solidscooter 3 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 I'll break it down for you. I compare MG to Sinclair for a good reason. MG like to do thing on the cheap Like Sinclair did up to about a couple years ago. The chopper that WCMH has that you are talking about was bought during when NBC owned them. It still have There "NBC O&O era logo" on it. Overall, if you are expecting MG to dump any money into KRON.... Don't! It is not what Media General do at all. To be honest that is more "Spend"clair's M.O. At the moment. They are more willing to spend the money to do what it can to get what they want. I know that's true in Birmingham! WVTM was on the verge of shutting down quite a few months back.... according to an employee. Obivously they literally wouldn't have shut down but WVUA beat out WVTM recently in several timeslots (I know one was a weekend) so I'm sure it's not too far fetched from the truth. Maybe the Young majority stake will make them update their god-awful 7 year old graphics and music... that goes for all the stations. lemmelemme upgrade-ya grade-ya p.s. WVUA is about to debut a 14 million dollar broadcast facility this fall. Get ready for a Tuscaloosa show down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrtraveler01 737 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 I know that's true in Birmingham! WVTM was on the verge of shutting down quite a few months back.... according to an employee. Obivously they literally wouldn't have shut down but WVUA beat out WVTM recently in several timeslots (I know one was a weekend) so I'm sure it's not too far fetched from the truth. Maybe the Young majority stake will make them update their god-awful 7 year old graphics and music... that goes for all the stations. lemmelemme upgrade-ya grade-ya p.s. WVUA is about to debut a 14 million dollar broadcast facility this fall. Get ready for a Tuscaloosa show down. Here is what the legacy Young stations look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ioBf2Jnhg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidscooter 3 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 Here is what the legacy Young stations look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_ioBf2Jnhg Yeah, I've seen them. WKRN's graphics I think look better than what current MG stations have, the fonts just need to be changed a bit (L3s and cornerboxes) After having the graphics for so long, the smaller market MG stations have really made them look ratchet, everybody needs a makeover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrtraveler01 737 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 Yeah, I've seen them. WKRN's graphics I think look better than what current MG stations have, the fonts just need to be changed a bit (L3s and cornerboxes) After having the graphics for so long, the smaller market MG stations have really made them look ratchet, everybody needs a makeover. The thing is, that prior to 2011, the graphics on the Young stations looked so cheap and terrible, even by MG standards. But this package from GO is heading in the right direction and now their stations are starting to become more competitive again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrannical bastard 3442 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 I know that's true in Birmingham! WVTM was on the verge of shutting down quite a few months back.... according to an employee. Obivously they literally wouldn't have shut down but WVUA beat out WVTM recently in several timeslots (I know one was a weekend) so I'm sure it's not too far fetched from the truth. Maybe the Young majority stake will make them update their god-awful 7 year old graphics and music... that goes for all the stations. lemmelemme upgrade-ya grade-ya p.s. WVUA is about to debut a 14 million dollar broadcast facility this fall. Get ready for a Tuscaloosa show down. I wonder if WIAT would still be in the basement if Media General kept them and someone else bought WVTM. WIAT's ratings shot up after they were sold to New Vision and the fortunes of WVTM went to hell when Media General bought them. It started out ambitious when WVTM was Alabama's first station to do news in HD...but after the economy tanked and staff cuts and turnover...and the meteoric rise of Alabama football (it is said that the games aired on WIAT by way of CBS through their SEC package are the highest rated in the nation) have done wonders to WIAT and its product and WVTM lost viewers and employees in droves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lugnuts6 89 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 WLNS has the same GO graphics , I do have a question tho..W/ the young-MG merger does this mean the end of what I call the midwest hub (WBAY Green Bay's MC is hubbed out of WLNS Lansing) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenShine9 1509 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 I know that's true in Birmingham! WVTM was on the verge of shutting down quite a few months back.... according to an employee. Obivously they literally wouldn't have shut down but WVUA beat out WVTM recently in several timeslots (I know one was a weekend) so I'm sure it's not too far fetched from the truth. Maybe the Young majority stake will make them update their god-awful 7 year old graphics and music... that goes for all the stations. lemmelemme upgrade-ya grade-ya p.s. WVUA is about to debut a 14 million dollar broadcast facility this fall. Get ready for a Tuscaloosa show down. Why is WVTM so low rated when they had a more desirable channel placement (in the pre-DTV era) than WBMA+ and WIAT? Did NBC run them into the ground when an O&O? