Gray TV takes over CBS in Anchorage, AK

[CircleSeven 1955]

A former KTVA weather anchor has apparently jumped ship.

 

Former KTVA weekend meteorologist Aaron Morrison has taken a part time position as a fill-in meteorologist at KTUU/KYES.

 

 

 

[CircleSeven 1955]

On 8/21/2020 at 12:41 AM, CircleSeven said:

Gray has filed the paperwork to acquire KUBD Ketchikan for $1.

It was greenlighted by the FCC earlier today.

 

Again, this deal doesn't include Sitka's KTNL or Juneau's LP KXLJ-LD. Those two will stay with Denali with silent station KTVA.

[CircleSeven 1955]

On 10/16/2020 at 7:58 PM, CircleSeven said:

It was greenlighted by the FCC earlier today.

 

And Gray has swiftly closed on the KUBD acq. on Monday (10/19).

[MarkBRollins88_v2 350]

This all just makes me so infuriated. I hate my industry so much sometimes.

[CircleSeven 1955]

Big Bump.

 

The FCC wants to fine Gray $518,293 because of this move.

 

From B&C:

Quote

The commission said that the proposed fine stemmed from its acquisition of the CBS affiliation of KTVA-TV--which went dark--when it already owned NBC affiliate KTUU-TV, both in Anchorage, Alaska. At the time the stations were ranked number one and two in the market. Gray put the CBS programming on its KYES-TV Anchorage, but then moved it to a co-owned low power station and simulcast it on a digital subchannel of KTUU-TV.

__________________

"By executing and consummating an agreement to apparently purchase the CBS affiliation from KTVA(TV) for KYES-TV, Gray caused a change in network affiliation that resulted in Gray’s owning and operating the top two of the top-four stations in the Anchorage DMA, as of July 31, 2020, in violation of Commission rules," the FCC said. "Gray’s acquisition of the affiliation of another Top 4 station in the market was “conscious and deliberate,” and thus willful, as evidenced by the fact that it consummated an agreement to do so without prior Commission approval."

 

Edited July 7, 2021 by CircleSeven

[Samantha 2895]

Wowza. If not for the statutory cap, the base penalty would have been $1,720,000—and likely to be adjusted upward.

 

Also worth noting: Gray ended the violation by moving the CBS stream to K22HN-D (now KYES-LD)...and then putting it on a subchannel of KTUU. How dumb this whole mess is. It's clear these rules were not written with multicasting in mind.

[JCB4TV 347]

Looking at the setup Gray has in Anchorage, per RabbitEars:

 

CBS is on KTUU's spectrum as 5.11

RF22 is now KYES-LD with CBS on 5.1

RF7 is now KAUU with 5.2 Antenna TV, 5.3 Circle, and 5.4 MyN

 

I did not see it in the document, but could the FCC force Gray to give CBS back to GCI, who'll have to resume operations on KTVA?

[ColtFromGulfcoast 708]

It's about time.

 

The FCC needs to look into Lubbock and Columbus as well. 

[AmericanErrorist 148]

On 7/7/2021 at 5:10 PM, JCB4TV said:

Looking at the setup Gray has in Anchorage, per RabbitEars:

 

CBS is on KTUU's spectrum as 5.11

RF22 is now KYES-LD with CBS on 5.1

RF7 is now KAUU with 5.2 Antenna TV, 5.3 Circle, and 5.4 MyN

 

I did not see it in the document, but could the FCC force Gray to give CBS back to GCI, who'll have to resume operations on KTVA?

Since the FCC describes the current arrangement as meeting regulatory muster, I would think no. The fine will be the end of it.

Edited July 12, 2021 by AmericanErrorist

[CircleSeven 1955]

So Gray has filed an appeal, asking the agency to cancel the $500k+ fine.

 

Edited August 10, 2021 by CircleSeven

[polyiguana 22]

Nobody wants to run KTVA though. There is only one TV news operation in Alaska because ABC/Fox is a joke, but who will subsidize it? 

