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Raycom acquires the Calkins stations

CircleSeven

By CircleSeven
in General TV

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bhratbrat News Director

bhratbrat 423

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My thought process on this.

 

A) WWSB: WWSB is in the weirdest spot here and this would be a good time to take a look at the affiliation contract. Last time it was renewed was in December 2014 and expires in December 2019. I just don't see RAYCOM doing it or ABC doing it. I think the last time ABC attempted to terminate the affiliation in 1994, ABC lost in that fight. WWSB although it is considered a "secondary" affiliate is a pretty strong one and considering the point that you would cut out a voice in an area that is very underserved (Tampa and Ft. Myers really does not cover Sarasota at all)..I think it will be status quo.

B) WTXL: I don't see any problems with the deal for them. They have somehow gotten better from when they were under Media Ventures Management and was being managed by Sinclair up until 2006. A decade later and they have done a great job.

C) WAAY: To me this is where the deal is going to fail. Considering this deal is now being made in the quiet period of the reverse auction there is really no way that I think WAAY gets sold to Raycom unless they force a channel sharing agreement. I expect the deal to be contested only because they are losing a voice in the market and now your going to two.

 

End opinion: It serves the public interest in Sarasota and Tallahassee but it definitely does not serve the public interest in Huntsville and I can see that part of the deal getting denied and WAAY having to go to a third party.

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TheRolyPoly Station Group CEO

TheRolyPoly 1847

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I see WAAY being owned by somebody else because the FCC would say that Raycom can't operate two of the biggest four stations in the market and with WAAY being one, forget it!

 

I hope that Calkins and Raycom can work something out to keep WWSB as an ABC affiliate and not have Raycom develop a partnership with Scripps to force ABC off of WWSB because then, a voice for the Suncoast will be lost.

 

Finally, this deal has served Tallahassee the best. No problems here, no "secondary" ABC affiliations here, no other stations from Raycom in this market. It's great! Plus, this could be the chance for WTXL to produce a primetime newscast for Raycom-owned WPGX in Panama City, a market that I think desperately needs a primetime newscast of its own (which btw, unless if you count the WOFL simulcast at 10:00pm on WOGX in Gainesville, the Panama City market is the ONLY market in the state of Florida that doesn't have its own primetime newscast.)

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Benny Vandergast Assignment Editor

Benny Vandergast 2

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My thought process on this.

 

C) WAAY: To me this is where the deal is going to fail. Considering this deal is now being made in the quiet period of the reverse auction there is really no way that I think WAAY gets sold to Raycom unless they force a channel sharing agreement. I expect the deal to be contested only because they are losing a voice in the market and now your going to two.

That's incorrect. First off, WAAY wouldn't be sold to Raycom (though there's no question Raycom will operate the station). Even so, consider...

 

Raycom owns WAFF (NBC). Tribune owns WHNT (CBS). Nexstar owns WZDX (Fox). And -- at the moment -- Calkins owns WAAY (ABC). Until this month, Calkins was providing the news for WZDX (a stand-alone 9 p.m. show). Now, Nexstar produces its own newscasts. So, here's the then-vs.-now lineup:

 

Then (March 2016): Four owners. Four channels airing news produced out of three stations. No duopolies (involving the Big 4). One partnership (a fairly limited one). From a news standpoint, three "voices."

 

If approved: Four owners. Four channels airing news produced out of three stations. No OFFICIAL duopolies, but a clearly more developed partnership. From a news standpoint, three "voices."

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AJClementeFan69 News Director

AJClementeFan69 477

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WWSB is in a precarious situation because it is one of the few remaining duplicate affiliate stations left after the demise of WMGM and the pending changes at WHAG. In this case, WWSB almost seems destined to become a semi-satellite or a Sarasota bureau for WFTS given Scripps' increasingly cozy relationship with Raycom...

 

What's the common denominator between WMGM and WHAG?

 

Hint: it's a colorful bird.

 

What's the other common denominator?

 

A station in the market owned by the colorful bird.

 

Apples, oranges and the like.