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrannical bastard 3442 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 Perhaps they should start over at WVTM with a whole new staff, call letters and branding....oh wait....they did that with long-suffering WBMG and it still failed in the ratings....for as long as they owned them and traded "up" to WVTM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha 2876 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 Why is WVTM so low rated when they had a more desirable channel placement (in the pre-DTV era) than WBMA+ and WIAT? Did NBC run them into the ground when an O&O? In Birmingham pre-switch, there were really two players in television news, WBRC and WVTM. WBMG had a horrible signal and production values and often lacked newscasts for long stretches of time (particularly in the 1980s). WCFT had higher-rated newscasts but was technically in another DMA, and I'm sure it showed up in the B'ham books at times. The first real upset to the status quo was the formation of WBMA+, which was in several ways a continuation of WCFT's news operation more than WJSU's (talent, especially). WBMA grew a different sort of local news operation for the market. The next was the 1997 buyout of Park Communications by Media General. Media General and CBS knew they needed to upgrade the station's facilities and its news department to be competitive, as things got so bad that a total relaunch was necessary. 42 Daily News was doing much better in the ratings than anything else channel 42 had ever produced; during the Winter Olympics and February sweeps they had gone from a 1/3 share to a 7, and they were able to settle into a pretty nice rhythm in the fall of 1998. That's another unheralded but equally important shift: this is when the Tuscaloosa and Anniston markets were merged into B'ham and the DMA jumped from 51 to 39 as a result, plus Nielsen converted Birmingham from diary to metered. WVTM's collapse pretty much paralleled the true rise of WIAT in the mid-2000s; by now, it had adopted a more traditional format. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanewsguy 509 Posted July 17, 2013 Share Posted July 17, 2013 Also note cable penetration is higher now, so a station's OTA channel number doesn't really matter anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidscooter 3 Posted July 21, 2013 Share Posted July 21, 2013 I wonder if WIAT would still be in the basement if Media General kept them and someone else bought WVTM. WIAT's ratings shot up after they were sold to New Vision and the fortunes of WVTM went to hell when Media General bought them. It started out ambitious when WVTM was Alabama's first station to do news in HD...but after the economy tanked and staff cuts and turnover...and the meteoric rise of Alabama football (it is said that the games aired on WIAT by way of CBS through their SEC package are the highest rated in the nation) have done wonders to WIAT and its product and WVTM lost viewers and employees in droves. I feel so. I honestly do not feel WIAT has really increased its quality of news since daily news days. They run multiple wire/national packages in their A-block (or tens if you're an iNews person) and do not have the live presence to match WBRC (neither does 33/40 but I think they do a better job than WIAT.) I also think they could have kept an edge if they had continued to produce WTTO's newscasts (although I guess Sinclair was over the shared news thing)...that would gave given them an edge to WBRC. I was watching (not in HD funny enough) the day then-Mayor Larry Langford cut the ribbon on WVTM's new HD studio. It was quite lame and honestly I was very surprised they had the money to go HD that early in the game (2006). It might be safe to say that WVTM could have had a shot if the situation were switched. But you are very right. WIAT has made leaps and bounds with local programming though, that's for sure. The stuff they do before and after the Alabama games that air on CBS makes them lots 'o money. The University is actually pushing WVUA to cover more news in central Alabama (which to me is a bad decision considering they could really explode and be dominate in Tuscaloosa if they wanted) because the main signal coming from the WUOA satellite transmitter is atop Red Mountain (on WIAT's mast interestingly enough), so people in Birmingham are all of the sudden getting news specific to West Alabama. Word on the street is WVUA may start a morning show and dump its 4 o'clock show because NO ONE watches. A sidebar and rant: There is no reason in my mind that WVUA should not dominate in high quality sports programming. They have QUANTITY but not QUALITY. They need a dedicated sports set, which I believe is coming with the Digital Media center that is supposed to debut in September. Gary Harris is a great sports guy, just needs the management and staff to deliver better product. p.s. the loss of Fran Curry (for whatever reason) was a major blow to WVTM. And then replaced with Andrea Lindenburg... Who I honestly miss at WBRC along with Devin Walsh. p.p.s. WVUA's LP signal is a joke. It hasn't been upgraded to DT and the stregnth is awful. So, if you want news in West Alabama over the air, hop on the interstate with your antenna and TV, and you should be able to pick it up in West Jefferson County. Haha. Moral: You can't get WVUA over the air in Tuscaloosa unless you're within about two miles of the station. