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Everything posted by Rusty Muck
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Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
Nexstar may have been willing to sacrifice their existing CW affiliations in Phoenix and Tucson if it meant signing with WMYD (and re-signing with WSFL?). Scripps controlled each and every aspect of these talks. -
This indeed is the case, WKBD will simulcast CBS News Detroit at 7am starting Labor Day. I could see more simulcasts in the weeks to come as the fall season gets underway.
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Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
Not to be pedantic, but 11pm (after SportsCentral) or 7pm (before the news block) could be considered “prime time”. -
Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
Or reair the 8pm hour at 10pm. -
ABC changing their logo; New graphics coming for ABC owned stations
Rusty Muck replied to Briella's topic in Graphics
They have a dynamic open with the date, time and temp inserted in? Can't say I've seen that before! -
Standard General to acquire Tegna for $8.6 Billion
Rusty Muck replied to dman748's topic in General TV
The KGBT-KVEO swap and sale happened as a settlement from Tribune’s breach of contract lawsuit against Sinclair after their failed merger, Nexstar was the beneficiary.- 433 replies
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- Tegna
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Standard General to acquire Tegna for $8.6 Billion
Rusty Muck replied to dman748's topic in General TV
There’s a very good chance that Tegna stands pat. Standard General was the only party really driving a sale (yes, Byron tried to crash the party but the odds were stacked up against him). The L taken by Standard General is such that they may have to sell off their measly four stations to Tegna.- 433 replies
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I’ll believe THAT when I see it. The story is largely sourced from a staffer present at a meeting in which the McKimmons didn’t even say a word. This feels like spin to hide a massive bloodletting at KUSI and merger at the KSWB building. Nexstar’s purely a bottom line company and there’s no reason for them to maintain two distinct news departments like this. At the same time, they can’t have everyone at KUSI quit in protest over the actual plans.
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KSWB is already a U so the “Discount” sham is equally applied to KUSI, so Nexstar is not really affected cap-wise here. It IS very possible that Nexstar paid the McKinnons $35 million to take out a competitor to KSWB.
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As @Samanthapointed out to me, this outright eliminates KSWB's main competitor, there are no newscasts on KUSI that don't overlap with KSWB. Because of that, the chances KUSI maintains any sort of separate operations is very, very small; in the case of Indianapolis, WTTV and WXIN have to have separate news ops because of the nature of their affiliations. Of note, KFMB-DT2's contract with the CW (reupped in 2021) runs through September 2026. So either Nexstar said what they said under the impression Tegna is planning to opt-out of their CW contracts, or they are forcing the issue for Tegna. Otherwise I cannot understand why Nexstar just turned KFMB-DT2 into a lame-duck CW affiliate for three years.
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Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
CBS and Gray (WPCH) will no doubt be bidding aggressively for all of those teams. Plus there’s nothing stopping CBS from moving an indie WUPA to a .2 (and buy WTBS-LD to put it on a ceremonial 6.1) if they do choose to take the network affiliation in-house. The possibilities of in-market realignments are endless tbh. If Gray winds up securing one or two teams, then they become a sports heavyweight and may want to make WANF (for lack of a better description) the WHDH for the South. CBS gets an O&O and possibly a sports-leaning indie that’ll be having Paramount’s content library opened up. This could be really fun to watch unfold. -
Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
CBS would want something in return for selling a station in a top 10 market. The only thing Cox can offer is KIRO (which at least pairs up with KSTW). -
Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
CBS getting WSB in an asset swap would be the most insane thing ever and I can totally see it happening. -
Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
They’d probably be penalized tax-wise for selling them and in the case of KSTW, there’s no one to sell it to. Ditto with WUPA. -
Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall
Rusty Muck replied to AKA's topic in General TV
