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All About Allen...


tyrannical bastard

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I grew up in Dorr -- half way between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.  Before cable/satelitte came our way, I could always get WOOD-TV by antenna no problem.  WZZM I got 90% of the time.  WWMT I had a very hard time to get... 
 

Kalamzoo/Battle Creek is one of those "sub-markets" were they can be serviced by a number of larger markets surrounding them... That's why I'm shocked to see WWMT at #2... Although I do see that WZZM and WWMT are struggling to find decent talent for mornings and evenings... The only name I recognize at WZZM now is Juliet Dragos and George Lessens... WWMT I only recognize Chief Met Keith Thompson... But I am curious to see if Byron can pull WZZM out of their rut.. I know in the early 2000s, they seemed to be giving WOOD-TV a run for their money...

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On 4/28/2023 at 5:59 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

Allen Media has a long way to go to decent respectability.   Owning the Weather Channel is a good start, but the bottom line is Allen Media (and Entertainment Studios) are the slumlords of daytime TV with all of their cheap "court" shows.

 

His shows are junk but I have to admire what he has built from those shows.  Allen made some of the cheapest shows he could make, package them up, and gave them to stations to air anytime the stations pleased.  2AM? No problem.  4AM? Sure.  9AM on a Saturday surrounded by informercials? Yes!  A lot of syndicated shows didn't want to be in those ugly time slots so Allen was abled to get his shows shown practically nationwide by accepting those odd times.  He saw the need and filled it.

 

But yeah we are still pretty far from Allen being decently respectable. 

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If y'all think one of Byron Allen's shows airing for short time on one broadcast network is either a cause for alarm or a giant joke (or both LBH), then you'll get a big kick out of Allen himself showing interest in buying another broadcast network-- ABC (along with FX and National Geographic).

 

https://tvline.com/news/abc-byron-allen-sale-talks-fx-national-geographic-disney-1235043961/

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That would be absurd. Disney is not just going to sell ABC without ESPN. Because a big chunk of ABC’s ratings are tied to ESPN and the sports department runs as one joint unit, it would be impossible to sell to Allen in this sense without causing a mass disruption of the sports media market.

 

The most ideal situation for ABC and ESPN would be Hearst teaming with Berkshire Hathaway (just like the latter funded Capital Cities’ purchase of ABC long ago) to buy the networks and perhaps National Geographic which could be collapsed into the A&E Networks structure. I would however consider Freeform instead of FX though - since FX is still in form a Fox network at heart airing Fox repeats, even if they are no longer a News Corporation Fox entity. All that Hearst can then do is turn its ABC affiliates into O&Os along with WBAL in Baltimore (which Hearst has owned from day one in 1948), and sell most of the rest of its stations to Scripps.

 

It’s not that Byron Allen isn’t capable of pulling off a big acquisition, but to me him acquiring a significant share of Gray and playing a key cog in further investing into the Atlanta media scene where the likes of Tyler Perry and Steve Harvey have had a sizable presence (and Allen already has links to CBS via TWC and NBC dating back to his days with Real People) would make more sense. Atlanta is already home to TWC as well and has been since day one.

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On 9/17/2023 at 4:54 AM, SS8609 said:

That would be absurd. Disney is not just going to sell ABC without ESPN. Because a big chunk of ABC’s ratings are tied to ESPN and the sports department runs as one joint unit, it would be impossible to sell to Allen in this sense without causing a mass disruption of the sports media market.

 

The most ideal situation for ABC and ESPN would be Hearst teaming with Berkshire Hathaway (just like the latter funded Capital Cities’ purchase of ABC long ago) to buy the networks and perhaps National Geographic which could be collapsed into the A&E Networks structure. I would however consider Freeform instead of FX though - since FX is still in form a Fox network at heart airing Fox repeats, even if they are no longer a News Corporation Fox entity. All that Hearst can then do is turn its ABC affiliates into O&Os along with WBAL in Baltimore (which Hearst has owned from day one in 1948), and sell most of the rest of its stations to Scripps.

 

...and that would be compensation for essentially handing WMAR-TV the NBC affiliation in Baltimore once again.

 

But here go the conflicts...Cincinnati, Fort Myers/Naples, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. Also, KSBW-TV in Salinas/Monterey has both ABC ("Central Coast ABC") and NBC (on main channel).

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13 hours ago, Big Rollo Smokes said:

But here go the conflicts...Cincinnati, Fort Myers/Naples, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. Also, KSBW-TV in Salinas/Monterey has both ABC ("Central Coast ABC") and NBC (on main channel).

 

I would--

 

*vanishes in a cloud of topic re-railing*

 

[Update: Continuing the Hearst discussion here.]

Edited by mre29
Why are we talking about Hearst in the Allen thread?
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  • 3 months later...

In the midst of the other diginet changes (between The365 and Outlaw's debuts, Dabl flipping from lifestyle to Black sitcoms, Circle going streaming-only and Twist shutting down), Allen Media's two multicast networks have also changed their schedules, with both This TV and TheGrio having apparently severed their licensing agreements to air various theatrical and independent films.

 

For This TV, this has resulted in that network reaching the "total abandonment" phase of its network decay (to borrow from TVTropes), as movies have been a staple of the network since Weigel and MGM launched it in 2008. Under Allen, most of its film rights leaned toward indies, although it did air some older theatrical films (the balance leaned in the other direction under Weigel and Tribune ownership). AMG had already dropped older MGM series (which usually occupied overnight and early morning slots, again dating to This' launch) from the network's lineup in 2022, in favor of airing its in-house syndicated shows.

