Gray Television to buy Meredith

[newsman123 114]

WGCL’s building is modern, only about 15 or so years old. They also just remodeled the newsroom, and have a prime midtown location. Doraville where the studios are being built is way out of the area.

 

Also, why would anyone go from GCL to WOIO? Thats a big market drop. And WGCL is a better station/much better product than OIO. 

[24994J 5585]

1 hour ago, RGSJenkins said:

Does anybody want to buy a former ABC O&O?

 

 

If I can have it for under $100,000, I'm in, and will just make it look and sound like an ABC O&O again. Any objections? 

[GoldenShine9 1513]

From what I have read, all the Meredith TV franchises are staying with them in the National Media department. That means they could be syndicated throughout the country and Gray won't have any first rights to them.

[TennTV1983 804]

17 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

From what I have read, all the Meredith TV franchises are staying with them in the National Media department. That means they could be syndicated throughout the country and Gray won't have any first rights to them.

 

Makes sense since stuff like People TV is, in a way, Meredith's own intellectual property based off of one of their publications (same with Better TV). More money to be made selling their programming through syndication across the country than just keeping everything within their now soon-to-be-former Local Media Group.

[channel2 979]

2 hours ago, 24994J said:

 

If I can have it for under $100,000, I'm in, and will just make it look and sound like an ABC O&O again. Any objections? 

 

Too bad you can't take WTVG too...

[ABC 7 Denver 1717]

4 hours ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

IMO, it's between Scripps and Allen. The latter has already bought from Gray once and would certainly do so again, while the former has a lot of upside (they own in 3 Michigan markets and Flint would be the 4th) but may have to trade something (i.e. a loose Ion station) to create cap room.

 

WOIO has graphics very much like the current Meredith package. Maybe that will be adopted at more stations? By then, the current Gray package would be over 3 years old.

 

The new Meredith package will be ditched. It's basically a Frankenstein's monster graphics package without any clear direction and is just made of components from other packages.

 

2 hours ago, newsman123 said:

WGCL’s building is modern, only about 15 or so years old. They also just remodeled the newsroom, and have a prime midtown location. Doraville where the studios are being built is way out of the area.

 

Also, why would anyone go from GCL to WOIO? Thats a big market drop. And WGCL is a better station/much better product than OIO. 

 

Does Meredith own the building or are they using a sell-leaseback agreement?

[ATLNEWS46 6]

12 minutes ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

The new Meredith package will be ditched. It's basically a Frankenstein's monster graphics package without any clear direction and is just made of components from other packages.

 

 

Does Meredith own the building or are they using a sell-leaseback agreement?

it was bulit after they took over in '99 and opened in early '01 so they probably own it

[JCB4TV 347]

5 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

Eventually WGGB will have an owner for longer than a decade, but at least Gray is a great steward of small-market stations. Only odd thing is that WFSB and WGGB/WSHM-LD's nearest sister is Burlington, but at least they have Boston surrounded with stations now.

With this deal, Gray will have five of the eight New England based CBS outlets with only WBZ (CBS O&O Boston), WPRI (Nexstar Providence), and WGME (Sinclair Portland) as the remaining holdouts. I don't expect and of these stations joining Gray anytime soon.

[nathannah 2445]

5 hours ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

VUit already has the Meredith stations on their service along with the Morgan Murphy ones. It's been that way since last year.

I realized that just after I posted. What I should've said is their sites/apps will be a lot better than what Meredith has cobbled together.

[tyrannical bastard 3955]

1 hour ago, ATLNEWS46 said:

it was bulit after they took over in '99 and opened in early '01 so they probably own it

Yep.  The property and buildings are owned by Meredith.  I would imagine Gray gets them in the sale and any other Meredith assets based there would either move or lease space for the time being.

It's also a Master Control hub for pretty much all of the Meredith stations.

 

Below is from the Fulton County GIS viewer:

[atlnewsfan03 79]

4 hours ago, newsman123 said:

WGCL’s building is modern, only about 15 or so years old. They also just remodeled the newsroom, and have a prime midtown location. Doraville where the studios are being built is way out of the area.

 

Also, why would anyone go from GCL to WOIO? Thats a big market drop. And WGCL is a better station/much better product than OIO. 

WGCL/WPCH's current broadcast home, 425 14th St, opened in March 2001 back during the very short-lived "Clear News" era.  Before settling at their current location, previous location was 1810 Briarcliff Rd, from the WHAE, WANX, and WGNX eras.  I couldn't see Gray moving WGCL/WPCH out of their current location.  Changes to newscast graphics, set, and theme music could be likely to occur late 2021 or early 2022, depending on how long it takes for FCC and DOJ to approve and Gray to close on purchase.

[Yankees4life 559]

Holy sh!t, what a bombshell. Hopefully, these stations will be treated better than Meredith treated them

 

As for WJRT, I can see Allen or Lockwood scooping that up. A wildcard may be Disney but they just cut costs recently so that's unlikely 

[ABC 7 Denver 1717]

 

3 minutes ago, Yankees4life said:

Holy sh!t, what a bombshell. Hopefully, these stations will be treated better than Meredith treated them

 

As for WJRT, I can see Allen or Lockwood scooping that up. A wildcard may be Disney but they just cut costs recently so that's unlikely 

 

Gray is moving in the same direction of eliminating all of their creative service departments at all of their stations.