This is also a situation that is highly in flux. Long term, I just can’t exactly see Paramount operating stand-alone indies in markets like Tampa and Seattle. It IS possible that Paramount conducts an asset swap or two to better align things… say, giving WTOG and WBXI-LD to Tegna, Tegna gives CBS KHOU/KTBU and gives WFAA and KVUE to Cox, while Cox gives CBS KIRO-TV… or some level of horse trading to that effect. Simply selling them feels like a non-starter because taxes, plus Atlanta and Seattle are not easy to find a buyer for. Even if they run out this fall, for the short term, plugging in movies in primetime and reruns of Paramount Network and Paramount+ shows seems like a good enough concept. Supplement it with sports play-by-play, the CBS News Now hybrid and local renditions of KMAX’s Good Day. This can include Atlanta, even if CBS takes the affiliation in-house at channel 69. Nothing stopping them from buying a WTBS-LD and moving the new indie format to 6.1 and 69.2 -
Sinclair Broadcast Group - General Discussion
Rusty Muck replied to Smitha A's topic in Corporate Chat
TND merely exists as a cheap ploy to get additional political ad revenue with ham-fisted political overtones to boot. Of course WXLV would drop the KABB-done "local" news to carry it. WNWO will run it as a cheap way to get advertising from both Michigan and Ohio. (It's also why KDNL doesn't even carry it, because Illinois and Missouri are nowhere close to being political swing states.) But why stop with TND? They could outsource everything to NewsNet and not have to pay anyone. As @Weeterspointed out in the Discord, it'd be a 1:1 replacement anyway. -
Standard General to acquire Tegna for $8.6 Billion
Rusty Muck replied to dman748's topic in General TV
Certainly WLNE and KLKN could benefit from being in a larger chain with more resources at their disposal. Ditto if Apollo were to also sell WFXT to Tegna (which might be a good deal for both parties tbh).- 433 replies
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Who said that would be permanent? Plus the “WCCO News” branding is still fairly prevalent at the opening and most reporter lock-outs. WBZ does the same and I’d be surprised if WJZ didn’t do the same as well.
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Standard General to acquire Tegna for $8.6 Billion
Rusty Muck replied to dman748's topic in General TV
She presided over the full-on erasure of Young Broadcasting, LIN and MediaGeneral as Soo’s hatchet person. She played a role in the depletion of many independent, unique voices in the “M&A rolling thunder”. They may not go bankrupt but Soo may just have no choice but to unload those four stations and the licenses for WQHT—WBLS to Tegna when they sue his sorry butt for breach of contract. Remember that Sinclair had to cough up several stations to Nexstar (vis-a-vis Tribune) after Tribune sued Sinclair when their merger imploded.- 433 replies
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It's possible that whatever plans existed for WBBM got heavily revised or altered as soon as Jennifer Lyons came in? Plus supply chain issues are still a thing...
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WBBM-TV also does not have anything close to a reputation or heritage that WGN-TV or WLS-TV have… or even WMAQ-TV, certainly not since Bill Applegate left in 1993. They’ve had the negative connotations of being a laggard or bottom-dweller. It’d be insane to think of WLS-TV becoming “ABC News Chicago” and stripping themselves of the circle 7, but WBBM-TV literally has nothing to lose. And it speaks volumes about how much of a project this actually is for CBS, we’re not talking about just mere brand architecture, but systemic changes in multiple news operations (or in the case of Detroit, literally building up from nothing).
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The anchors are opening all newscasts with, “thanks for watching WCCO (or WCCO News), streaming on CBS News Minnesota”. The opens and most graphics show “WCCO News” fairly prominently. In fact, the only thing that has definitively disappeared is the “4”. The intriguing part is that, aside from the color scheme, KYW still rebranded themselves in line with the majority of the O&Os. The “3” is only there as a visual and marketing tool; all on-air references to “CBS 3” or “channel 3”, especially from a verbal standpoint, are gone anyway. And this came about with as many as 40–50 KYW staffers helping with this rebrand! If channel numbers mattered to them (and they work there, so they’d know), wouldn’t there be more to the “3” we’re seeing right now? KYW managed to pull off a rare feat. They adopted virtually all of the new CBS O&O branding conventions and yet are now looking like more of a “Philly station” than they have ever been, certainly since the CBS takeover.
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They kept their old, dated look for far too long solely because of their longtime GM Jay Newman, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he refused to work with Dunn and Friend on much of anything. As soon as Newman retired, they got a new set and everything.
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Okay this is actually really cool, custom M&Ms made for KYW that also include "Philly Proud". Whoever is in their promotions department is a genius.
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And here you go