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Myron Falwell

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Everything posted by Myron Falwell

  1. I’d pay more attention to WSB, now under the control of a disinterested private equity firm and with little incentive to have the station progress from being perpetually stuck in 1993.
  2. That runs entirely contrary to the core point of the restructuring, to merge CBS News into the O&Os. Plus WCBS-TV and CBS News have been tied at the hip since the days of Jim Freaking Jensen. The easiest explanation here is that WCBS management utterly and royally botched the rebrand. There is no excuse to keep any references to CBS 2 if the station outside of newscasts rebranded to “CBS New York” anyway. For the network flagship, this is just downright embarrassing. Wouldn’t be surprised if CBS gave KDKA the option to change the color palette to see if it could even be possible (and potentially incentivizing the graphics package as customizable to affiliates). And that’s pretty much it. In a few months, “KDKA-TV News” will be retired in favor of “CBS News Pittsburgh” (which is what it already is referred to in a visual sense).
  3. “From CBS News New York, this is CBS 2 News at 9” … god I felt sorry for Brian Lee having to read that sludge. And they didn’t rebrand away from “CBS 2 News” but the station is now “CBS New York”!?! How does THAT happen?? If I’m Wendy McMahon, I’m getting all the execs at WCBS-TV together and telling them, “You’re the flagship of the network. ACT like you’re the flagship!!” That file likely didn’t get cleared out of the master control automation in time. Not an uncommon occurrence after a rebrand.
  4. He’s basically begging Tegna and Apollo not to sue his sorry butt for breach of contract.
  5. As if the bland-o WCBS graphics and Enforcer were any better. The uniqueness of KCNC withered away when CBS stripped out the last of the NBC look back in 2003…
  6. Even when the Sinclair—Tribune deal died, Jessell called for further deregulation anyway. He’s a clown.
  7. Harry should know that there is no magic wand now that is going to be waved to save this deal. Let him debase himself with his “I never met a merger I didn’t like” stance.
  8. Byron bought his former employer (BNC) after they collapsed and used the distribution contracts (even on Pluto) for TheGrio.tv. So of course this comes off as payback and sheer pettiness on Roland’s part.
  9. So Soo arranged for multiple kickbacks with Roland, giving him multiple cross-platform crossovers with his own properties, and we’re just finding out about this? Did Roland hope he could become another Armstrong Williams?
  10. KDKA radio carries a format where the hosts are likely to say outrageous things. It wouldn’t have mattered if KDKA radio and TV were under the same umbrella, but they are not, and it’s a brand sharing with underlying liabilities. So of course KDKA-TV is going to remove the call letter branding and go by “CBS Pittsburgh”. It’s the path of least resistance. All this could have been avoided, by the way, if CBS ordered Entercom to change KDKA’s calls when it was sold. Sinclair made KOMO radio do just that when it was sold to Lotus, so nothing is sacred.
  11. It’s a brand that is shared with a now-unrelated AM station that created a PR nightmare for channel 2 when Wendy Bell was flapping her gums. “KDKA” became a liability then and it will when one of the other talkers on the AM station says something incredibly stupid and inflammatory. KPIX didn’t have a radio station sharing the callsign. That’s really why they kept the KPIX name for now. (WJZ will assuredly be doing the same as WJZ-FM doesn’t use the calls in their branding, but just have the equally boring black box logo.)
  12. It’d be hilarious if Apollo sued Soo. (Try to say that three times fast!)
  13. KXTA is getting a rebrand? That’ll be interesting. Also the comment about “the star (in KTVT’s logo) is certainly the closest that we have to a logo across the group” by CBS’s VP for brand strategy and development… and it’s being RETIRED… that should really tell you something.
  14. Tegna has every right now to terminate the deal and sue him for breach of contract because the FCC issued this HDO. The buyout agreement actually contains that provision. h/t @Samantha So basically, Soo has next to no leverage against Tegna despite his huffing and puffing and crying and whining. They hold all of the relevant cards now.
  15. Rosenworcel didn’t explicitly say it in the order, but the retransmission fees mention does come off as addressing objections from the telecoms, in which they interpreted Apollo and SG as jointly benefitting from higher cable bills. All an ALJ needs to do is see the evidence and come to the conclusion this was an attempt to collude and game the system. I’m taken aback by Soo bullying the FCC to vote on the deal. He’s given the D commissioners every reason in the book now to vote “no”, so it’ll fail in at least a 2–2 tie. Is he hoping for it to fail so he can litigate and cry that the system is prejudiced against him? Or is he consumed by delusions of grandeur? Or both??
  16. Incredibly, Soo is yelling at the FCC to vote on the deal anyway instead of sending this to an ALJ. Because that’s exactly what you should do, said no one ever. Bullying the FCC chairperson to vote for your deal when she tacitly rejected it in the ALJ order might be THE ultimate galaxy brain move.
  17. Poker After Dark reruns from 2008 should be available on the DFS Program Exchange
  18. Looks like Greg Norman thought “Fool Us” was the CW’s slogan and not a show that actually airs on the CW.
  19. Here's the thing. This deal would have failed anyway with or without Gigi: a 2-2 deadlock still sinks the deal. Standard General and Apollo had one full year to get this right. Either party could have offered to divest market conflicts in Atlanta, Seattle and Jacksonville. Apollo could have asked the deal be amended so they don't get WFAA, KHOU, etc. Standard could have offered Graham an olive branch and their pick of a station or offered them a stake in the company. Soo could have shown the bare minimum of humility and self-awareness instead of saying the same boilerplate talking points over and over again. This is a textbook case of how NOT to conduct an M&A. Soo came off as a belligerent novice in the field of business that for some inexplicable reason previously managed to merge Young, LIN and MediaGeneral out of existence.
  20. If this story is any indication, it would have failed in a 2-2 deadlock with both R commissioners voting for it, so Rosenworcel spared all parties the humiliation in advance.
  21. I for one can’t wait to read how this all came down in Soo’s forthcoming memoir…
  22. Tegna stock fell by 25% in after hours trading after the FCC dropped this on them. Even if the board wanted to continue, the investors are bailing.
  23. @Samanthaand I were considering the likelihood that Tegna terminates the deal and sues Standard General (and possibly Apollo?) for breach of contract. Which is what Tribune did to Sinclair after terminating that deal. If they go that route, it might not be for a few weeks.
  24. The FCC is asking for an ALJ to weigh in on the deal. Lance Venta has the details. It’s utterly dead now despite all of Soo’s huffing and puffing.
  25. Because, as @Weetersexplained, the “KCAL” box is the only box meant to be a brand that could kinda-sorta last in the long term. So that streaming bug accommodates both brands and will do so OTA very soon. The “CBS 11” box is blatantly temporary and once it’s dumped, they’ll adjust the proportions. THE. CBS. 11. BOX. IS. GOING. AWAY. VERY. SOON. CHANNEL. NUMBERS. ARE. BEING. PHASED. OUT.
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