 

To fill the former movie slots, This TV has added several Weather Channel originals (Top Ten, Weather Gone Viral, Highway Through Hell and Storm of Suspicion) and The World's Funniest Weather, and added extra airings of ES.TV and RecipeTV (the latter two shows as well as AMG's court shows are the only holdovers from the old movie-centered general entertainment format), while TheGrio has added sports in prime time and extra airings of AMG's court shows, Funny You Should Ask, Comics Unleashed and morning repeats of TheGrio News.

Edited by T.L. Hughes
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I liked TheGrio News with Eboni K. Williams the problem is way too many repeats doesn't seem to air any new EP's of her news show I didn't watch Lomont Hill's show too liberal for my liking why I didn't ever watch it. Yeah, saw This TV listings on TV Guide Mag where there was movies in primetime on the listings no more and just weather channel shows as mentioned above. 

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With the Comics Unleashed reruns on CBS set to end later this month with the premiere of After Midnight, I have to think the owners and managers of some affiliates must be quietly relieved -- specifically, anyone who owns or runs a CBS affiliate in a market where Allen Media owns a competing station. Sure, the episodes are all over a decade old and yes, we're talking about the 12:30am ET time slot, but the show was hosted by the guy who now owns a station that directly competes with them. At the very least, it must have been a bit weird.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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And potentially split up Paramount and CBS yet again should this deal go through...

 

Quote

"The reported m.o. for Allen would be to sell the Paramount film studio, real estate and IP. He would keep the linear networks, plus Paramount+ and operate the streamer more efficiently (Good luck with that)."

 

^^^ That quote is from the Deadline article.

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Posted (edited)
On 5/1/2024 at 9:51 AM, Big Rollo Smokes said:

It appears that the reduction-in-force train has hit Allen Media Group, according to Scott Jones at FTV Live. Operations at local stations and the Weather Channel are affected.

 

Any details?

Mike Seidel is one of the casualties.

https://weatherboy.com/mike-siedel-axed-others-pushed-out-at-weather-channel-as-downsizing-hits-network/

 

With cuts like these and Allen Media trying to infiltrate their own low-rent programming, it's best to let the major companies pass on Byron Allen's involvement.   

 

We don't need another Sinclair or Nexstar to run a cheap operation with a lot of reach.  These employees are getting screwed with their severance and what quality they put out now could be further in question.

Edited by tyrannical bastard
Seidel link
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I wouldn't be surprised if Byron Allen will say he'll buy the 60 TV stations from Sinclair since he likes to put his name out there when media is selling and for attention as well. Why didn't Byron take a pay cut sell one of his mansions or fancy cars to save the jobs at his local TV stations and The Weather Channel.

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Just now, Megatron81 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Byron Allen will say he'll buy the 60 TV stations from Sinclair since he likes to put his name out there when media is selling and for attention as well. Why didn't Byron take a pay cut sell one of his mansions or fancy cars to save the jobs at his local TV stations and The Weather Channel.

BTW AMG is a minoriy shareholder of Bally Sports so he might swap his stake for more tv stations and probably 4 subchannel networks and the Tennis Channel.

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1 hour ago, kfc513 said:

Apparently, TheGrio's affiliate base has been dropping like flies, and according to someone over on RadioDiscussions, it might be shutting down altogether (is there any official confirmation of this?).

Probably not shutting down - they've been adding new shows to the cable feed - but rather leaving OTA for cable (and streaming?) only.

 

This TV, on the other hand, is likely doomed. They've been losing even more affiliates since the (then-)Tribune stations dropped it for Court TV, and the loss of carriage on ABC's O&Os to Charge may be the final straw.

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On 5/18/2024 at 6:45 PM, kfc513 said:

Apparently, TheGrio's affiliate base has been dropping like flies, and according to someone over on RadioDiscussions, it might be shutting down altogether (is there any official confirmation of this?).

 

Something is up.  TheGrio just eliminated their only two original shows and their schedule is now just a bunch of Allen/ES shows.  They've been losing affiliates and their coverage of the US is now under 45% according to Rabbit Ears.

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3 hours ago, jjj said:

 

Something is up.  TheGrio just eliminated their only two original shows and their schedule is now just a bunch of Allen/ES shows.  They've been losing affiliates and their coverage of the US is now under 45% according to Rabbit Ears.

This is old news. Marc Lamont Hill and Eboni K. Williams lost their shows within the last month. I believe they were kinda-sorta holdovers from the Black News Channel, which Allen purchased out of bankruptcy and then merged into TheGrio.

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4 hours ago, jjj said:

 

Something is up.  TheGrio just eliminated their only two original shows and their schedule is now just a bunch of Allen/ES shows.  They've been losing affiliates and their coverage of the US is now under 45% according to Rabbit Ears.

If you look at the schedule though, which has been wrong as of late; currently they seem to be carrying older Sony Black sitcoms and random infomercials on the ex-BNC cable feed, and the stream has a random Serena Williams documentary. Something is going on when you get three different programs on three different ways to watch the same network.

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On 5/18/2024 at 11:08 PM, Adam MadMan said:

Probably not shutting down - they've been adding new shows to the cable feed - but rather leaving OTA for cable (and streaming?) only.

 

This TV, on the other hand, is likely doomed. They've been losing even more affiliates since the (then-)Tribune stations dropped it for Court TV, and the loss of carriage on ABC's O&Os to Charge may be the final straw.

From various things I've seen oniine, This TV shut down yesterday. Their site has absolutely nothing appearing on the schedule.

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