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Fox buying Charlotte's WJZY/WMYT


CircleSeven

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More phasing out of the Fox branding. The space where the Fox logo once was in the upper-right hand corner has been replaced with the WCCB call letters. Also, the spinning box that appears w/ the L3s on the left hand side (on widescreen TVs) has replaced the Fox logo with the word "NEWS". Anchors are now starting to refer to the station as "WCCB" instead of the usual "Fox Charlotte".

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So I guess it's been confirmed. As Sinclair announced its fourth quarter 2012 earnings today' date=' they have confirmed that Fox announced that they have no interest in any of the Sinclair stations. So like I said, its a sigh of relief for Capitol keeping Fox on WRAZ. But it appears that Sinclair doesn't want to stop this rapidly growing buying spree. SMH.

So I presume Fox is still keeping WUTB in Baltimore? They were going to sell that station to Sinclair as part of that aforementioned deal (and partially because Fox has long been stuck running it as a My affil, even though it is part of a de facto triopoly due to Baltimore's close proximity to the DC market).

 

That deal would have given Sinclair a true English-language triopoly in the same market, which should scare a whole lot of people.

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So I presume Fox is still keeping WUTB in Baltimore? They were going to sell that station to Sinclair as part of that aforementioned deal (and partially because Fox has long been stuck running it as a My affil, even though it is part of a de facto triopoly due to Baltimore's close proximity to the DC market).

 

That deal would have given Sinclair a true English-language triopoly in the same market, which should scare a whole lot of people.

I don't think they officially called off that transaction. Even though Fox stated they weren't interested in any of the Sinclair stations, it didn't state (at least officially) that they would call off the Baltimore transaction. So that transaction is still on. It's awaiting the greenlight from the FCC. Sinclair still have to pay Fox $25 million by April 26 for that consent of that new five-year deal.

 

The reason Fox kept WUTB was they figure if Sinclair would've done something that wasn't in Fox's liking, it would've ended up moving its affiliation to channel 24, as it was said on this TVNewsCheck article back on November 29.

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A couple of weeks ago' date=' The [i']Charlotte Observer[/i] did another follow-up article that WCCB's impending loss of Fox could prove costly to channel 18 and comparing to a recent affiliation switch in San Diego four and a half years ago.

It was when Fox moved from XETV to KSWB.

 

It's also worth pointing out that even 4-5 years after the affiliation switch, XETV's news department is still around. So hopefully that can be an encoruaging note for WCCB. They can probably use some encouragement right about now.

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Let me remind everyone that not all things goes well. Remember two years ago after Fox dropped its affiliation at KTRV in Boise, channel 12 kept its newscast for some three months, then later Block Communications re-organized the station by killing off its newscasts. I know Boise is not Charlotte. But Block should've knew that once its affiliation with Fox ended and knew the ratings was going to be dropped almost a third or more, they should've shoved the newscast at the time the affiliation ended.

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It appears that Fox has brought a familiar name to run the Charlotte Duopoly.

 

TVNewsCheck states this morning that Fox have appointed longtime GM of WGHP 8, Karen Adams to become the new VP & GM of WJZY & WMYT. She worked at Channel 8 in High Point for 16 years, including being the GM at the fomer Fox O&O from 1996 to 2008.

 

Her position will go in effect once the FCC greenlights the transaction of the stations.

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And six weeks after the paperwork was filed, the FCC has greenlighted the Assignment of Licenses of WJZY & WMYT to Fox Television Stations this past Monday. That is the quickest I've seen in this magnitude. Usually we would wait 2-6 months for the commission to greenlight a deal.

 

Now if it gets consummated prior to June, then this will be the first time where the Fox owned station would own a CW station (temporarily).

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And six weeks after the paperwork was filed' date=' the FCC has greenlighted the Assignment of Licenses of WJZY & WMYT to Fox Television Stations this past Monday. That is the quickest I've seen in this magnitude. Usually we would wait 2-6 months for the commission to greenlight a deal.

 

Now if it gets consummated prior to June, then this will be the first time where the Fox owned station would own a CW station (temporarily).

Holy crap that was quick
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And six weeks after the paperwork was filed' date=' the FCC has greenlighted the Assignment of Licenses of WJZY & WMYT to Fox Television Stations this past Monday. That is the quickest I've seen in this magnitude. Usually we would wait 2-6 months for the commission to greenlight a deal.

 

Now if it gets consummated prior to June, then this will be the first time where the Fox owned station would own a CW station (temporarily).

Maybe because the acquisition included just two stations in only one market, this helped to quicken the approval process. That being said, the speediness of the approval means that once it and Capitol finalize the sale, Fox can concentrate on building the news department and figuring out where WJZY-WMYT will be housed. I'm not sure if this will affect the timeline of when the news department will officially launch, though.

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Maybe because the acquisition included just two stations in only one market, this helped to quicken the approval process. That being said, the speediness of the approval means that once it and Capitol finalize the sale, Fox can concentrate on building the news department and figuring out where WJZY-WMYT will be housed. I'm not sure if this will affect the timeline of when the news department will officially launch, though.

It's so funny that remember last May when the New Vision/LIN deal was announced, it was 6 months before the FCC greenlight that and it consummated 10 days later, and that WXVT deal took almost a year until that was greenlighted, but it had a complaint which stalled the application. Hell, the WHAM deal, which was in early December, that one was greenlighted eight weeks later and consummated two days after that. But deals of Newport's only station KMTR to Fisher and Fox's MyNetworkTV station WUTB to Sinclair is still yet to be greenlighted.