[Yankees4life 558]

2 hours ago, polyiguana said:

Nobody wants to run KTVA though. There is only one TV news operation in Alaska because ABC/Fox is a joke, but who will subsidize it? 

The FCC doesn't run with logic, bro. Pizza Pai was only part of the problem

[AJClementeFan69 477]

The bottom line is: The KTVA intellectual property sale should have never been allowed to happen and cannot be undone. Something needs to be done about the intellectual property license kabuki that Gray and Sinclair play in order to skirt duopoly rules. If the FCC can't do anything about it, one would think the DOJ would be able to under antitrust rules.

[tyrannical bastard 3948]

9 hours ago, AJClementeFan69 said:

The bottom line is: The KTVA intellectual property sale should have never been allowed to happen and cannot be undone. Something needs to be done about the intellectual property license kabuki that Gray and Sinclair play in order to skirt duopoly rules. If the FCC can't do anything about it, one would think the DOJ would be able to under antitrust rules.

Basically, all we see are these things happening, and then the owner gets a huge fine, and that's the end of that.  These things are rarely ever undone, and the change becomes status quo in the place it happened.

 

Given broadcasting is how it is, with a reduced footprint (frequency-wise) and a rapidly dwindling ownership base, it's unlikely to ever change it back to the way it was before the act happened anywhere.

[TVIntheDesert 183]

22 hours ago, polyiguana said:

Nobody wants to run KTVA though. There is only one TV news operation in Alaska because ABC/Fox is a joke, but who will subsidize it? 

 

Kind of like Casper, Wyoming. Gray was basically running a news monopoly there because KTWO was a laughingstock, even before KYUR's owners bought it.

[johnnya2k6 171]

Meanwhile...Former lead anchor Joe Vigil is now at KVVU in Las Vegas; Melissa Frey also joined from KTVA and is now KTUU/KAUU Chief Meteorologist (Jackie Purcell is still the Senior Met, but has reduced her role), while Megan Mazurek is still on the GCI payroll, now as Contributions and Senior Events Manager.

 

I think Byron Allen should step in and buy KTVA and make it a news-intensive independent.

[nathannah 2428]

3 hours ago, johnnya2k6 said:

I think Byron Allen should step in and buy KTVA and make it a news-intensive independent.

He'd have to build from scratch and overcome legal obstacles; their lease is over, and GCI not only gave Gray some of their staff, but there's probably a no-compete clause in there for years like all of the sketchy Hoak/Gray Legacy-like sales in the mid-2010s where the 'owner' just happened to be a woman or minority. At least Major Market Broadcasting (they of KRDK-TV) has been trying their best to push against Gray for all they've done.

[AmericanErrorist 148]

On 8/10/2021 at 10:02 AM, CircleSeven said:

So Gray has filed an appeal, asking the agency to cancel the $500k+ fine.

 

Gray's argument is that KYES was already a top 4 station on the strength of the MNT programming. Using that logic, they broke the top 4 rule when they bought KYES back in 2016.

[ColtFromGulfcoast 708]

13 hours ago, AmericanErrorist said:

 

Gray's argument is that KYES was already a top 4 station on the strength of the MNT programming. Using that logic, they broke the top 4 rule when they bought KYES back in 2016.

Admitting that you broke the law at the time. 

 

Classic. 

[T.L. Hughes 889]

On 8/31/2021 at 11:33 PM, AmericanErrorist said:

 

Gray's argument is that KYES was already a top 4 station on the strength of the MNT programming. Using that logic, they broke the top 4 rule when they bought KYES back in 2016.

How, though? You’d think KTBY (a Fox affiliate) would be in the Top 4. (I doubt KATN was the one not in the Top 4 at the time Gray acquired KYES, if so, an ABC affiliate being beaten by both a Fox affiliate and a MNT affiliate in the ratings is pretty embarrassing for KATN and ABC.) A MyNetworkTV affiliate that’s a Top 4 station just doesn’t sound right… and if it’s true in regards to KYES, it definitely doesn’t help Gray’s case for getting the fine successfully appealed.

