Cuts begin at WJLA

[sanewsguy 510]

 

Why risk alienating more than half of your potential market with blatantly biased political stuff like that?

 

Because Sinclair doesn't care. The stations are just a mouthpiece for Smith & Co.

[Mrtraveler01 738]

 

Because Sinclair doesn't care. The stations are just a mouthpiece for Smith & Co.

 

I know, it's why I'm not a big fan of them. Still from a business and marketing perspective, this makes no sense.

[DirtyHarry 727]

 

The more they show those cartoonish Mark Hyman segments, the more people are going to catch on. Even by political pundit standards, his rants are absurd.

 

And from a business standpoint this makes absolutely no sense to me. Why risk alienating more than half of your potential market with blatantly biased political stuff like that? Just look at the political maps and you'll see that even the DC suburbs are fairly Democrat and the District itself is especially Democrat. Sinclair is setting WJLA up for failure and God help WJLA once Gordon, Maureen and Leon decide to retire or leave.

 

 

Because Sinclair doesn't care. The stations are just a mouthpiece for Smith & Co.

 

Considering that 40% of the population identifies as conservative and nobody else is trying to cater to that large chunk of the market, it sounds like a smart business move to me. They just need better talent than Hyman, someone who has an interesting or unique take on things rather than just repeating the same old-same old.

[cbs2newengland 72]

from what I've seen of Mark Hyman, he's more of a little troll trying to pick a girly fight politically.

[Samantha 2895]

 

Considering that 40% of the population identifies as conservative and nobody else is trying to cater to that large chunk of the market, it sounds like a smart business move to me. They just need better talent than Hyman, someone who has an interesting or unique take on things rather than just repeating the same old-same old.

 

This is true to me of most Sinclair markets, particularly their legacy areas (Asheville, West Virginia, Oklahoma City, Pensacola). Sinclair has a lot of legacy markets (and for that matter, some more recent entrants, like Bakersfield and Birmingham) where that works with the audience.

 

But Washington, DC has so many federal workers that it should be treated in a different way. For an example of how important government workers are to the media market, Hubbard (owner of WTOP) operates a complementary daytime newser, WFED "Federal News Radio", geared at that audience. A highly conservative editorial slant will not appeal to that audience. Sinclair should know that from being in Baltimore for so many years, but their obsession with WJLA as a longtime goal and a crown jewel will fog any actual good decision-making (and foster micromanagement and lots of decisions from on high).

 

Sinclair also has some other markets in its portfolio—all acquired in recent years—where it needs to be wary of an overly conservative editorial approach: San Antonio, Austin, Portland, Seattle and most importantly the nation's capital.

[DirtyHarry 727]

 

This is true to me of most Sinclair markets, particularly their legacy areas (Asheville, West Virginia, Oklahoma City, Pensacola). Sinclair has a lot of legacy markets (and for that matter, some more recent entrants, like Bakersfield and Birmingham) where that works with the audience.

 

But Washington, DC has so many federal workers that it should be treated in a different way. For an example of how important government workers are to the media market, Hubbard (owner of WTOP) operates a complementary daytime newser, WFED "Federal News Radio", geared at that audience. A highly conservative editorial slant will not appeal to that audience. Sinclair should know that from being in Baltimore for so many years, but their obsession with WJLA as a longtime goal and a crown jewel will fog any actual good decision-making (and foster micromanagement and lots of decisions from on high).

 

Sinclair also has some other markets in its portfolio—all acquired in recent years—where it needs to be wary of an overly conservative editorial approach: San Antonio, Austin, Portland, Seattle and most importantly the nation's capital.

 

I tend to agree, but remember you also have a lot of military types, FBI, CIA in the area and those people are not liberals. They can have some conservative material, just don't lay it on too thick. Kind of like what they do with WSYX.

 

I'm not a big fan of "talk radio" style news or "conservative" news, though I do find tabloid-style news like WOIO's Action News very interesting to watch. I tend to like people that question everything and everybody .... relentlessly. There's too much of a tendency to regurgitate press releases these days without thinking about whether or not what that press release makes sense or not.

 

 

 

 

from what I've seen of Mark Hyman, he's more of a little troll trying to pick a girly fight politically.

 

 

 

LOL ... Hater! Hyman served in the army, so he's a "true" American.

 

I have a crack I always use with people who bleat on about how great someone is because they were in the military. When about Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel was running for Senator, a certain element was going on about how great he is because he was a Marine Reserve. I always say, "He was in the military? Big deal. So he can do a lot of push-ups and he follows orders. You could train a monkey to do that. Big deal."

 

I have nothing against the military, but a certain "flag-waving" element out there gets on my nerves.

[sanewsguy 510]

 

Sinclair also has some other markets in its portfolio—all acquired in recent years—where it needs to be wary of an overly conservative editorial approach: San Antonio, Austin, Portland, Seattle and most importantly the nation's capital.

 

Why San Antonio and Austin? Yes the cities themselves are liberal (ugh) but the surrounding areas are very conservative. Besides, the local coverage is one-sided liberal at its finest (though not as bad as KSAT, man that station is so partisan and anti-Republican...)