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AJClementeFan69 News Director

AJClementeFan69 477

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My thought process on this.

A) WWSB: WWSB is in the weirdest spot here and this would be a good time to take a look at the affiliation contract. Last time it was renewed was in December 2014 and expires in December 2019. I just don't see RAYCOM doing it or ABC doing it. I think the last time ABC attempted to terminate the affiliation in 1994, ABC lost in that fight. WWSB although it is considered a "secondary" affiliate is a pretty strong one and considering the point that you would cut out a voice in an area that is very underserved (Tampa and Ft. Myers really does not cover Sarasota at all)..I think it will be status quo.

 

This. WFTS hasn't exactly thrown up all the stops in recent years to marginalize WWSB. If anything the two have partnered. WWSB and WFTS reached a deal for WWSB to black out network programming in exchange for being carried marketwide on FiOS. If WFTS/Scripps wanted to hurt WWSB that

 

I think WFTS/Scripps, and really the other stations in the market, have largely conceded Sarasota/Manatee counties to WWSB. All of them (save for WFTS) have their own reporters covering the area, but it's more or less a token effort. Sarasota/Bradenton does not get the same coverage that say, Lakeland/Polk County, another metro area in its own right within the market, gets on any of the Tampa stations.

 

This whole Scripps-Raycom ~partnership~ thing involves two (2) Fox stations without news departments partnering with Scripps stations that do. I don't think it's a sign of some burgeoning corporate alliance.

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AJClementeFan69 News Director

AJClementeFan69 477

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If Raycom did use WWSB to do an SSA with WFTS, Raycom can still handle its own advertising for WWSB and Scripps would only have to handle technical operations and programming for channel 40.

 

If WWSB's news operation was folded into some bureau for WFTS newscasts -- the Sarasota-specific ad revenue would disappear, because there'd no longer be any reason for any Sarasota viewer to watch it over any of the Tampa stations.

 

WFTS's signal reaches Sarasota County just fine. WWSB (fka WXLT) only exists because WTSP's didn't until recently.

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Eat News Station Group CEO

Eat News 4738

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What's the common denominator between WMGM and WHAG?

 

Hint: it's a colorful bird.

 

What's the other common denominator?

 

A station in the market owned by the colorful bird.

 

Apples, oranges and the like.

 

Or Peacocks and Dumpsters?

peacocks.thumb.jpg.d204df85ce6c100c5f63716a0607156b.jpg

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promoguy98 Managing Editor

promoguy98 252

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They WAAY folks definitely lucked out with that development! Bet there will be a few sighs of relief. Things would have ended badly for them had Raycom errrr *cough* American Spirit gotten ahold of them. Hopefully Heartland Media will put the money and resources into the station to help continue making them more competitive.

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GoldenShine9 Station Group CEO

GoldenShine9 1509

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Big amendment regarding the Raycom/Calkins deal.

 

It appears that WAAY won't be assigned by American Spirit after all. It will now be sold to Bob Prather's Heartland Media for $13.5M.

 

Good move they made! Also will be a sister station to WTVA next door.

 

I figured it would be impossible to shell that station, one possibility I saw was a swap between WPMI and WAAY involving Sinclair.

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TheRolyPoly Station Group CEO

TheRolyPoly 1847

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I'd imagine Raycom could have put the WAAY signal on a WAFF subchannel a la Sinclair/Gray but they chose not to? Or is the FCC cracking down on that too?

 

Still would've been a mess. At the end of the day, I'm glad WAAY is starting put by itself. And besides, I'm starting to like Heartland Media bit by bit. Even I think their websites look better than most Sinclair and Nexstar websites and does provide live streaming for all of its stations.

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AJClementeFan69 News Director

AJClementeFan69 477

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Still would've been a mess. At the end of the day, I'm glad WAAY is starting put by itself. And besides, I'm starting to like Heartland Media bit by bit. Even I think their websites look better than most Sinclair and Nexstar websites and does provide live streaming for all of its stations.

 

They seem to do a good job at running their stations.

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