 

After the FCC approves a sale, the buyer usually have 90 days to consummate it. It would be a real shock if they consummate it before May.

 

I don't think location is going to be an issue (since they already hinted that it could be at the facilities where the soon-to-be defunct Speedvision I mean SPEED channel is). But I think they will focus highly on getting their news department settled, which I think it could take month. I don't think they'll get it done by launch. I just hope the current employees at Channel 46 & 55 (including engineers & folks who work the controls) will be in part of the move, should they move which is very likely. Maybe the Capitol higher-ups in Charlotte could move to Raleigh to tend to WRAL's business.

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It may be likely that WCCB will acquire the CW affiliation, but is it at all possible that WHKY will? I do realize that the transmitter doesn't cover the entire Charlotte market. So this may be a limiting factor.

I think it may be a race between WCCB and WAXN to get the CW affiliation, with 'CCB maybe having an advantage (I say this considering that WAXN's owner Cox Media Group does not have any CW affiliates within its portfolio, which may either create an entry strategy for The CW to affiliate with WAXN or result in the network going with WCCB). WCCB probably has that advantage considering the possibility that The CW might want to go with a news-producing station, since they don't have a lot of them to begin with. The network has eight stations that produce news programming at last count (all but two are owned by Tribune Company) - I'm not counting KWGN, WTVW or KPLR, since their news departments are joint operations through an LMA/SSA in which the CW affiliate is the junior partner, so newscasts on those stations sort of count as being outsourced programs.
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I think it may be a race between WCCB and WAXN to get the CW affiliation, with 'CCB maybe having an advantage (I say this considering that WAXN's owner Cox Media Group does not have any CW affiliates within its portfolio, which may either create an entry strategy for The CW to affiliate with WAXN or result in the network going with WCCB). WCCB probably has that advantage considering the possibility that The CW might want to go with a news-producing station, since they don't have a lot of them to begin with. The network has eight stations that produce news programming at last count (all but two are owned by Tribune Company) - I'm not counting KWGN, WTVW or KPLR, since their news departments are joint operations through an LMA/SSA in which the CW affiliate is the junior partner, so newscasts on those stations sort of count as being outsourced programs.

I wonder about any "advantage" WCCB may have. If WCCB really wants the CW, it seems to me the network can hold the station over a barrel to get what it wants.

 

If I owned the station, I would be trying to get Univision instead. Would you rather be the fifth english voice in the market, or would you rather be the only spanish voice in a rapidly growing hispanic market?

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It may be likely that WCCB will acquire the CW affiliation, but is it at all possible that WHKY will? I do realize that the transmitter doesn't cover the entire Charlotte market. So this may be a limiting factor.

Very unlikely if not impossible for the reason you just stated. They'll need to beef things up in the syndicated department, as well.
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Very unlikely if not impossible for the reason you just stated. They'll need to beef things up in the syndicated department, as well.

True and didn't notice WAXN that tmanokc pointed out... My opinion lies parallel with his.

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I wonder about any "advantage" WCCB may have. If WCCB really wants the CW, it seems to me the network can hold the station over a barrel to get what it wants.

 

If I owned the station, I would be trying to get Univision instead. Would you rather be the fifth english voice in the market, or would you rather be the only spanish voice in a rapidly growing hispanic market?

It could be a good idea, since the nearest Univision station is WUVC in Raleigh. I'm not familiar with the Charlotte market, though. To someone who is more familiar, do you think the market could support a Spanish station?
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Huh, their promo graphics are still based on the 2008-09 iteration of the "So Fox" look...when are they gonna change that?

I'd assume that it would be really soon.

 

If they do become the CW affiliate, they might just be waiting until May or June to start using the network's standardized promo graphics. Until then, just tack the "WCCB" logo onto what they have...

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And six weeks after the paperwork was filed' date=' the FCC has greenlighted the Assignment of Licenses of WJZY & WMYT to Fox Television Stations this past Monday. That is the quickest I've seen in this magnitude. Usually we would wait 2-6 months for the commission to greenlight a deal.

 

Now if it gets consummated prior to June, then this will be the first time where the Fox owned station would own a CW station (temporarily).

Well, remember that Fox owned both WGHP and WBRC for one full year each as ABC affiliates, as the contracts for the two former Taft/Citicaster stations didn't run out until 1996.

 

Then there was that time when ABC had to operate WTVG/Toledo as a NBC affiliate for one year (1994-1995) after buying that station as a panic move when WXYZ was being courted by CBS to become Detroit's CBS affiliate. And don't forget that NBC was forced to run WTVJ/Miami as a CBS affiliate for 18 months (1987-1989) after buying that station, because Ed Ansin wanted the revenue from NBC's Olympics coverage on his soon-to-be-former NBC affil WSVN, and thus refused to end WSVN's contract.

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Now hold on, WGHP switched to Fox on September 3, 1995, while WBRC switched as well on September 1, 1996.

My bad. But Fox did take over operations of both stations from Citicasters via an LMA at the same time - on September 1, 1995 - buying them in January 1996. Fox bought them instead of New World due to then-existing ownership caps that put New World over the limit, which were ultimately lifted and resulted in Fox's purchase of New World; in addition to WVTM also being owned by New World, that station would be sold to NBC.

 

It was only WBRC that had to be run as an ABC station by Fox for one full year (I'm including the LMA by Fox from Citicasters). That in turn gave Allbritton and ABC enough time to set up the "ABC 33/40" rimshot trimulcast.

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