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FCC Approves Sales of Allbritton to Sinclair


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Skilling (the Weatherman) should be thankful. If not for his notorious brother, nobody outside of Chicago would know who he was,

 

No. Just, no. WGN America is mostly responsible for his notoriety.

 

Anyway...

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B&C is basically the only national publication that just stated the deal has been closed. Yet Sinclair haven't posted a press release yet.

 

At the end of their 6pm, WJLA still had the "Allbritton Communications Company" copyright liner.

 

Technically it closed but you won't hear anything until Monday. When the Newport deal closed, it closed on a Friday but none of the stations really mentioned anything until Monday. The press release was put out Monday as well. Way more information is being leaked out about Allbritton than Newport probably because Allbritton is higher profile.
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Technically it closed but you won't hear anything until Monday. When the Newport deal closed, it closed on a Friday but none of the stations really mentioned anything until Monday. The press release was put out Monday as well. Way more information is being leaked out about Allbritton than Newport probably because Allbritton is higher profile.

 

Yeah I remember that vividly. The Barrington deal also closed on a Friday (11/22/13) and wasn't announced by Sinclair until the following Monday, the 25th.

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Yeah I remember that vividly. The Barrington deal also closed on a Friday (11/22/13) and wasn't announced by Sinclair until the following Monday, the 25th.

 

Remember, sometimes they do table closings one day with an effective date on some other day. They also do closings in escrow where everybody signs documents ahead of time with an effective date later. August 1 seems like a logical effective date to me.

 

 

 

 

Yeah I remember that vividly. The Barrington deal also closed on a Friday (11/22/13) and wasn't announced by Sinclair until the following Monday, the 25th.

 

Don't forget that Friday is generally "news dump" day. That's when the government always announces bad news so that it dies down by Monday. I would think Sinclair would want to have the opposite effect with their press release.

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Question - is Sinclair buying the actual Allbritton company, or just the TV stations?

 

I would assume the company.

 

We've be told we will only get one W2 at the end of the year, as they will be using the same EIN.

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I would assume the company.

 

We've be told we will only get one W2 at the end of the year, as they will be using the same EIN.

Well, if Sinclair were buying the whole company, why aren't they also buying Politico, too? I mean, if this was the case, it would be Sinclair buying the Allbritton company, and then selling Politico back to Robert Allbritton.

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Well, if Sinclair were buying the whole company, why aren't they also buying Politico, too? I mean, if this was the case, it would be Sinclair buying the Allbritton company, and then selling Politico back to Robert Allbritton.

Allbritton Communications was a subsidiary of Perpetual Corporation (WCIV was the only one station that wasn't in the Perpetual structure, they were in its own subsidiary, Charleston Television, LLC). Sinclair bought Perpetual & Charleston entities, which involved all of the Allbritton TV stations.

 

Politico is ran by a different company that Robert owns, Capitol News Company. According to this article on the 2nd paragraph:

 

When the sale closes by Aug. 1, it ends the Allbritton family’s nearly four decades in the broadcasting business. Robert Allbritton remains the publisher of POLITICO and owner of its parent, Capitol News Company, as well as its sister company, CapNY, publisher of Capital New York.

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What happens to the little data center company they owned?

Wait, I never known that they owned any data center before.

 

Okay looking at this (I guess this is what you're talking about), it looks like its another completely different company that Allbritton owns, similar to Capital News Company (parent of Politico). I don't think the deal didn't include its data center business. Although they haven't updated it's page since 2012, I'm not sure if they still have it or sold to someone else. I assume they still got it though.

 

Anywho, the consummation papers is now posted on the FCC site. And it states that it was closed on a Thursday (7/31), not Friday.

 

Allbritton. RIP Joe.
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Raycom announced a television deal to air Thursday night High School Football games in all markets in Alabama, including Mobile.

http://www.ahsaa.com/News-Articles/ArticleId/13/raycom-announces-raycomahsaa-thursday-tv-game-of-the-week-slate

 

Why am I posting this here you ask?

 

Because Deerfield-owned WJTC (WPMI's sister station in Mobile) is going to be airing the games. Since Raycom doesn't have a station in Mobile, and many have speculated that Raycom may finally, at long last buy a station in Mobile....a Sinclair station ends up with the rights. Although in the past, other Raycom efforts have landed on both WALA and WKRG.

 

I'm thinking this totally has to do with the fact that WJTC is an independent station and would have the airtime to air such shows LIVE. They have also done a live Friday night football show for as long as they've been an independent featuring local teams.

 

As for the other stations....either they're going to be on tape delay, or a subchannel. I doubt they would pre-empt network programming on their primary feeds for this.

 

...and as for Mobile, we'll hopefully know soon whether WKRG or WALA will be divested. My bet is that Raycom is out.

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Raycom announced a television deal to air Thursday night High School Football games in all markets in Alabama, including Mobile.

http://www.ahsaa.com/News-Articles/ArticleId/13/raycom-announces-raycomahsaa-thursday-tv-game-of-the-week-slate

 

Why am I posting this here you ask?

 

Because Deerfield-owned WJTC (WPMI's sister station in Mobile) is going to be airing the games. Since Raycom doesn't have a station in Mobile, and many have speculated that Raycom may finally, at long last buy a station in Mobile....a Sinclair station ends up with the rights. Although in the past, other Raycom efforts have landed on both WALA and WKRG.

 

I'm thinking this totally has to do with the fact that WJTC is an independent station and would have the airtime to air such shows LIVE. They have also done a live Friday night football show for as long as they've been an independent featuring local teams.

 

As for the other stations....either they're going to be on tape delay, or a subchannel. I doubt they would pre-empt network programming on their primary feeds for this.

 

...and as for Mobile, we'll hopefully know soon whether WKRG or WALA will be divested. My bet is that Raycom is out.

 

Now that's something Raycom should be good at given their heritage of syndicating sports. When ONN was around, their high school game of the week was one of the more interesting things on their channel.

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