours money into each station for resources and development, the only people that really come away from this are the execs.

[dman748 1256]

  On 2/5/2022 at 12:15 AM, MidwestTV said:

 

Of course the employees are the victims. They get no say in the matter and will likely end up having to work harder assuming S/A comes in and slashes as many people as possible. Unless Standard/Apollo gives raises across the board and pours money into each station for resources and development, the only people that really come away from this are the execs.

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Which in past experiences with P/E firms being in the business they don't give raises so I really don't expect Standard to do that with the Tegna stations unless Kim decides to step in and give the employees pay raises (which I have my doubts he would do that)

[GoldenShine9 1513]

I wonder if they will also keep the Tegna name?

 

Regardless, hedge fund owners are always bad news.

[TVLurker 198]

why did they turn down Bryon Allen, that's what I want to know.

[CLETVFan 367]

WKYC has turned What Matters Most from a newscast name into an overall station slogan.  The 6pm news tonight was identified as "3News at 6" instead of What Matters Most.

[Megatron81 258]

I think Byron Allen would've been better merger than Apollo/Standard General in my opinion.

[TexasTVNews 1377]

  On 2/7/2022 at 5:32 AM, Megatron81 said:

I think Byron Allen would've been better merger than Apollo/Standard General in my opinion.

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I'm more than 100% agree to that, and I'll drink to that. I said it before, Byron Allen is the only one he can clean up the mess Tegna made.

[TheSpeedKing 266]

  On 2/7/2022 at 7:25 AM, TexasTVNews said:

I'm more than 100% agree to that, and I'll drink to that. I said it before, Byron Allen is the only one he can clean up the mess Tegna made.

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I strongly disagree. Allen basically lets his stations exist, without putting money in them. Tegna is basically just a bank for its stations, and the stations decide what goes on the air and what doesn’t. My personal fear is that these stations will no longer have the money to keep running, and the cheap*****s at Apollo will just hand it over to dead-end companies like HC2.  

[Al-SA-TX 54]

This might be why Allen is no longer pursuing TEGNA.

Edited February 8, 2022 by Al-SA-TX

[JCB4TV 347]

  On 2/8/2022 at 11:38 PM, Al-SA-TX said:

This might be why Allen is no longer pursuing TEGNA.

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Broncos > Tegna