[TVIntheDesert 183]

4 hours ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

Makes sense since stuff like People TV is, in a way, Meredith's own intellectual property based off of one of their publications (same with Better TV). More money to be made selling their programming through syndication across the country than just keeping everything within their now soon-to-be-former Local Media Group.

There are too many established entertainment news magazines out there. I imagine that the national syndication of "People TV" will be on the chopping block, and the older magazines rightfully going back to their old time slots.

[AmericanErrorist 149]

7 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

I'm hoping this will be a positive for WGCL.  Much of their trouble has been directly related to Meredith's management of the station ever since it was traded from Tribune.   Having company headquarters and their investment in Atlanta hopefully is a major positive and some incentive to really bring this station up to flagship standards.  WPCH could also be raised to a higher standing, much like Ted Turner did when it was WTBS.

 

Would Gray consider moving the WGCL intellectual unit to channel 17? The phrase "CBS 46" always seemed like a bad fit.

[tyrannical bastard 3955]

9 minutes ago, AmericanErrorist said:

 

Would Gray consider moving the WGCL intellectual unit to channel 17? The phrase "CBS 46" always seemed like a bad fit.

Never.  That ship sailed a long time ago.  Even if it was a viable possibility, it was back before Meredith owned channel 17 and WTBS was the "Superstation" that brought TBS to the rest of the country.

They'd go "CBS Atlanta" before anything since there's no real reason (technical or perceived) to move frequencies.

 

It's been there so long on 46, that trying to change it would be more harm than good.  That's why we still have ABC 33/40 while in fact it's ABC 58/68.2/17.2/40.2

[nathannah 2445]

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Never.  That ship sailed a long time ago.  Even if it was a viable possibility, it was back before Meredith owned channel 17 and WTBS was the "Superstation" that brought TBS to the rest of the country.

They'd go "CBS Atlanta" before anything since there's no real reason (technical or perceived) to move frequencies.

No real advantage to the switch when you just think of call letters over channel numbers these days; there wouldn't be any perceivable advantage to switch cable channel positions either. On Atlanta Comcast, they're on 1046/9, and WPCH is 1017/7. There's really not much point to switch for the sake of switching at this point, which is why when WGGB launched their Fox subchannel, it was easier to just grab 6 from WTIC's old position and keep the market's remote muscle memory from being changed.

 

Maybe if Meredith had closed on WPCH a decade back, it would have happened, but the last time a big switch like this happened I can think of was the Twin Cities, where KMSP got the Fox affiliation and WFTC took UPN, a switch that probably took plenty of money to market, even for a sister station switch.

[CumulonimbusCloud 2]

13 hours ago, bmasters1 said:

Does this mean that WHNS FOX Carolina and WSMV Channel 4 in Nashville will be Gray Television stations?

Yes. Yes they will be. Doesn't Meredith have a graphics hub? If so, they will make great replacements for the gray lincoln hub. 

[24994J 5585]

7 hours ago, channel2 said:

Too bad you can't take WTVG too...

 

For another thousand or two? Sure.

[NEOMatrix 1299]

 

But seriously, I sort of saw this coming. It’s not a coincidence that Gray was building studios in Atlanta, its flagship city.

 

That said, the FCC will approve this relatively quick unless one city turns out to be a holdup:

 

PHOENIX!

[VegasNews 3]

9 hours ago, CumulonimbusCloud said:

Yes. Yes they will be. Doesn't Meredith have a graphics hub? If so, they will make great replacements for the gray lincoln hub. 

Yes, they do. They’re called Meredith Design Group internally and are run by a few guys that also do work for Hothaus Creative. Hopefully Gray keeps them on board seeing as Gray’s hub doesn’t exactly do great work. Unless you like cheap looking graphics like 95% of Gray stations have.

[tyrannical bastard 3955]

9 hours ago, NEOMatrix said:

 

But seriously, I sort of saw this coming. It’s not a coincidence that Gray was building studios in Atlanta, its flagship city.

 

That said, the FCC will approve this relatively quick unless one city turns out to be a holdup:

 

PHOENIX!

Shouldn't be an issue, as long as KPHO is below the top 4.   Univision and Telemundo rank highly as well pushing the English language stations into duopoly territory.

[Samantha 2896]

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Shouldn't be an issue, as long as KPHO is below the top 4.   Univision and Telemundo rank highly as well pushing the English language stations into duopoly territory.

 

It might be KTVK that's not in the top 4, but...that's immaterial in this case.

[TennTV1983 804]

5 hours ago, VegasNews said:

Yes, they do. They’re called Meredith Design Group internally and are run by a few guys that also do work for Hothaus Creative. Hopefully Gray keeps them on board seeing as Gray’s hub doesn’t exactly do great work. Unless you like cheap looking graphics like 95% of Gray stations have.

 

There's no guarantee Gray will even keep Meredith's CSD in place. When Raycom merged with Gray, the graphics hub in Charlotte was not retained.

[tyrannical bastard 3955]

47 minutes ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

There's no guarantee Gray will even keep Meredith's CSD in place. When Raycom merged with Gray, the graphics hub in Charlotte was not retained.

Same thing could go with Master Control in Atlanta, unless Gray has hubs of their own that already service their stations. 

I would think Gray would choose to build on this rather than making each station their own again.