[Samantha 2895]

Here is a map creation of mine that should help demonstrate a point:

 

 

It is evident that Sinclair's "legacy" foothold, in terms of stations with their own news operations of note, primarily consisted of stations located in the middle United States. With the exception of Sacramento, which Sinclair of course sold to CBS and has now reentered into California in the Fresno and Bakersfield area, Springfield, Massachusetts (WGGB), Plattsburgh which was owned for one year (and for our purposes is placed in Vermont), and of Portland, Maine, all of Sinclair's news producers were located in the central, southeastern or northeastern United States.

 

Of these, Sinclair certainly had some news producers in the Midwest. Iowa City, Springfield-Danville IL, Dayton and Columbus represented Sinclair's Midwestern operation. These can really be considered as the most liberal states in SBG's then-news producing portfolio, with the caveat that downstate Illinois can get pretty conservative. With the exception of Maryland, then, and San Antonio the city but not the state or suburbs, and also the footnote that is KDNL in St. Louis, most of Sinclair's station portfolio was built on the southern US. Asheville, Pensacola, OKC, Nashville, Charleston-Huntington, and the other markets in this important segment of Sinclair's legacy station group are all fairly conservative, areas that trend toward Republicans in presidential candidates, etc.

 

Now look at the entire yellow state map. This is Sinclair today, and it's quite evident that Sinclair is in many, many more states. Certainly Sinclair has expanded a lot in the South (only without a foothold in Mississippi or Louisiana), which keeps some of the importance of the southern group as a segment of SBG intact. But Sinclair was never seriously in many western states until their absorption of Barrington (Colorado Springs), Fisher (in particular), Four Points (for Utah) and IWCC in Nevada put them in a whopping six new western states. Of these, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado Springs (their only presence in the Centennial State), and probably Spokane, plus Bakersfield and Fresno, can run conservative.

 

Likewise Sinclair has a more serious presence in the Midwest and up the Northeast. Their acquisitions of stations up there brought SBG news into every market outside of Milwaukee in Wisconsin, several in Michigan, and up the Atlantic coast. These can be very politically liberal markets.

 

I get where Sinclair sees an audience for a conservative slant to local news—they are looking to the roaring viewer success known as Fox News Channel. But FNC has some vital demographic problems, related to the age of its viewership mostly. In addition, Sinclair may be overestimating this demand in the local news marketplace in particular. But most of all, Sinclair's must-runs and editorial slant do not take into account some of Sinclair's newest additions and largest media markets, where that just won't play. And it's the worst in Washington.

 

TL;DR: Sinclair's national expansion has made such a blatant and forced editorial slant on its local news a risky proposition for certain large, new Sinclair markets.

[scrabbleship 429]

Great map that tells a story, however if KDNL counts then New York (WUHF) and Pennsylvania (WPGH) should be orange as their in-house news departments outlasted KDNL.

 

South Dakota being grey is a teeny but funny as while they're licensed to Iowa KPTH/KMEG have their studios there.

[GoldenShine9 1513]

Many of those missing states Sinclair has no easy path into either...they probably wanted to with previous deals such as Belo (to Gannett), Local TV (to Tribune) and LIN (to Media General) but were beaten out (and would have an FCC nightmare as well).

[Samantha 2895]

 

Great map that tells a story, however if KDNL counts then New York (WUHF) and Pennsylvania (WPGH) should be orange as their in-house news departments outlasted KDNL.

 

South Dakota being grey is a teeny but funny as while they're licensed to Iowa KPTH/KMEG have their studios there.

 

You make some good points, but the market is centered in Sioux City. Also, yeah, I should have had Pittsburgh and Rochester. Duh.

[Samantha 2895]

Sinclair promoted Mitch Jacobs to become the new ND at WJLA. Looks like that's a nice promotion for him.

[DirtyHarry 727]

 

Sinclair promoted Mitch Jacobs to become the new ND at WJLA. Looks like that's a nice promotion for him.

 

He definitely deserves the promotion even though some people seem to hate him. But who cares? He puts out a good newscast.

[Breaking News 828]

Gordon Peterson set to retire at the end of the year when contract up

 

story from ftvlive.com http://ftvlive.com/todays-news/2014/11/7/longtime-legendary-dc-anchor-to-retire

[Rusty Muck 4372]

Gordon Peterson set to retire at the end of the year when contract up

 

story from ftvlive.com http://ftvlive.com/todays-news/2014/11/7/longtime-legendary-dc-anchor-to-retire

Already noted in the S!nclair/Allbritton thread.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see Bill Lord recruiting Gordon back to W*USA as a commentator/analyst... likely not as an anchor.

 

Given his long tenure and legendary status in the market, Gordon has more than enough clout to call his own shots. This move is proof of that.

[newsdude 60]

6 or more? WCVB has 4. That's it.

 

 

 

Up where I am that's how WCVB has about 6 or more on air meteorologists, refugees from competing stations.