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrannical bastard 3442 Posted July 22, 2013 Share Posted July 22, 2013 I know that's true in Birmingham! WVTM was on the verge of shutting down quite a few months back.... according to an employee. Obivously they literally wouldn't have shut down but WVUA beat out WVTM recently in several timeslots (I know one was a weekend) so I'm sure it's not too far fetched from the truth. Maybe the Young majority stake will make them update their god-awful 7 year old graphics and music... that goes for all the stations. lemmelemme upgrade-ya grade-ya p.s. WVUA is about to debut a 14 million dollar broadcast facility this fall. Get ready for a Tuscaloosa show down. I hope it's not like the multi-million dollar boondoggle that UGA tried when they acquired WNEG-TV from Media General in 2008. It only took three years for the whole thing to fail before they dumped it to Georgia Public Broadcasting three later (as WUGA-TV). I think WVUA/WUOA has a better chance because of survival because of it's ties to Tuscaloosa and West Alabama, as well as the proximity to Birmingham and alumni/fanbase of Alabama. WNEG failed because it was redundant...they kept their news department alongside their well-established Grady Newsource program (which started airing on WUGA once GPB took over). The station is still part of the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville market despite being licensed to Toccoa, GA, and even after moving operations to Athens, which is part of the Atlanta market. Programming was limited, especially with rights to SEC sports being out of reach to the station. I think WVUA has a better shot at survival because it is firmly established and ever since Tuscaloosa was merged into the Birmingham market (along with the "33" in 33/40), West Alabama needs coverage of its own and Birmingham has a strong interest in what's going on in Tuscaloosa... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solidscooter 3 Posted July 26, 2013 Share Posted July 26, 2013 I hope it's not like the multi-million dollar boondoggle that UGA tried when they acquired WNEG-TV from Media General in 2008. It only took three years for the whole thing to fail before they dumped it to Georgia Public Broadcasting three later (as WUGA-TV). I think WVUA/WUOA has a better chance because of survival because of it's ties to Tuscaloosa and West Alabama, as well as the proximity to Birmingham and alumni/fanbase of Alabama. WNEG failed because it was redundant...they kept their news department alongside their well-established Grady Newsource program (which started airing on WUGA once GPB took over). The station is still part of the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville market despite being licensed to Toccoa, GA, and even after moving operations to Athens, which is part of the Atlanta market. Programming was limited, especially with rights to SEC sports being out of reach to the station. I think WVUA has a better shot at survival because it is firmly established and ever since Tuscaloosa was merged into the Birmingham market (along with the "33" in 33/40), West Alabama needs coverage of its own and Birmingham has a strong interest in what's going on in Tuscaloosa... The station has been around for a while... albeit after WJRD started to fail and the University bought it. I used to work there. The University bought it in 2006, so I guess you could say it's doing pretty well. They have live backpacks so are able to go live and the equipment is all new and HD, so I think it'll be okay. The sports programming I think is just where they could really shine and win viewers in Birmingham. IF it's good. They also have a virtually endless staff... It's the station in the country with the most interns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CircleSeven 1944 Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 .....AND TRIFECTA. The FCC has open the docket of the Media General/Young merge. So the FCC has opened the docket on the three big M&As today. The Tribune/Local TV, Gannett/Belo and the Media General/Young deals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hathawaynson2 38 Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 .....AND TRIFECTA. The FCC has open the docket of the Media General/Young merge. So the FCC has opened the docket on the three big M&As today. The Tribune/Local TV, Gannett/Belo and the Media General/Young deals. FINALLLY, FINALLY! the FCC did the right thing by putting these trifecta deals on the dockets! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenShine9 1509 Posted July 31, 2013 Share Posted July 31, 2013 If the Sinclair-Allbritton deal is approved, Media General is in three of those markets, all with a fairly weak station. Could they put a lot of resources into them and aggressively try to push them up? Although Raycom stands in the way in two of them... No matter what, with no conflicts and no apparent issues, this deal should be a formality in getting approval. Next we will watch for possible Media General side deals (KRON, anyone?). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrtraveler01 737 Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 FINALLLY, FINALLY! the FCC did the right thing by putting these trifecta deals on the dockets! Sorry for the dumb question. But what does this mean exactly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
