Nexstar ABC Stations Dropping Kimmel

[mre29 1967]

5 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Seattle (KFOV and/or KVOS replacing Sinclair's KOMO)

 

I like all of your suggestions for Weigel-owned stations that can take the ABC affiliation from Sinstar, but for Seattle, I think the network would be better served by working out a deal with Cox and CBS to send that network to KSTW and free KIRO to take on ABC. Advantages: ABC would get an affiliate that has a well-established news department and KIRO isn't forced to become an indie station when CBS pulls its affiliation for KSTW.

 

[JRyan 694]

On 9/28/2025 at 7:01 PM, mre29 said:

 

How's ABC's relationship with Weigel? That company owns KNLC.

 

 

KNLC's sole local presence is literally its transmitter site in House Springs.  Historically, they were located on Locust Street in downtown St Louis but Weigel lists its Chicago address for FCC studio address purposes.  I doubt Weigel would be much interested in acquiring a studio and investing in a build out of such a facility.

[mre29 1967]

1 hour ago, JRyan said:

KNLC's sole local presence is literally its transmitter site in House Springs.  Historically, they were located on Locust Street in downtown St Louis but Weigel lists its Chicago address for FCC studio address purposes.  I doubt Weigel would be much interested in acquiring a studio and investing in a build out of such a facility.

 

So much for that idea, then.

 

Sounds like ABC's options are limited to either a subchannel on KTVI, KMOV, KSDK, or KPLR....or the less likely hope that Sinclair sells KDNL.

 

[NowBergen 924]

5 minutes ago, mre29 said:

 

So much for that idea, then.

 

Sounds like ABC's options are limited to either a subchannel on KTVI, KMOV, KSDK, or KPLR....or the less likely hope that Sinclair sells KDNL.

 

Actually more limited. Assuming Nexstar is rewarded by taking over Tegna, (owning KTVI, KSDK & KPLR)  a subchannel on KMOV (Gray) is a the unlikely only option.  Truth is ABC should have e dumped KDNL decades ago. Now they are stuck. 

[atlnews2 631]

I think ABC moving to a dot 2 on either KMOV or KSDK is more likely that Weigel grabbing a bunch of ABC stations. 

 

Also, y'all are forgetting Scripps owns a bunch of Ion stations, including St Louis, DC, Dayton, Columbus, and more.  

[NowBergen 924]

6 minutes ago, atlnews2 said:

I think ABC moving to a dot 2 on either KMOV or KSDK is more likely that Weigel grabbing a bunch of ABC stations. 

 

Also, y'all are forgetting Scripps owns a bunch of Ion stations, including St Louis, DC, Dayton, Columbus, and more.  

KSDK is being bought by Nexstar.  That won’t be an option to ABC. 

[atlnews2 631]

1 hour ago, NowBergen said:

KSDK is being bought by Nexstar.  That won’t be an option to ABC. 

 

that's assuming the merger goes through

[AmericanErrorist 267]

2 hours ago, atlnews2 said:

Also, y'all are forgetting Scripps owns a bunch of Ion stations, including St Louis, DC, Dayton, Columbus, and more.  

Outside of the markets where they also own major affiliates, the only property they have in those markets are transmitters, as those stations' "main studios" are in Cincinnati.

[TennTV1983 870]

14 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Here are the markets where Weigel operates where they could take over the ABC affiliation from Sinclair or Nexstar:

 

Hartford-New Haven, CT (WHCT-LD replacing Nexstar's WTNH)

Washington, DC (WDME-CD replacing Sinclair's WJLA)

Rockford, IL (WFBN-LD replacing Mission's WTVO)

Evansville, IN (WZDS-LD replacing Nexstar's WEHT)

 

And the big ones....
St. Louis (KNLC replacing our favorite Sinclair doormat KDNL)

Nashville (WJFB replacing Nexstar's WKRN)

Salt Lake City (KCSG replacing Nexstar's KTVX)

Seattle (KFOV and/or KVOS replacing Sinclair's KOMO)

 

If only Weigel could snag a Mobile or Pensacola station, they could strip it from WEAR, they should get bonus points for their own pre-emptions over the years and being part of the WPMI/WFGX/WJTC gaggle of stations through Deerfield.

