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Posted
7 minutes ago, nathannah said:

I am very interested to see if their CW stations (and especially WVTV, who under Rincon shouldn't, but does still carry TND) do dip out of the CW's Penn & Teller marathon on Sunday night to air it.

Perry Sook could always sign on the CW at the last minute as a favor to the administration to try and green light his merger with Tegna...

Posted
2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Perry Sook could always sign on the CW at the last minute as a favor to the administration to try and green light his merger with Tegna...

 

Dude. Don't give them ideas.

 

  • Like 2
Posted (edited)

Sunny Leigh has released a statement from her attorney saying that her bosses were forced to terminate her contract she asked if was Sinclair’s doing in which the bosses said they didn’t know what was going on they had been trying to contact Ricon and was being ignored 4 days later was when it was announced that Sinclair was taking over FOX23 and will be merging them and KTUL. She is now looking at adding retaliation and retribution onto the lawsuit she and former KTUL anchor Mark Bradshaw already had out for the age discrimination. She has a full length post that I won’t share because it’s way to long for screenshots.

Edited by ScottSchell
Posted (edited)

The Tulsa Reddit managed to get a post up with that text just in case it's removed (alt text is available if you do have an alt text extension).

Many of you have reached out, wondering what happened at Fox 23. Before I put everything out here, please remember not to attack my former coworkers. None of this is their fault, and many of them are frightened about the changes and unsure of what’s happening next. And they have very good reason to be.  As you know, Mark Bradshaw and I believe that we were terminated from KTUL in November 2023 because of our age. Between the two properties (KTUL and KOKH) they let go three of their four oldest anchors. The anchors who remained were all under the age of 41. Mark and I also believe that those in charge knew that they would be merging the two stations long before they told us. We were asked to sign new contracts and believe that they knew at the time that a merger was coming. Having us sign those contracts anyway, we feel was fraudulent. It meant that Mark and I could not pursue other opportunities to give ourselves some sort of runway before we were let go.  In October 2024, I secured employment with Fox 23, which was owned by Imagicomm at the time. Just a few months after I was hired, Rincon purchased our station. Rincon works very closely with Sinclair, the President of the company is a former Sinclair employee. As you can imagine, people in our building were leery of what would happen next, as rumors swirled about Rincon…many accused them of being a “shell company“ for Sinclair. I was worried as well, since Mark and I had an ongoing lawsuit against Sinclair. Despite this, our ratings grew at Fox 23, and I was given a new role as full-time weekend morning anchor, and reporter for Mondays and Tuesdays. I was also given 2 new segments; a cooking piece with the Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma and a really wonderful new segment called “Wild OK” where my bosses asked me to lean heavily into my biology degree to educate our viewers on animals, plants, space, and other science-y topics. I started this new segment a month ago. Only one episode ran.  This past Thursday, my bosses asked me to come into the station where they told me they were being forced to “terminate” my employment. They had no answers as to why, they said no one from Rincon would respond to their email requests or their phone calls. And despite my positive reviews, my stellar ratings, and a brand new segment, I was being let go. The words from both of my bosses were, “We don’t know what’s going on, but this is NOT your fault. You did nothing wrong.” I asked them if it was possible that the directive came from Sinclair, was it possible that Sinclair was buying the station and made that directive? My bosses said they didn’t know, and I believe them. I think this came as a surprise to everyone. I called my attorney before I even left the parking lot.  It was announced four days later that Sinclair was indeed taking over operations at Fox 23. Our attorney Steve Peters and I believe that I was fired out of retaliation and retribution for our lawsuit. We will now be considering more legal avenues.  I don’t know how any of this will play out, and I know that we are taking on a giant. But I believe in my heart of hearts that if you never stand up and punch a bully in the mouth, they will continue to bully those with less power and a smaller voice. I refuse to be that person.

Edited by nathannah
Posted
17 hours ago, mre29 said:

 

Dude. Don't give them ideas.

 

If Nexstar was only that stupid. 

Putting it on the CW would be a disaster in the making that would really roil their viewers, advertisers, and likely even the other networks they carry. 

Posted

An update on Tallahassee ever since Gray took their newscast on "Fox 49" home...

