JackityJack

The number of overlapping viewers would be incredibly small. He’s not the only person from an adjacent TV market to make the switch to Charlotte, or for that matter, to that station recently. As for a Charlotte station trying to pick up a new anchor—here’s that’s up with that. Any ‘spots to fill’ are largely female anchor slots, at this point, if you take a look at open positions. All the stations are relatively stable on anchors. Plus, I would imagine all the stations now have a ton of research on their main talent behind them.

WGHP was an ABC affiliate for decades before it became a Fox O&O (and then shifted hands a few times before it became a Nexstar station) and its identity is synonymous with their channel number. Also, VHF stations are considered more ‘legacy’/been around longer and so having them go by channel number is par for the course. The old UHF stations, in most cases, and with their news operations, have been around a shorter time, and don’t have the long-time legacy branding that others do—and it’s still often seen as ‘the higher the channel number, the more amateur the operation’ in many respects, and also didn’t have as much of a reach (that’s changed since digital TV came along, but the perceptions remain) This is why WGCL in Atlanta has had an identity crisis. This is why stations in Fort Myers, Florida (a majority of which are UHF) don’t go by their broadcast channel number, and instead their Comcast channel allotment (look it up). This is why Roanoke’s Fox station goes by their call letters. This is by a number of Fox O&Os, for a long time, went by ‘Fox Chicago’ or ‘Fox Philadelphia’. WNCN has had its own identity shifts in the last few years, even before their affiliation switch. Some have had ratings success (Fox59 in Indy is a good example), but this isn’t the case everywhere.

Jeez, the speculation on this is still rampant, and there's a LOT of wrong info here. -foxcharlotte.com was never a Bakahel thing. foxcharlotte.tv was, however, a Bahakel thing when they were a Fox station. -if you're going to say the 'Fox Charlotte' branding is going to 'ignore the other counties in the market'...okay, so you do realize that two other stations in the market have the 'Charlotte' name in their slogans, and three other stations total, don't emphasize their channel numbers and right? WBTV goes just by their call letters. WCNC goes by 'WCNC Charlotte' and was previously 'NBC Charlotte'. WCCB, itself, has de-emphasized their Channel 18 position for nearly two decades, going by 'Fox Charlotte' before, now, going by 'WCCB Charlotte'. Complain as much as you want, but the stations obviously had reasons for doing it--be it financial, or facing the reality of trying to put on the best face to go after the competition that had been well-established in the market for decades. -WJZY had the whole "myFox Carolinas" thing and it didn't work out all that well. The station itself still slogans as "Fox46 Charlotte"...so taking out the '46' helps with any additional confusion because of cable--where, let's be honest, last time I checked, on Charter Spectrum cable, WSOC was on Channel 4, and WJZY was on Channel 8 (I understand there are a variety of reasons for the cable channel positioning, but this goes to prove my point in the long run on why Charlotte stations have had a habit of dropping their branding or, in the case of WCNC and WMYT, having a previous (for the case of WCNC) or current (in the case of WMYT) history of going by their cable channel allotment. -WCCB 'becoming an O&O'...if the station didn't sell after Cy Bahakel died or in the first go when Fox was wanting a station, I doubt they'll do it when approached again. Additionally, Bahakel likely isn't going to sell their prized possession unless it's the full TV station group, and they're full of a bunch of stations that Fox doesn't want because they're in smaller markets.

Talent departures--Nick Kosir just got hired at Fox Weather. Matt Grant got a job in Texas with a station that's known for their investigative reporting. Both left for good jobs. You can look at their social media in two seconds and figure that out. You can also see that they've hired a ton of people, though, lately. Word on the street from a Charlotte media person who I showed this thread to--there's too much speculation on here and a lot of it not actually accurate. They said the chances of a sale are zilch, and that many of the 'talent departures' are actually not as scandalous as portrayed on this thread (i.e. no drama). They couldn't address the set delay (they don't actually work there, but within the industry and are aware of the rumor mill), but they did say it's common knowledge that a lot of investment is going into the station, and it's more than Fox put into it.