 

WJFB operates as a television station in name only. They don't have an actual facility in the Nashville market outside of a transmission tower as everything is beamed in from Chicago, and I doubt Weigel would want to go through the trouble of starting a new news operation from scratch, let alone a new network affiliate.

[Recovering Producer 410]

5 hours ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

WJFB operates as a television station in name only. They don't have an actual facility in the Nashville market outside of a transmission tower as everything is beamed in from Chicago, and I doubt Weigel would want to go through the trouble of starting a new news operation from scratch, let alone a new network affiliate.

 

Exactly this. All of this is crazy wishcasting. Was there tension between Nexstar/Sinclair and ABC? Of course. Does each party understand the other side's motivations? I think so.

 

If it becomes a repeated thing, then there's definitely the potential for something to change. For now, this is like hearing your parents have a disagreement over something minor and assuming they're filing for divorce. Miami was a rare exception where ABC reached an impassse with a single station operator and took an unexpected path forward with an established operator/brand - who could accommodate ABC with the cost of engineering a HD .2 subchannel and a time brokerage agreement with a LP station to get a .1 for it. 

 

But, I do think if ABC/Disney decides to abandon a large ownership group, they'd rather temporarily subsidize the cost of people getting their product direct to consumer in those markets rather than starting fresh on little known stations that have no history at a time where linear TV is in rapid decline. 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Regardless of whether or not a station has a physical presence in the market since the abolition of the "main studio rule", next year could be a major crossroads for networks like ABC.

 

Do they want to sever ties with their local affiliates that could pre-empt their programming, align with another broadcaster who had little ties to a given area just it guarantee 100 percent coverage of their content, or abandon broadcast TV altogether?

 

As seen with CBS in Atlanta, they will take their ball and go home.  While NBC and ABC have no inkling to buy more stations for themselves, we could see a shift towards a more Canadian model of strong network stations more tied to their networks and more independents.

 

Once the market gets saturated with independents, the market will start correcting itself, licenses will be returned to the FCC, and if we're lucky, new stations can be created with the now-available licenses.  If anything, local news will be done by one or two independents, and the rest will be fed by a network of stations under their control.

[Weeters 2173]

Weigel is not going to build out a news operation for an ABC St. Louis affiliation for the same reason Sinclair hasn't: There's no demand for another news operation in the market. ABC isn't going to pull the affiliation over not having news, because there's nowhere for it to go. ABC knows this. That's why it hasn't already happened, end of story.

 

The market is dominated by existing news operations. None of those are places for ABC to go. Nexstar is being openly hostile to ABC, Gray has been semi-openly hostile towards the networks in the recent past, and Tegna has been desperately trying to not exist for years now, and will likely become an extension of Nexstar. None of these seem like good options for ABC to even start negotiations with.

 

Look at Miami. They had to settle on a .2 of what is ostensibly an "independently-owned" station with an existing news department. You have to assume they went to Scripps during these negotiations, as they own both WPXM and WSFL in the market. Scripps probably said "no" to the idea of building out another news operation in Miami, because they've done it before, and it's failed every time.

 

At best, ABC would end up as KSDK 5.2 in St. Louis. Weigel does not seem interested in owning network affiliates as their entire business at this point is diginets. This is why the rumors frequently swirl about CBS buying up WDJT. It just makes more sense than what is currently happening.

 

KDNL is probably what most "network affiliates" will look like at some point, anyways. It's no secret that Nexstar and Sinclair are dreaming of a world where they control 100% of the airtime on their stations. As the networks increasingly become commercials for streaming services, I can see a future where the "Big 4" simply bounce around low-powers and diginet trees with a deal that they get to program 2 minutes of ad time an hour. The big owners won't want them, because they don't want to air an all-day long commercial for Disney+/Paramount+/Peacock.

 

CBS in Atlanta, ABC in Miami, and the Kimmel thing, are all symptoms of the early stages of the death of the current affiliate model. Not to mention, business analysts are starting to suggest that ABC (and probably the others) get out of traditional broadcast altogether.

