Brain 81 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 Do you think Lilly/SJL will be able to sell of WICU/WSEE even if they wanted too, because of bad local market conditions? Nexstar isn't too far behind with their WJET/WFXP duopoly. I may be romanticizing about how these stations *used* to be, but in the past decades, WICU/WSEE had their production value decline. Do you think the Erie market at some point significantly "shrank" over time, assuming they were once a larger market compared to today? What can be done about this market and it's stations? Will the two duopolies be able to survive without being operated on a shoestring budget?
Viper550 294 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 SJL sold off WTVG and WJRT to Gray last year; they may be a good fit for their remaining stations.
Samantha 2907 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 Do you think Lilly/SJL will be able to sell of WICU/WSEE even if they wanted too, because of bad local market conditions? Nexstar isn't too far behind with their WJET/WFXP duopoly. I may be romanticizing about how these stations *used* to be, but in the past decades, WICU/WSEE had their production value decline. Do you think the Erie market at some point significantly "shrank" over time, assuming they were once a larger market compared to today? What can be done about this market and it's stations? Will the two duopolies be able to survive without being operated on a shoestring budget? This is a Rust Belt market. Look at Youngstown. The market was once much larger than it was, and massive economic changes have left it being very different. I would expect them to sell, and Gray certainly is a pretty good fit for this sort of station.
LTSC1980 114 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 Could someone move this thread to Speculatron 9000? I don't know if Gray interested, as they only take WTVG/WJRT. Interesting case however-WSEE no only serve Erie, but also Puerto Rico cable as they didn't have OTA affiliate.
jbnews 346 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 @seangfx- JET 24 isn't number 1? I thought they were
jbnews 346 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 I think the Erie market has shrank. They had some story a few weeks ago when the new census numbers came out, Erie's population is still shrinking.
Brain 81 Posted April 10, 2015 Author Posted April 10, 2015 All I understand is that years ago, Erie was DMA #142, but now it moved down a few areas. I think Erie's too distressed as a market to survive in the long run. The rust belt sucks. I never said WJET isn't number 1. Erie, whether it's TV/radio market or the area in general, had more talented people. At least we are front for stations in the London/Toronto or other Canadian markets. Unfortunately, because of the consequences, I think Erie and Youngstown markets were completely destroyed over the past decades with no hope of coming back. Stupid trend. Now we're caught in a trap we can't get out of. This year, Erie could fall below 100k people within the city.
tyrannical bastard 4084 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 SJL could cash out one of their stations in the upcoming auction and with the limited radius of Erie itself, sandwiched between Buffalo and Cleveland, the other station could move to low power, making it a prime takeover candidate for Nexstar. But is Erie so distressed that it could become the next Lima, Ohio?
NewsMaster 226 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 I second @LTSC1980's motion to move this thread to the Speculatron. I also think that if we're talking about WICU/WSEE we should also be talking about WENY in Elmira as well. I would have to think Sinclair would be interested in both cases. Erie is the only PA market outside of Philly where Sinclair doesn't own or operate a station (that includes the complicated arrangement going on with WOLF). And as for WICU and WSEE splitting up, as @seangfx previously stated, the economic state of the market doesn't easily allow for that to happen IMO. I think the most likely scenario is WICU being spun off to some small station owner (just like Gray did in Fargo with KXJB) and NBC moving to a sub-channel of WSEE. Or could we have another WCIV-esque situation on our hands?
jbnews 346 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 I would want WICU to be bought by Hearst or Gannett and WSEE to be bought by CBS. That's never going to happen.
TheRolyPoly 2659 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 I would want WICU to be bought by Hearst or Gannett and WSEE to be bought by CBS. That's never going to happen. I see WICU bought by either Sinclair Broadcast Group or Raycom Media and WSEE bought by Gray Television.
mike91 67 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 I wonder why WENY and WICU/WSEE weren't included in the deal to Gray. Maybe Lilly wanted to sell them to Gray, but Gray didn't want them. I'm not so sure about the Erie stations, but I have visited family in the Elmira area many times and on top of WENY being an also ran, the market is very small and isn't necessarily thriving. I could see it being tough to find a buyer for them.
NEOMatrix 1308 Posted April 10, 2015 Posted April 10, 2015 I wonder why WENY and WICU/WSEE weren't included in the deal to Gray. Maybe Lilly wanted to sell them to Gray, but Gray didn't want them. I'm not so sure about the Erie stations, but I have visited family in the Elmira area many times and on top of WENY being an also ran, the market is very small and isn't necessarily thriving. I could see it being tough to find a buyer for them. Or it could've been that SJL wanted to sell the whole group to Sinclair but couldn't unload WJRT and WTVG to them (for obvious reasons).
Rusty Muck 4432 Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 I don't think I could blame Gray if they refused to buy WICU/WSEE. And even for S!nclair, what would the ROI be for buying WICU/WSEE? Buying the entire Lilly/SJL group wouldn't have been out of the question for them; WNWO (and even WUPW) has been spun off before when their previous owners wanted to trade up. But just WICU/WSEE... it makes no sense from any practical standpoint, regardless of the buyer. Just my opinion.
tyrannical bastard 4084 Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 The same factors came into play when Benedek sold to Gray. They had good reasons to pass on WYTV, WTRF and KDLH, as WTRF would be folded into West Virginia Media, and both WYTV and KDLH would be some of the first stations to enter into shared service agreements with a competitor. Since Erie soon followed with the WICU/WSEE deal, it goes to show that these are distressed markets where independent ownership is very difficult, and may no longer be possible given the market size and condition. And when the auction begins, Nexstar could sell off WFXP's facility and merge them on to WJET. If WICU and WSEE become low-powered operations (on a shared channel) should SJL sell off a full-power station, then what's stopping Nexstar from buying them too? Given Erie's location sandwiched between Cleveland and Buffalo, the spectrum may be far more valuable for either market than for Erie itself.
channel2 982 Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 I wonder why WENY and WICU/WSEE weren't included in the deal to Gray. Maybe Lilly wanted to sell them to Gray, but Gray didn't want them. I'm not so sure about the Erie stations, but I have visited family in the Elmira area many times and on top of WENY being an also ran, the market is very small and isn't necessarily thriving. I could see it being tough to find a buyer for them. SJL didn't want to flip the stations in Elmira and Erie. They bought back WJRT and WTVG specifically to sell them off in a few years.
mike91 67 Posted April 12, 2015 Posted April 12, 2015 SJL didn't want to flip the stations in Elmira and Erie. They bought back WJRT and WTVG specifically to sell them off in a few years. And they made $100 million off them. Damn.
Brain 81 Posted April 19, 2015 Author Posted April 19, 2015 As nice as it would be if there were some room for independent ownership and quality value, I think the markets like Erie and Youngstown are gone for good. Is this not inevitable?
NEOMatrix 1308 Posted April 19, 2015 Posted April 19, 2015 Honestly, I see market mergers happening moreso than markets disappearing. Hell, I could see an Erie-Youngstown merger happening. WJET on the Erie side and WFMJ and WKBN on the Youngstown side.
mvcg66b3r 100 Posted April 20, 2015 Posted April 20, 2015 Honestly, I see market mergers happening moreso than markets disappearing. Hell, I could see an Erie-Youngstown merger happening. WJET on the Erie side and WFMJ and WKBN on the Youngstown side. From the "Potential future DMA mergers and breakups" thread: BTW, I looked at the coverage maps, and the Youngstown stations don't reach Erie and the Erie stations don't reach Youngstown.
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