"Fox 49" News at 10 launches on Monday the 9th.

It will be an "in-house" newscast....(meaning that Sinclair will now produce it).

 

The catch?  It will be done out of WEAR over in Pensacola.  Melanie Levi and Allen Strum will be anchoring it.

Melanie is also a WEAR reporter and has anchored over at "NBC 15" in Mobile when needed, since they're down to like 3 people.

 

And as for NBC 40?  Still no news on the horizon aside from Today Show weather updates (also done by Allen Strum, WEAR's chief met)

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Posted
47 minutes ago, gsrecaps said:

FOX23 is moving to KTUL 8.2 on Monday, simulcast for 3 weeks on KOKI 23.1 and KTUL 8.2, and then KTUL 8.2 will become the permanent home on March 2nd.

https://www.fox23.com/news/fox23-tulsa-moving-to-ktul-8-2-in-february/article_3c59dfb2-6623-43e6-9bf0-94be9695dcd6.html

 

Why am I, and everyone else here, not surprised? I legitimately called it.

  • Like 4
Posted
6 hours ago, TheRolyPoly said:

 

Why am I, and everyone else here, not surprised? I legitimately called it.

 

So this is Sinclair's new way of operating.  Resulting in newsroom closures as well.  Less local voices in the market.  Nexstar has also done this in some markets.  It shows the danger of Nexstar and Sinclair executing their own it all strategy.  It's not about competition as they lied in their FCC docs, it's about control of the airwaves and messages.  Yet the trump FCC will allow it, as they owners bend the knee.  In the end we will have a less informed public, being forced fed how to think by these two companies.  

Posted
40 minutes ago, NowBergen said:

 

So this is Sinclair's new way of operating.  Resulting in newsroom closures as well.  Less local voices in the market.  Nexstar has also done this in some markets.  It shows the danger of Nexstar and Sinclair executing their own it all strategy.  It's not about competition as they lied in their FCC docs, it's about control of the airwaves and messages.  Yet the trump FCC will allow it, as they owners bend the knee.  In the end we will have a less informed public, being forced fed how to think by these two companies.  

It's thievery in a way to circumvent an outright purchase.  Rincon is another shell game to hold the FCC bag while Sinclair can swipe the primary program stream to put on their own channel.  

 

Well, maybe more like a trade, since the affected station gets a Sinclair diginet in return.  

 

And as for the affected stream, it will still be "Fox 23" for the foreseeable future (on KTUL 8.2) unless they drive it into the ground enough so that it actually has to be rebranded...

Posted

I'm still at a loss for words for why Sinclair/Rincon is choosing to consolidate at KOKI's facilities and not KTUL.  My assumption is that KTUL currently has the superior building and studio space - notwithstanding the cuts and partial merger with KOKH for newscasts.

 

An absolute tragedy for Tulsa is the only way to summarize this.

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Posted
15 minutes ago, JRyan said:

I'm still at a loss for words for why Sinclair/Rincon is choosing to consolidate at KOKI's facilities and not KTUL.  My assumption is that KTUL currently has the superior building and studio space - notwithstanding the cuts and partial merger with KOKH for newscasts.

 

An absolute tragedy for Tulsa is the only way to summarize this.

I think they may eventually make Zollener Media (old cox radio) leave the building and redo the space to make it bigger. Zollener has an office building that he may move the radio stations into if he needs.

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Posted
12 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

Does this mean KNDU will stop producing the KFFX cast?

I’d almost bet that KIMA/KEPR will end up doing the news on the Rincon Fox station in the market. Spokane will be interesting as the Rincon station there, KAYU, has been getting news from KNDO/U parent KHQ for like twenty years — at night, originally, and now in the mornings for a decade. There is a Sinclair station serving a small subset of the Spokane market in Lewiston, ID but its news content comes from Boise. It cannot help out Rincon there. I’d really like to see KHQ get Fox in Spokane and drop it on a .2 or .3 sub channel. 