[mre29 1967]

2 hours ago, Weeters said:

CBS in Atlanta, ABC in Miami, and the Kimmel thing, are all symptoms of the early stages of the death of the current affiliate model. Not to mention, business analysts are starting to suggest that ABC (and probably the others) get out of traditional broadcast altogether.

 

All I can say is that I will be extremely annoyed if (Not)MyNetworkTV outlives any of the Big Four broadcast networks.

 

[channel2 1042]

I can't remember the last time any media company listened to these analysts. They've called for Disney to spin off ESPN so many times, and that's never happened. They were calling for Time Warner to spin off HBO in 2015, and that never happened.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

At this rate, the CW is going to be the last broadcast network standing because Nexstar owns it, they're taking back affiliations to put on their stations, and when they start losing the other major networks, they have a better station of theirs to put it on.

 

[nomadcowatbk 188]

Koplar didn't want ABC since they had Cardinals and Blues games

[NowBergen 924]

24 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

At this rate, the CW is going to be the last broadcast network standing because Nexstar owns it, they're taking back affiliations to put on their stations, and when they start losing the other major networks, they have a better station of theirs to put it on.

 

But will anyone watch?  It's not compelling TV.

[TVLurker 389]

6 minutes ago, NowBergen said:

But will anyone watch?  It's not compelling TV.

If only NXST stock were cheap. 

 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

47 minutes ago, NowBergen said:

But will anyone watch?  It's not compelling TV.

Nah, it's just Perry Sook achieving his goal as a media mogul as the last standing broadcaster, when he's bought up all of the stations after the others have been returned to the FCC...

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Really, the only things keeping broadcast tv going at this point is news (the morning shows), live sports, "live" reality shows (like DWTS, AGT, etc...) and the ability to broadcast breaking news.  Anything else is cheap filler (like daytime game shows rebooted in primetime) or better off on streaming.

 

The way things are going, if the FCC is going to be weaponized like the rest of the US Government, people will be running towards streaming if the FCC starts really cracking down and controlling stations to the point of dictating their output.  Then when this regime is over (if ever...), the next FCC can pick up the pieces and put the stations in the hands of community members who can better serve our communities.  Nexstar may be serving 90+ percent of the country by then, but at least some of the airspace could be back in the hands of local broadcasters using broadcast to better serve their communities...we can only hope...

[nathannah 2792]

This entire situation is reminding me of what ABS-CBN went through when their license was pulled under obvious political pressure...and somehow the company seems to be working just fine with several time buys and adjusting their cable channels to that new reality, so there is a template for a move from broadcast to cable/streaming in the world, and as I said when they began to ramp up their stake in Hulu, a rebrand of that to ABC is not out of the question at all (or as a Disney+ sub-brand). Freeform is back on Spectrum too so they can easily shift that channel and finally talk CBN out of giving up their time for a good financial price.

 

But there's also the affiliates that are happy with the network and found the entire Kimmel thing stupid because they don't run entire news arms devoted to being lower-tier Fox News Channel clones and as long as they don't have someone drop a C-bomb on purpose or expose anything on-air, they're just fine, grumpy old viewers be damned. Those are the stations I worry about more if that happens. That, and I'm not ready to give up on dramas and sitcoms that still exist.

[panewswatcher69 29]

Why is Jimmy Kimmel airing a repeat tonight, Thursday, November 6th, 2025?  He was scheduled to have David Duchovny, Joe Keery, and Madison Beer.  I've not been able to find out anything online.

[24994J 5888]

15 minutes ago, panewswatcher69 said:

Why is Jimmy Kimmel airing a repeat tonight, Thursday, November 6th, 2025?  He was scheduled to have David Duchovny, Joe Keery, and Madison Beer.  I've not been able to find out anything online.

 

No reason given, but it was a late scratch.
https://latenighter.com/news/jimmy-kimmel-live-cancels-thursday-night-episode-without-explanation/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

[NowBergen 924]

Sounds more like a personal issue unrelated to the attempted censorship by Sinclair and Nexstar.

[AKA 70]

5 hours ago, NowBergen said:

Sounds more like a personal issue unrelated to the attempted censorship by Sinclair and Nexstar.

Exactly. I hope his son with the heart defect is okay.