Edited September 3, 2021 by T.L. Hughes

[nathannah 2428]

1 hour ago, T.L. Hughes said:

How, though? You’d think KTBY (a Fox affiliate) would be in the Top 4. (I doubt KATN was the one not in the Top 4 at the time Gray acquired KYES, if so, an ABC affiliate being beaten by both a Fox affiliate and a MNT affiliate in the ratings is pretty embarrassing for KATN and ABC.)

If they go by date of closing (June 27, 2016)...it's possible that KYES was ahead of KTBY, when Fox is in repeats and its sports output was limited to Saturday MLB games. Remember the attempted WPLG/WTVJ merger where they tried to justify that WTVJ was sixth in the market due to Univision and Telemundo, likely picking out a time where the latter two's soccer schedule was strong and just before or after the 2008 Beijing Olympics where WTVJ was at a ratings nadir.

[AmericanErrorist 148]

2 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

If they go by date of closing (June 27, 2016)...it's possible that KYES was ahead of KTBY, when Fox is in repeats and its sports output was limited to Saturday MLB games. Remember the attempted WPLG/WTVJ merger where they tried to justify that WTVJ was sixth in the market due to Univision and Telemundo, likely picking out a time where the latter two's soccer schedule was strong and just before or after the 2008 Beijing Olympics where WTVJ was at a ratings nadir.

 

Is there a rule that states how long a station has to be out of or in the top 4?

[ColtFromGulfcoast 708]

3 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

If they go by date of closing (June 27, 2016)...it's possible that KYES was ahead of KTBY, when Fox is in repeats and its sports output was limited to Saturday MLB games. Remember the attempted WPLG/WTVJ merger where they tried to justify that WTVJ was sixth in the market due to Univision and Telemundo, likely picking out a time where the latter two's soccer schedule was strong and just before or after the 2008 Beijing Olympics where WTVJ was at a ratings nadir.

Stuff like this has allowed WGNT to be ahead of WVBT at times.....and WLMT to be ahead of WATN. 

[nathannah 2428]

53 minutes ago, AmericanErrorist said:

 

Is there a rule that states how long a station has to be out of or in the top 4?

The FCC has never really specified, but going by the WPLG/WTVJ example, it can be merely a month. There was another example where Tribune wanted to buy KTVI in 2013 as part of the Local TV purchase to make the duopoly official with KPLR, and had to time the purchase to a time where KPLR was fifth; usually the CW affiliate can be purchased easily, but with KDNL in the market, they flip-flopped #4 consistently. Once KPLR had a lousy ratings month, Tribune could switch from the Local TV LMA to an outright purchase.

[CircleSeven 1955]

4 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

If they go by date of closing (June 27, 2016)...it's possible that KYES was ahead of KTBY, when Fox is in repeats and its sports output was limited to Saturday MLB games. 

I believe they're talking about KYES already in the top-4 at the time it acquired CBS from KTVA last year. And not that the time it bought the station in 2016. Also the station moved from VHF-low 5 to VHF-high 7 in 2018. It would be nice to provide some Comscore or Nielsen proof that KYES was in the top-4 at the time of the CBS acquisition.

 

Let's not forget it acquired KYES under failed station waiver, with that condition from the other Democratic controlled FCC (under Wheeler), that it wasn't going to acquire another big-4 affiliation two years after consummation. That condition ended in 2018. 

 

They also said that acquiring CBS from KTVA was not a "swap" meaning KTVA didn't acquire the MyNet from KYES. If you all remember the infamous Hawaii switch of KFVE & KGMB in 2009, the stations swapped callsigns & programming. That was classified (in their eyes) as a "swap".

 

They going to say anything to not pay this fine. But if they didn't do anything wrong, why did they later move the CBS over to the LP (K22HN) & have it on the subchannel on KTUU? They could have done this in the first place.

 

It'll be interesting to see whether this $500K+ will stand. We'll see what happens......

 

 

Edited September 4, 2021 by CircleSeven