lkwdcj562 0 Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 This is speculation: Has anyone heard if ABC is getting rid of the following stations: KFSN-TV FRESNO WJRT-TV FLINT WTVG-TV TOLEDO There reason I bring this up recently NBC, CBS and FOX have sold their mid market stations and ABC is the only one that has not sold theirs. Is this on the horizon? Who are the potential owners? What type of impact in these markets and the individual stations. thanks lkwdcj562 formerly hawgrndsguy (PS I had to get an new name because I dumped the cookies and I couldn't remember my password) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eyewitness_news 5 Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 AFAIK the only company that has sold its station that's not mid-market was Tribune. WLVI in Boston (DMA 7) was sold to Sunbeam to form a duopoly with WHDH. To whom ABC/Disney would sell its mid-market stations is really hard to tell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KKyuubi 0 Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 WJRT-TV FLINT WTVG-TV TOLEDO No, they would NOT sell those 2. Why? In order to merge with Capital Cities Communications in the 80's, ABC Corperation had to sell WXYZ due to FCC rules, and as you know, they ended up selling to E.W. Scripps, which pretty much maintained them, even bringing back O&O music standardization (they had used the Cool Hand Luke themes) by switching to Eyewitness News in 2001. But, ABC was in a new pickle - I'll let Wikipedia explain ABC bought stations in Flint and Toledo because both markets reach into the suburban Detroit area. At the time WXYZ-TV, the current ABC affiliate owned by Scripps Howard, was being pursued by CBS which just lost WJBK Channel 2 in Detroit (a former Storer station that was by then owned by New World Communications) to FOX. CBS wanted to affiliate with another VHF station. ABC had to flip their Tampa and Phoenix affiliations from VHF stations (WTSP and KTVK, respectively) to Scripps-owned UHF stations (WFTS and KNXV) in order to keep ABC on WXYZ. If ABC couldn't do this they wanted to buy strong VHF stations in Toledo and Flint to cover the affluent suburban areas of Detroit just in case the Scripps affiliation deal fell through. In the end, the ABC-Scripps deal became official, and ABC's Detroit affiliation remained on WXYZ. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artie fufkin 0 Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 No, they would NOT sell those 2. Why? In order to merge with Capital Cities Communications in the 80's, ABC Corperation had to sell WXYZ due to FCC rules, and as you know, they ended up selling to E.W. Scripps, which pretty much maintained them, even bringing back O&O music standardization (they had used the Cool Hand Luke themes) by switching to Eyewitness News in 2001. But, ABC was in a new pickle - I'll let Wikipedia explain ABC bought stations in Flint and Toledo because both markets reach into the suburban Detroit area. At the time WXYZ-TV, the current ABC affiliate owned by Scripps Howard, was being pursued by CBS which just lost WJBK Channel 2 in Detroit (a former Storer station that was by then owned by New World Communications) to FOX. CBS wanted to affiliate with another VHF station. ABC had to flip their Tampa and Phoenix affiliations from VHF stations (WTSP and KTVK, respectively) to Scripps-owned UHF stations (WFTS and KNXV) in order to keep ABC on WXYZ. If ABC couldn't do this they wanted to buy strong VHF stations in Toledo and Flint to cover the affluent suburban areas of Detroit just in case the Scripps affiliation deal fell through. In the end, the ABC-Scripps deal became official, and ABC's Detroit affiliation remained on WXYZ. If you're going to rely upon Wikipedia as your basis for why ABC is not going to sell Flint and Toledo, then you don't know the business. Yes ABC bought Flint and Toledo because they were concerned at the time about coverage, but why would that preclude ABC from selling them today? The reason why they're not selling them is because they make good money. It has nothing to do with Detroit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Former Member 207 Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 And why would ABC sell those stations anyway? Of the all of the networks, they own the least amount of stations, while CBS, NBC, and Tribune are getting many of theirs, left and right. Yeah, things can change, as any business model would. For the foreseeable future, I don't see ABC buying any television stations anytime soon, unless there is an offer they couldn't refuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrannical bastard 3471 Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 I don't believe FOX has any plans to sell any of it's O&Os yet, although it could possibly happen at its smaller market stations like Birmingham, Greensboro, and Memphis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnuts6 89 Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 ABC/Disney wouldnt sell either Flint and Toledo, ESPECIALLY TOLEDO! lets face it, they got two good stations, AFAIC WTVG is better than their previous home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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