broadcastfan9751 136 Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Sorry for the dumb question. But what does this mean exactly? It means that the FCC is opening up the deals to greater public participation and will give the deals greater scrutiny than usual. However, they rarely do this for station sales. Most of the time, a docket is only used for big wireless deals (i.e, AT&T/T-Mobile), although they did do this when Daystar attempted to buy WMFE (now WUCF) in 2011, and when Fox bought Chris Craft in 2001. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AaronQ 259 Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 How rare is it for the FCC to docket a deal between two broadcasting companies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mre29 1339 Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Sorry for the dumb question. But what does this mean exactly? Not a dumb question. I was wondering the same thing, too. It means that the FCC is opening up the deals to greater public participation and will give the deals greater scrutiny than usual. However' date=' they rarely do this for station sales. Most of the time, a docket is only used for big wireless deals (i.e, AT&T/T-Mobile), although they did do this when Daystar attempted to buy WMFE (now WUCF) in 2011, and when Fox bought Chris Craft in 2001. Since the FCC is docketing MG/Young, Tribune/Local, and Gannett/Belo, I would hope they're also going to docket Sinclair/Allbritton and any other Sinclair acquisitions that have yet to be approved. But what if they don't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanewsguy 509 Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Since the FCC is docketing MG/Young, Tribune/Local, and Gannett/Belo, I would hope they're also going to docket Sinclair/Allbritton and any other Sinclair acquisitions that have yet to be approved. But what if they don't? They probably won't. Sinclair has good lobbyists in Washington... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hathawaynson2 38 Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 Sorry for the dumb question. But what does this mean exactly? This means that pretty much of the Belo/Gannett, Local TV/Tribune/Dreamcatcher and Media Group/Young deal is going to be docketed and its not because of the ownership of the TV/Newspaper rulings. FINALLLY, FINALLY! the FCC did the right thing by putting these trifecta deals on the dockets! What I meant to say that the FCC is doing the right thing by putting these three deals on dockets and the public will have will have the say in these deals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoldenShine9 1509 Posted August 1, 2013 Share Posted August 1, 2013 So if, say, Sinclair decided to buy all the companies of mention (Belo, Young and Local TV) instead, there would be no dockets most likely? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LTSC1980 96 Posted August 3, 2013 Share Posted August 3, 2013 So if, say, Sinclair decided to buy all the companies of mention (Belo, Young and Local TV) instead, there would be no dockets most likely? It's a possibility.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thundershock MN 169 Posted August 3, 2013 Share Posted August 3, 2013 .....AND TRIFECTA. The FCC has open the docket of the Media General/Young merge. So the FCC has opened the docket on the three big M&As today. The Tribune/Local TV, Gannett/Belo and the Media General/Young deals. FINALLLY, FINALLY! the FCC did the right thing by putting these trifecta deals on the dockets! This means that pretty much of the Belo/Gannett, Local TV/Tribune/Dreamcatcher and Media Group/Young deal is going to be docketed and its not because of the ownership of the TV/Newspaper rulings. What I meant to say that the FCC is doing the right thing by putting these three deals on dockets and the public will have will have the say in these deals. Ummm...what is really all that qusetionable about these three that they need the extra microscope? Media General/Young is a merger with no real overlaps. So, what's the big deal here? Tribune/Local TV only has a couple on conflicts because of newspaper cross-ownership rules. Tribune has already stated that the newspapers will be spunoff. WNEP, WGNT & WTKR are going to Dreamcatcher in the interm until the spinoff is complete. The SSA paperwork even has the buyback clause included in it. So, again what's the big deal with this transaction? Gannett/Belo is the only one that might deserve a little more attention. First the sale of the Louisville (WHAS) & Portland (KGW) stations is due to newspaper cross-ownership rules. Not really a big deal in my mind. On to Tucson, the same deal there with the duopoly of KMSB/KTTU being sold because of newspaper ownership. I haven't heard for sure if the SSA to Raycom/KOLD will continue or not. The Raycom GM there expects it to but I haven't seen anything stating that as fact. So, the situation could technically improve with an "unwinding" of the SSA with Raycom. Otherwise, it's just status quo there as it is now with the virtual triopoly. So, if nothing is really "changing" what's the big deal? Phoenix & St. Louis is where the deal gets sticky. If Gannett was smart they should have tried to swap these with another station group. If they did that it would really be smooth sailing for them. So all in all we are docketing all of these when only three TOC's (KMOV, KTVK & KASW) really need extra review and scrutiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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