Posted
20 minutes ago, norcalTVfan said:

I’d almost bet that KIMA/KEPR will end up doing the news on the Rincon Fox station in the market. Spokane will be interesting as the Rincon station there, KAYU, has been getting news from KNDO/U parent KHQ for like twenty years — at night, originally, and now in the mornings for a decade. There is a Sinclair station serving a small subset of the Spokane market in Lewiston, ID but its news content comes from Boise. It cannot help out Rincon there. I’d really like to see KHQ get Fox in Spokane and drop it on a .2 or .3 sub channel. 

Crazy since KIMA/KEPR produce the 10pm news on The CW. I wonder if they would simulcast that newscast on both CW and FOX

Posted
On 2/7/2026 at 1:28 AM, TheRolyPoly said:

 

Why am I, and everyone else here, not surprised? I legitimately called it.

I have to wonder if Rincon was created for the purpose of handling duopolies/triopolies that would come from a potential Scripps merger. I could also see Sinclair purchasing Marquee down the road, their WSWG/WSST/WFXL already closed their newscast in favor of the National News Desk, and maybe the same fate could befall WNKY, WMDT, and possibly WHIZ.

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Posted
2 hours ago, hmaxhanson said:

I have to wonder if Rincon was created for the purpose of handling duopolies/triopolies that would come from a potential Scripps merger. I could also see Sinclair purchasing Marquee down the road, their WSWG/WSST/WFXL already closed their newscast in favor of the National News Desk, and maybe the same fate could befall WNKY, WMDT, and possibly WHIZ.

 

Marquee should keep going for as long as they want to. Don't give Sinclair any more ideas.

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Posted
10 hours ago, hmaxhanson said:

I have to wonder if Rincon was created for the purpose of handling duopolies/triopolies that would come from a potential Scripps merger.

It's so nakedly obvious WVTV wasn't spun off to Rincon because it was a bad station and that they just keep wanting it to get a major duopoly partner in Milwaukee, but they keep running into dead ends (the FCC won't let them do it).

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
On 2/8/2026 at 1:24 PM, norcalTVfan said:

I’d almost bet that KIMA/KEPR will end up doing the news on the Rincon Fox station in the market. Spokane will be interesting as the Rincon station there, KAYU, has been getting news from KNDO/U parent KHQ for like twenty years — at night, originally, and now in the mornings for a decade. There is a Sinclair station serving a small subset of the Spokane market in Lewiston, ID but its news content comes from Boise. It cannot help out Rincon there. I’d really like to see KHQ get Fox in Spokane and drop it on a .2 or .3 sub channel. 

It’s happened - Rincon ending KAYU’s approximately 20 year relationship with KHQ/Cowles providing morning & 10pm newscasts. Moving to KXLY as the supplier on March 1. Makes me wonder what KHQ is going to do with their anchors they provided solely for KAYU. 

IMG_6330.jpeg

Posted

Several of those anchors did shows for the Montana stations as well I believe or at least they used too

Posted
44 minutes ago, Drew said:

Several of those anchors did shows for the Montana stations as well I believe or at least they used too

Morning shows for Montana moved back to Billings in 2025. Evenings from Missoula. Have to rein myself in as not to go off topic in a Sinclair thread. 

Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, norcalTVfan said:

It’s happened - Rincon ending KAYU’s approximately 20 year relationship with KHQ/Cowles providing morning & 10pm newscasts. Moving to KXLY as the supplier on March 1. Makes me wonder what KHQ is going to do with their anchors they provided solely for KAYU. 

IMG_6330.jpeg

As stated above, KLEW was in no position to help and the new ownership just switched to another of Spokane's separately-owned news-producing stations.

Edited by AmericanErrorist
Posted

Wow. What great timing for MMM's KXLY as they just launched KXLY+ (their 24/7 streaming news and weather channel) on DT 4.5 to replace Dabl.

 

Not only that, apparently, KXLY has run a weeknight hour-long 10pm newscast on their Me-TV subchannel, and it looks like they'll have that experience with them come March 1st.

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Posted
14 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

As stated above, KLEW was in no position to help and the new ownership just switched to another of Spokane's separately-owned news-producing stations.

Given that KLEW is now being operated by Rincon, who's to say they wont start simulcasting some news from KXLY (or even add a simulcast of both KXLY and KAYU on the subchannels)

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